300 Winchester Magnum Ballistics

300 Winchester Magnum History:

The popular 300 Winchester Magnum centerfire rifle cartridge is a 30 caliber, commercial, belted, bottleneck cartridge case design that is loaded commercially (factory produced ammunition) or reloaded by individual hand loaders with various combinations of primer, powder and .308″ diameter bullets.

The 300 Win Mag was developed by Winchester, and based entirely off of their own 338 Winchester Magnum cartridge by moving the shoulder area of the cartridge forward .156″, lengthening the case .120″ and necking it down to accept .308″ diameter bullets.

They introduced their new 300 Winchester Magnum cartridge to the public in 1963 chambered in their Model 70 bolt action rifle that featured a 1 in 10″ rifling twist.

Since its introduction the 300 Winchester Magnum cartridge has become quite popular with many long range rifle shooters as it has been used to win quite a few 1,000 yard matches in competition shooting.

Hunters also quickly found that it had enough power for all game animals in North America. Using 180 grain bullets, it can drop moose size animals at 400 yards.

Loaded with 165 grain bullets it has enough power at 500 yards for elk size game. And, loaded with 150 grain bullets it has enough power at 700 yards for whitetail deer with bullet energy to spare at these ranges.

Any decent rifle will need a good scope. Check out this one from Bushnell.

The 300 Winchester Magnum is definitely a long range rifle cartridge. It is one of the few that really make the case for free boring and a longer rifle action.

With heavy bullets seated deeply in the cartridge case its full potential cannot be realized by the limited case capacity of deep seated bullets in the 200 grain to 220 grain weight range. However, loaded with bullets that weigh 150 grains to 180 grains plenty of performance can be extracted from the 300 Winchester Magnum cartridge case capacity.

It has always given top performance to those who handload their own ammunition for the simple fact you can tweak loadings for top performance.

Hornady has seen fit to address this issue with their Superformance ammunition with loadings to boost performance for non-reloaders. The ballistics on these rounds are impressive, breathing more fire into an already great cartridge.

300 Win Mag Ballistic Charts:

Ammunition: Hornady 300 Win. Mag. Superformance 180 Grain.

Bullet Diameter: .308 Inch.
Bullet Weight: 180 Grains.
Bullet Ballistic Coefficient: .480.
Rifle Barrel Length: 24 Inches.
Rifle scope mounted 1.8 inches above bore center-line.
Rifle bullet trajectory set at 4 inch mid-range rise.
Rifle true zero at 297 Yards.
Maximum point blank range is 350 yards.

Ammunition: Hornady 300 Win. Mag. Superformance 165 Grain.

Bullet Diameter: .308 Inch.
Bullet Weight: 165 Grains.
Bullet Ballistic Coefficient: .447.
Rifle Barrel Length: 24 Inches.
Rifle scope mounted 1.8 inches above bore center-line.
Rifle bullet trajectory set at 3 inch mid-range rise.
Rifle true zero at 275 Yards.
Maximum point blank range is 315 yards.

Ammuntion: Hornady 300 Win. Mag. Superformace 150 Grain.

Bullet Diameter: .308 Inch.
Bullet Weight: 150 Grains.
Bullet Ballistic Coefficient: .415.
Rifle Barrel Length: 24 Inches.
Rifle scope mounted 1.8 inches above bore center-line.
Rifle bullet trajectory set at 2 inch mid-range rise.
Rifle true zero at 247 Yards.
Maximum point blank range is 290 yards.

If you’d like to see our comparison between the 300 WSM and the 300 Win Mag cartridges, click here.

You can find 300 Win Mag in stock here.