What is THE Ultimate 30cal Cartridge for ELR/Reloading?

[asd9055]

Not afraid, it's just a quaint little vestigial remnant, like 3 on the tree speed column shifters and carburetors. Nice to play around with, but sadly just not modern enough for real work anymore

In more seriousness though, IMO it's unnecessary and limits using the round as a parent case, so it's kind of a dead end on the family tree. Doesn't make the 300 WM or 7RM bad at all, but why try to wildcat off them when you have better options to work off of? Belted cases shoot fine, and the belt does what it was meant to do great, there just hasn't been a need for what it does since shoulder angles exceed the IIRC 23* of the H&H. You can't stuff a 300 WM into a chamber far enough to lose it like you could a 300H&H in an old double rifle. In Africa with something that would eat you was running at you. Very solid reason to ensure positive headspace control with the belt!

Peterson got on board with their "long" brass. Great option to keep 300 WMs running, and a reason to keep making them in you like them, even more flexibility to something that works already:

.300 Win Mag

Shooters that reload .300 Win Mag casings have often wished they could get more reloads from their casings. Well now you can!

www.petersoncartridge.com

I started with 30-06, so when I added 300 RUM the 300 WM and 308 Win became essentially useless to me in that I could cover anything they can do with the other two so why spend the money on more chambers there. If someone has 308/300WM I wouldn't expect them to add a 30-06 to cover a capability gap, because there isn't one there. They're all just tools in the box.

If I am going to build a wildcat is one thing.
But I buy a rifle for the rifle and cartridge combination. If I need to rebarrel, I stick with what is best for that setup.
Newer is NOT always better, unless you buy into the Hornady hype whose objective is to sell more and more products.
I do miss the 3 or four on the tree, get your sweetie closer and still have a manual
But then again I like the classics, I prefer a Winchester CRF or Ruger over any Remington. I wished I had a Holland&Holland side by side. And I have a bunch of WBY rifles.
More work to build on the first two. Anyone can build on the Remington these days. You just buy pieces off the shelf.
The good thing is, there are enough options for every taste. I am tired of people talking down something they do not bother to understand, not you, but so many others.

 

[QuietTexan]

No worries man, I agree 100%. The belt isn't bad at all, it does get an undeserved bad rap from people who don't understand what it does and doesn't do.

 

[Stgraves260]

Can we be more specific on what we mean by the ultimate 30 cal cartridge for ELR/reloading? Like how far, recoil, weight, barrel life, velocity, efficiency, purpose and etc.? Is it only the existing cartridges or we can make wildcats if money is not a concern for the sake of this discussion? One mile and below 2 miles the 30 cal (.308) is a very popular caliber for said distance and based on my own parameters and definition of an ultimate 30 cal cartridge for ELR/reloading my vote will be for 300 Norma. Two miles and beyond I'll go with 416 Barrett or 375 Cheytac.

Yeah I'm with you On that. The sky is the limit now days. You can pretty much neck anything up or down. There are some gunsmiths out there That can pretty much build anything you want. Maybe I can find one that can turn my 22LR into a 50 cal. LoL. If you want the fastest 30 cal then you will shorten you barre life. If you want long barrel life than you will loose speed. It will never end. If building a hunting rifle, i stay more focused on energy than caliber. I want the rifle to lay down enough energy that is needed for what I am hunting.

 

[asd9055]

Deleted

 

[Stgraves260]

While i agree I need to know what defines elr for that to be true. Is ELR only over one mile? If so then yeah this checks out (also 30 cals in general, while capable, won't be competitive at such distance beside the 338s and especially 375s). If it's appreciably under one mile the .300 Winnie is competitive. Though certainly not "ultimate" (and I love mine! 225 eld m at a comfortable 2800 fps does okay)

Yes. ELR, midrange, and if you want to just throw plain old long range in the mix, it is difficult to answer what caliber is needed for ELR. I've shot my 7 Rem Mag a few times at a 18"x30" Target That was around 2300 yards. I hit it 7 out of 10 times. Ive hit that same target with my 260Rem the same day at the same distance as well. 20 rounds and 16 hits. I don't know if that's considered good competitively. Oh well, at least I'm not gonna go hungry. LoL!!

 

[TAZMAN]

Pretty soon there will be a 260+grain 30 caliber bullet that we will need to figure out. Seem like the industry is trending that way? 265-275 grain 30 caliber Berger in a Kirby Allen magnum I think would be about the end all for the 30 caliber.

LOL....my wife was looking over my shoulder when I was typing and said...."don't even thing about it"!!

 

[TheFishBox]

This isn't about long barrel life or your 7 rem. It's about the ULTIMATE 30 cal. I haven't posted much useful stuff because I don't have an ultimate 30 caliber cartridge.

If I was going to do one though it would be a 300 hcm/lro basically a 300 long lapua improved, or Kirby Allen's 300 raptor with a long 31+inch barrel (longer is needed for best powder burn from what I have gathered, which is why I haven't built one) based on any lapua sized action and then let her eat your favorite slow burning powder.

 

[Montucky Roamer]

Take a look at the impact velocity and energy at 4000yds.

This is about shooting animals, not ringing a gong or paper. Just because you can hit it doesn't ensure a quick, clean kill reliably and repeatedly.

Is it? I know this is "long range hunting" but the original post says nothing about hunting?

 

[Montucky Roamer]

300 WM is what you are looking for!!

For 1200 plus yards and "ultimate?"

 

[Montucky Roamer]

If you could get any powder, primer, brass, bullet, dies, etc. etc. etc....... including action, barrels..... blah blah blah.
Who cares about factory cartridges or easy to find. This is about ELR/Reloading.

What is The Ultimate 30cal Cartridge for ELR and reloading?

Can you give a little info on your desired purpose? Hunting? Steel? Competition? Want to carry it up mountains? Big bench,play rifle. Actual competion?

 

[Calvin45]

Pretty soon there will be a 260+grain 30 caliber bullet that we will need to figure out. Seem like the industry is trending that way? 265-275 grain 30 caliber Berger in a Kirby Allen magnum I think would be about the end all for the 30 caliber.

LOL....my wife was looking over my shoulder when I was typing and said...."don't even thing about it"!!

If I recall there's a very old thread here somewhere, Kirby actually did play with a .30-408 cheytac with 290 grain (I think) Uld-rbt bullets by wildcat bullets (don't think they're in business anymore).

That case capacity was simply too much to be useable, and the twist required combined with the velocity ripped those jackets apart before they left the barrel.

HOWEVER…there are options now that weren't then. Hbn treating things effectively makes powders that are too fast act a bit slower (you can load more in). Drive bands or hammer style pdr bands also have this effect. Monos don't rip apart from twist rates.

A gain twist might actually be worth looking into.

What about the enABLR case. Slightly less capacity than cheytac and a shorter fatter column, Peterson brass…

 

[WildRose]

In case you guys forgot ... ELR is "Extreme Long Range" and that starts at 1 mile and beyond .. 1760 yards min ......

ELR is not measured by a given cartidges capacity/capability (or the shooters) and then range is applied to that certain cartridges max and called ELR ... you can do that nonsense to any cartridge and then ELR has zero meaning ...

A lot ot the cartridges mentioned here don't apply to ELR, some can barely make it much past 1k..... the 300 NMI & 300 RUM would be bare minimum to a mile and they even start to puke not much further than that

ELR starts with the 338's , h20 case capacity 110 + gr and up .....

When was that standard established? When the ELR forum was first created I thought the agreement that anything from 1,200yds on out was "ELR"?

EDTA: I did some looking, I'd have to say I agree with Kirby on this one.

WHAT IS LONG / EXTREME RANGE?

OK GUYS, I JUST READ AN ARTICLE WHERE A SHOOT / WRITER MADE AN "EXTREME" RANGE SHOT OF 587 YARDS. NOW I UNDERSTAND THAT TO EACH PERSON LONG RANGE AND EXTREME RANGE HAVE DIFFERENT BOUNDRIES. I KNOW THAT I CONSIDER LONG RANGE TO BE OUT TO 600 YARDS, A SHOT TO BE MADE WITH A "GOOD" HUNTING...

www.longrangehunting.com

To me, and I've made a few shots at that distance and beyond, 1,200 is definitely the minimum I'd set for ELR Hunting.

Target shooting is a whole nuther subject.

 

[WildRose]

If I am going to build a wildcat is one thing.
But I buy a rifle for the rifle and cartridge combination. If I need to rebarrel, I stick with what is best for that setup.
Newer is NOT always better, unless you buy into the Hornady hype whose objective is to sell more and more products.
I do miss the 3 or four on the tree, get your sweetie closer and still have a manual
But then again I like the classics, I prefer a Winchester CRF or Ruger over any Remington. I wished I had a Holland&Holland side by side. And I have a bunch of WBY rifles.
More work to build on the first two. Anyone can build on the Remington these days. You just buy pieces off the shelf.
The good thing is, there are enough options for every taste. I am tired of people talking down something they do not bother to understand, not you, but so many others.

I've found no shortage of good smiths willing to build on my Model 70 CRF actions.

If I ever do I'll just start buying older M70's in calibers I like to shoot.

Fortunately there never seems to be a shortage of monster magnums that people built and took to the range once or twice, or made a trip to Africa with and decided they never wanted to shoot them again so while you may pay for them at a premium they are still out there.

 

[WildRose]

No worries man, I agree 100%. The belt isn't bad at all, it does get an undeserved bad rap from people who don't understand what it does and doesn't do.

Mostly that seems to come from a handful of sources, all "gun writers" that were being paid to promote the beltless magnums.

To quote an old friend who's a great gunsmith, "Why would I want to head space off of a point that's three inches into the chamber rather than doing it off of the belt"?