.300 h&h

[cptuap]

Does anyone here have experience with reduced cast loads for the 300 H&H ?
I'd like to have a plinking load, say 100 to 170 gr. bullet at somewhere like 1000 to 1200 fps. What powder would be good ? Bullseye, Unique, 2400 ? Maybe sr4759 ? Thanks Cp

[Char-Gar]

In that large case I would stay away from Bullseye and Unique. 2400, 4759 or 4227 would be as fast as I would go.

[longbow]

It seems to me that the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook has .300 H&H loads.

I'll take a look tomorrow.

Longbow

[cptuap]

Lyman shows only loads running about 1700 fps and up.

Have read of squib loads in the 375 H&H using those fast powders so wondered if thay might have an application in the .300. Cp

[BerdanIII]

I'll look at old Fouling Shots, Handloader's Digests and Lyman manuals to see if there's anything useful. You may just want to start with squib .30-'06 loads and add a half-grain or so of powder to compensate for the larger case volume of the .300.

I have to disagree with Char-Gar on powder selection; Unique, Red Dot or possibly SR4759 would work. Trail Boss could be a keeper: search for "Nine (or Ten, I forget) Grains of Trail Boss" on the Web. The author came up with a go-to sub- to slightly supersonic plinker load to 100 yards for nominal .30 calibers (no magnums, if I remember) and bullets up to 200 grains. It's like Harris' "The Load" of 13.0 of gr. Red Dot, only slower. A thought occurs: check Hodgdon's website for Trail Boss loads. They'll probably be for j-word bullets, but swapping out a cast boolit of the same weight or less won't hurt (Harris did, and he's still got all his appendages); velocity will likely go up 100 - 200 fps.

[Larry Gibson]

If you want a real "plinking load" then try the Hornady .32 swaged lead 90 gr SWC. Might have to run it through a .311 sizer. But if the .314 bullet is a slip fit in the fired case necks you won't have to size or bell them. Just deprime, reprime and use Bullseye. Thumb seat the bullet and if you want to feed from the mag seat them with about 1/8" of the shoulder out of the cases and put a light roll crimp on the case mouth. With the crimp you will have to take the crimp out to load the case again. This can be easily done with a tapered punch or the Lee case mouth die. Start at 3.2 gr and work up in .2 - .3 gr incrments until the velocity hits 1000 fps or accuracy goes south. Shouldn't take much more than 5 gr Bullseye at the most.

If that works then get the Lee TL314-90-SWC mould as it is basically the same bullet. Get a .314 and .311 (if needed) Lee sizer kit. A very light dumble lube of the LLA is all that is needed for lube and push them through the .314 sizer then the .311 sizer (again, if needed). Lots of fun with this load and great for small game also.

Larry Gibson

[BerdanIII]

I couldn't find any data for the velocities you are interested in. I guess they think if you're shooting a Mangle 'em, you want Mangle 'em velocities.

Anyway, I found the following:

From Lyman 45
Lyman 311466 (155-gr GC)
.30-'06 - 17.0 - Unique - 1941 fps (max)
.300 H&H - 18.0 - Unique - 1855 fps (max)

Lyman 311291 (173-gr GC)
.30-'06 - 16.5 - Unique - 1842 fps (max)
.300 H&H - 17.0 - Unique - 1798 fps (max)

Based on this (slender evidence, I know), I think that if you add about one grain of powder (or a little over) to the .30-'06 loads below you might get what you're looking for from the .300 H&H..

.30-'06 Gallery Loads - I forget where I found these, but they were on the Web.

Lyman 311410 (130-gr PB)
6.0 - Bullseye - 1018 fps
7.0 - Bullseye - 1164 fps
7.0 - Unique - 1117 fps
8.0 - Unique - 1225 fps

RCBS-30-150
7.0 - Bullseye - 1062 fps
7.0 - Unique - 988 fps
8.0 - Unique - 1106 fps

RCBS-30-180
8.0 - Bullseye - 1072 fps
8.0 - Unique - 1022 fps

Let us know how it works out.

By the way, I did find this for the .375 H&H -
Lyman 375449 (267 gr) - 11.0 to 12.0 - Bullseye - 1190 fps.
This load makes me twitchy.

[cptuap]

Thanks Larry and Berdan, lots of info there and a lot of experimenting for me to do. May take some time but will report back. Should be fun. Thanks again, you were able to find a good deal more than I was and I thought I had a lot of reference material. Not so good at web searching. Old dog needs to be shown some new tricks. Cp

[cptuap]

I know it's been some time ago that I inquired about these 300 H&H reduced loads but finally remembered to get back and say thanks again for the info.
Larry's plinker load with the 90gr Hornady SWC has turned out to be great fun. Found that 3.5 gr of Bullseye gives me 1" groups at 50 yards, hitting about 8" low from my standard sight setting. Thanks again Cp

[hansumtoad]

Have LONG used 15 grs of Unique for ALL the standard length mag cartridges with a magnum primer..... 257 Wby up to .375-338. Bullet weights from 85 grs to 300 gr depending upon the caliber. About the only thing that changes is the velocity. 85 gr (.257 Wby) was a little over 2100 and the 300 gr (.375-338) was in the mid 1400s.

Unique is not position sensitive although I have used the mag primer to ensure solid ignition.

10 gr for ALL standard cartridges.... same modus operandi. Works great.