Anyone else building a Savage into the 300PRC?

[Steve390Gold]

As the title states, anyone else?

I just placed the order for a 28," supermatch, heavy palma, small shank barrel with threaded muzzle for my specwar762 from PacNor barrels! Lead time is about 10 weeks so no rush on the build.

The action started out life as a savage 110 LH chambered in 270 with a blind center feed mag that was timed and trued by SSS. The action will clear a cartridge of 3.750" COAL so it should work with the 300PRC's generous 3.700" COAL.

Since the stock was broken on the donor rifle ill be having CDI precision install the action/barrel into a left hand choate tactical stock with their bottom metal that accepts CIP 338 lapua mags to accomidate the long cartridges.

My goal is to have a sub 1/2 MOA ELR repeating rifle for beating the snot out of steel and if im REALLY feeling my oats, can hunt with. The rifle should tip the scales at 15lbs without suppressor and 17 with.

(Most of my hunting will still be with the 6.5 grendel out of my AR which surprisigly tips the scales at 11lbs and is stupid accruate.)

Anyone else doing something similar?

[psharon97]

Looks like an interesting cartridge. I'm hoping it becomes more affordable as far as brass prices goes than the 300 RUM, or something not as extreme as the 300 Norma Magnum. If I were in your place and wanted to shoot 30 caliber magnum, I would stick with 300WM. Please keep us up to date with the rifle and your cartridge and how it performs.

[Steve390Gold]

Thanks and will do! Right now the achilles heel is the Hornady brass which is admittedly junk. Although necking 8x68 brass up to 375 then back down to 30 cal and fireforming to the 300prc chamber may be a way around that until norma or lapua starts making brass.

I like the 300WM but dislike that nonsensical belt. I headspace everything off of the shoulder so the belt is pointless for me. The Nosler 30 was an option but im not that big of a fan of rebated rims either. (Despite owning a 50 beowulf AR...LOL)

In theory the 300prc should throw the same pills about 50 to 100 fps faster than the 300WM but that remains to be seen.

None the less it will be interesting for sure!! (Im hoping recoil is negligible and that I can get Mom and Dad to shoot it before they find out what it is......they are both magnum shy and dumped 308s and 6.5-284's for the 6.5 CM)

[Robinhood]

Right now the achilles heel is the Hornady brass which is admittedly junk.

Who is admitting this?

What does admittedly Junk mean?

It is not Lapua, Norma or Alpha, but it is not the new Winchester, Seller and Belloit or Remington either.

[Steve390Gold]

Who is admitting this?

What does admittedly Junk mean?

It is not Lapua, Norma or Alpha, but it is not the new Winchester, Seller and Belloit or Remington either.

Im admitting it. I load for 600 to 1000 yards for my 6.5 grendel and am using Hornady brass. The brass is atrocious and the Hornady Black in 6.5 grendel I'm using for a brass supply has gotten worse. Im not the only person noticing this. Firstly I've noticed that as the lot numbers increase, the consistency has decreased. That factory load used to be an honest 0.75moa in my gun. Now it struggles to maintain 1 moa at 600. Now after having burned through 22 boxes of the stuff, you'd think I'd have an ample supply of brass.

Nope. The lengths all vary (NBD as I trim them all to 1.509") the weights all wildly vary (which corresponds to capacity) as of right now I have about 120 pieces of usable brass that is within 1.5 grains of each other after complete processing. 120 usable out of 440 pieces is not what I would call even decent quality.

As a refrence the accuracy has not degraded with my reloads which still maintains 0.5 MOA even to 600. This precludes barrel wear. (I also only have 1200 rounds through the gun at this point.)

When I was using winchester brass in 7.62x39 the cull rate was slightly better. Then I ordered 100 rounds of 7.62x39 lapua brass....omg what a difference. All I had to do was trim, load to fireform, and after processing ALL of the brass was within 0.5 grains from each other.

That kinda quality spoils ya. LoL

I hope the 50 pieces of Hornady 300 PRC I just received yesterday are better but reports from others over on snipershide seems to indicate the consistency is pretty shoddy. Will know more today.

[Steve390Gold]

252.18 grains was the lightest piece and 261.98 was the heaviest piece out of 50 cases. Thats a 9.8 grain spread!

Removing the 2 outliers the next lightest is 252.88gr and the heaviest is 261.02 which is still an 8.14 grain variance.

That is pretty bad. I still have to process them which should change the weights slightly.

Looks like if I tolerate a 3 grain variance i can use 33 pieces of this brass....lol

Heres the rough spread. I didnt keep them sorted as i have a bunch of processing still to do....lol

http://www.fotothing.com/photos/852/85282d3cfddc4964f888bd8a9b533b4f.jpg?ts=1544633271

[Steve390Gold]

This is a photo of a 300prc case next to a 6.5 grendel case. Berger 130gr ar hybrid 6.5 and a 308 225gr HPBT Hornady.

http://www.fotothing.com/photos/892/892b8c56e2f1c0f3c6b97a5ea44c091d_f29.jpg

[Evlshnngns]

I like the upgrades over the 300WM. Thanks for the updates, keep them coming.

[Robinhood]

As a refrence the accuracy has not degraded with my reloads which still maintains 0.5 MOA even to 600.

What brass are you using for this level of accuracy?

Are these cases you weighed after prep?

I have never seen anything as bad as what you are showing (the discoloration does not bother me). Are you only using ammo or are you buying boxes from a dealer. My source may be different than yours however.

[want2ride]

I don't weigh my brass, I don't weigh my bullets... I only weigh my powder charge. If I get 5 loadings out of Hornady brass and my brother-in-Law (who uses the same MEC press, AMP Annealer, A&D Scale and auto trickler, but more expensive dies) 8-10 with his is Lapua and I still throw the same 1/2 inch 5 shot groups that he does. I think that the importance of one brand of brass over another is a little overblown... not unimportant, just not as important as a host of other things.

That said, I am interested in the results you get from the 300PRC. I have a 300 WSM and 300 Win Mag, so I don't really need another 30 cal Magnum... But I like to look :D

[tobnpr]

Interesting cartridge, but nothing revolutionary- as said, another .30 Magnum (of which there are many) from necking down a .375 Ruger. .300 Wby seems to be the same animal to me (with a grain more capacity), .300 H&H, .300 WM... I don't see it doing anything, the others don't.

Wouldn't be my first choice for ELR (beyond 1500) as heavies will have an advantage in the wind, but as the .300 WM has proven for many years .30 magnums can get the job done at that range and beyond.

Good luck with it. Pay attention to the reamer specs, freebore/throating for what you intend to shoot.

[Steve390Gold]

What brass are you using for this level of accuracy?

Are these cases you weighed after prep?

I have never seen anything as bad as what you are showing (the discoloration does not bother me). Are you only using ammo or are you buying boxes from a dealer. My source may be different than yours however.

Hornady brass. As I said I had to go through over 400 cases to get exactly 121 that are within my 1.2 grain window of 115.5 to 116.7 after all prep work is done. Powder charges are weighed to the 0.02gr (which can be a collosal PITA at times). All brass is trimmed to 1.507 +/- 0.002", neck tension is an honest 0.004" and they are full length sized and the shoulder is bumped back 0.003" from 1.221" after firing, down to 1.218". Case head to ogive is EXACTLY 1.691" (which is 0.020" INTO the lands.) CCI BR4 primer. Light charge of CFE223 pushing the 123s to 2525fps out of my 20" satern 5r barrel. Origional AA compound throat. Weapon is a home brew AR15, with a giesselle national match hispeed trigger, Spuhr 9.9MIL base with a Burris XTRII 5-24x on top. Heavy, but fun as hell to shoot. :)

I haven't begun neck turning brass but thats the next step.

Bullets are weighed and sorted by weight. So far I haven't seen a need to sort by base to ogive yet with ELDM 123s or the bergers, but i will be checking the bearing surface lengths of the bullets now that my second 26 cal ogive checker arrived.

Loading 50 rounds takes an honest 4 hours. But the results are worth every second of it.

The brass is sourced from Hornady Black factory ammo.

The 300PRC brass was from Midway in a 50 round pack. Really disappointed with the QC.

EDIT: After processing my last box of fired ammo i picked up 11 more cases so 132 good cases. Only lost 2 good cases to neck splitting so far.

[Steve390Gold]

Well this is something interesting I found:

http://soldiersystems.net/2018/12/12/hornady-to-supply-300-prc-ammunition-to-us-dod/

I highly doubt it "outperforms the 300NM at 2000 yards" as was stated.... More like 80% the capability for 60% of the price of a 300NM. ANDnd that 0.585" bolthead. LoL

[Orr89rocz]

First time i seen the 300 prc. I heard of the 6.5 but not this

looks to be identical to the 30 nosler except allows a longer oal 3.7 vs 3.34. Probably could have used a 30 nosler and throated it longer? I was thinking of this and putting it on a ultramag action. But i already have my 300 wsm

[Shortbox4x4]

Well this is something interesting I found:

http://soldiersystems.net/2018/12/12/hornady-to-supply-300-prc-ammunition-to-us-dod/

I highly doubt it "outperforms the 300NM at 2000 yards" as was stated.... More like 80% the capability for 60% of the price of a 300NM. ANDnd that 0.585" bolthead. LoL

Actually signed up for this forum for a different reason but seen this thread so I'll offer some information.....

In regards to out performs the .300nm.....it does out perform the .300wm at normal working pressures. The .300prc will be an easy 75fps faster then a WM. Where it out performs the Norma in my opinion is the Norma has too much case capacity and there isn't in my opinion a suitable powder to use that case capacity with out going over pressure. The PRC falls in between the two. A Norma with a 220-230gr. bullet with the powders that are out there is at max. pressure in the low to mid 2800fps. range. Yes you do see some guys claiming 3000fps. with a 220gr. bullet etc....but I will guarantee at that velocity they are pushing pretty close to 80k psi.

The .300wm with a 220gr. bullet at max working normal pressure your only in the 2700ish range velocity wise.

How do I know...we make plenty of ammunition test barrels. So I have data on the pressures of the rounds vs. velocity.

As you pointed out the Norma is also a bigger rim diameter. So you need a bigger/altered bolt face where as the PRC uses a standard mag. bolt face.

I built late last year a new F open class rifle on a Barnard action and the barrel on it is in .300 PRC. I'm running 225-230gr. bullets at 2900fps and the gun will hold 1/4moa for vertical at a 1k. I can use a different powder and get more velocity with out going over pressure if I want to but no need to push on it. My barrel is a 1-9 twist. Standard PRC chamber. It's a nice chamber design. They did there homework on it.

Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels

[Orr89rocz]

Hows it compare to the RUM?

[Shortbox4x4]

Hows it compare to the RUM?

I’ve never loaded or shot 300RUM so no personal data I can give you. According to book load data and I won’t say my load for the PRC but comparing my load and powder charge...to the RUM your loading about 13 more grains of powder and only getting about 100fps more velocity out of the RUM. So the RUM I’ll say has more muscle but in my opinion for 13 more grains of powder and only getting 100fps....you would have to decide if there is any gain. More powder means less barrel life. Is the 100fps worth it?

Also keep in mind going to a double base powder (yes you can usually get more velocity with a double base powder) but again the trade off is it’s harder on the barrel. So I stick with single base powders.

Later, Frank

[Shortbox4x4]

For some down range data....at 1k yards my bullets where hitting the target right in the 1875-1900fps range. My come ups from a 100 yard zero where 22-22.375 min. On the scope.

Comparing my actual down range performance and comparing it to a couple of ballistic calculators I’m a full 1.0 to 1.5 min. Flatter and according to the numbers the 225 Hornady will be at the speed of sound at like 1900 yards. I haven’t run all the numbers on the 230smk but both bullets shot extremely well at a 1k.

The difference in point of impact with no scope change at 1k yards was about a 1/3moa going from one bullet to the next in the same string of fire in the same conditions etc....

If I would bump my load a little I don’t see a problem making the bullets still be at the speed of sound at 2k yards.

That being said I know a Spec. Forces group tested the .300PRC on AI rifles with our barrels and shooting box ammo out to a mile with no issues and no complaints on accuracy as well.

[Shortbox4x4]

The other advantage I would see in the PRC vs. some of the wide cartridge cases like the WSM etc...is less feeding issues from magazines.

From a single shot style rifle feeding is a non issue of course.

I’ve shot enough of .338 Lapua and will tell you the ignition impulse is different as well. I’d say the Norma is smoother than the Lapua and the PRC is smoother than the Norma.

I’d say accuracy is easier to tune for in the PRC vs. the Norma and the Norma is easier to tune then the Lapua.

I spent probably at least a year maybe two....as I was very close to doing my new f class rifle in .300 Norma. The more information I gathered from making test barrels in these calibers the more and more I leaned towards the PRC and being a standard mag. Bolt face I chose the PRC.

Got another barrel ready to go on to my F Open rifle and it will be in 6.5PRC. Mostly out of curiosity to try.

A couple of guys in the shop have hunting rifles built in 6.5PRC and so far it looks pretty good. Box ammo and a 24” barrel mid to upper 2900fps. With a 140+ grain bullet. I’m looking at slinging 147 and 150gr bullets at 3000+ out of a 30”-32” barrel length and not stepping on it.

[Steve390Gold]

Actually signed up for this forum for a different reason but seen this thread so I'll offer some information.....

In regards to out performs the .300nm.....it does out perform the .300wm at normal working pressures. The .300prc will be an easy 75fps faster then a WM. Where it out performs the Norma in my opinion is the Norma has too much case capacity and there isn't in my opinion a suitable powder to use that case capacity with out going over pressure. The PRC falls in between the two. A Norma with a 220-230gr. bullet with the powders that are out there is at max. pressure in the low to mid 2800fps. range. Yes you do see some guys claiming 3000fps. with a 220gr. bullet etc....but I will guarantee at that velocity they are pushing pretty close to 80k psi.

The .300wm with a 220gr. bullet at max working normal pressure your only in the 2700ish range velocity wise.

How do I know...we make plenty of ammunition test barrels. So I have data on the pressures of the rounds vs. velocity.

As you pointed out the Norma is also a bigger rim diameter. So you need a bigger/altered bolt face where as the PRC uses a standard mag. bolt face.

I built late last year a new F open class rifle on a Barnard action and the barrel on it is in .300 PRC. I'm running 225-230gr. bullets at 2900fps and the gun will hold 1/4moa for vertical at a 1k. I can use a different powder and get more velocity with out going over pressure if I want to but no need to push on it. My barrel is a 1-9 twist. Standard PRC chamber. It's a nice chamber design. They did there homework on it.

Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels

Im having a barrel made with a 1:8" twist (5r). Am I shooting myself in the foot with that fast of a twist?