hunter Leo

I bought a new 300 win mag made by savage a couple years ago for bear hunting but never made it out bear hunting. Its seen like 20 shots in it just for practice and making sure it was still sighted in. That thing kicks like a mule and you cant shoot it more then 5 times cause your shoulder turns black & blue. All the bullets i have come across for this gun are ballistic tip also. I buy them at gun shows cause they are much cheaper then local retailers. Does it turn alot of the deer where the bullet passes threw to jelly? My friend has a 7mm mag and i have seen deer hes shot with it and i hate to waiste deer meat and that thing does to much damage to the deer. If i hit the deer in a bad spot or even a good spot will it do the same to the deer as his 7mm mag? Is this gun overkill for deer hunting?

bigbulls

Well you can't kill a deer too dead.

Having said that it is way way more gun than is needed. Heck, so is the .270 and 30-06 for that matter.

IMO a 150 grain ballistic tip type of bullet at 300 magnum velocities is a bit "explosive" on big game. I would prefer to use a bullet like the accubond which will give you a good mushroom for a wide wound chnnel through the chest but does not over expand and cause a ton of meat damage. Other good bullets for magnum velocities would be a TBBC, A-frame, Nosler partition, Barnes-X, Failsafe and still more. Of course none of these premium bullets is actually needed for deer size animals but if meat damage is of a concern to you they will damage less of it.

DM

I've used a 300 Win. mag. a lot, and i'm with Bigbulls on this one...

I got started on the 300 Win. mag., when i started hunting moose in the late 60's or early 70's, and it's a pretty good round, "IF" you don't mind the recoil, and extra gun weight. I've shot moose and deer with it, i don't remember what else at the moment.

Where we hunted moose, we got some long shots, and that's why i moved up from the 30-06 to the 300 Win. mag..

Years later it was the "in thing" to neck up the 300 Win. mag. case to .375, and and use 270 grain bullets in it for moose. A couple of my friends made them up, but i was never really impressed with them!!

My father use to get a kick out of shooting crows with it at long range, (useing 180 grain hunting loads) then go out and pick them up. He'd then put them in our old "pelt" freezer, and freeze them solid. Once frozen, he'd put them back out as "decoys" to shoot even more of them!!! Man, he got a lot of crows that way, and two different times that i remember, he shot two crows with one shot, as he'd wait untill two would line up for the shot. (on the ground) He sure got a kick out of that!!!

Drilling Man

FL/GA Hunter

If it turns your shoulder black and blue after 5 shots, you're doing things a little wrong. My .300 isn't a *****cat, by any stretch, but I can shoot a whole box on the bench before I start feeling it. It's still very new to me, so I've only used it on one deer, and I put a perfect shot on her (tucked behind the shoulder) - no meat loss at all. It did put an exit wound 2" in diameter on the backside of the ribcage, though... I think if you hit a shoulder with it, the shoulder will probably be a 50-90% loss.

ETA: that's why my .270 is my deer gun. I'm saving my .300 for a bit bigger animals...

SuperMagnum

I got a 300 win mag too myself. It doesn't kick nearly as much as a slug gun if I shoot it standing up, but when I tried shooting it on sand bags at a range, man it really hurt bad.
I ended up getting a ridge hunter rest and that took care of most of the recoil, now I can shoot it all day without any problems. The bullets won't really turn the deer into jelly as long as you hit him/her in the ribs, but if you hit the shoulder, it surely will make a big hole and may ruin quite a bit of the meat.

oldelkhunter

Depends on stock design. I now own another 300 win mag 700 classic and it is sweet. The last one I owned was a great shooting gun and recoil was never an issue neither was the one I owned in 300 wthby. I hope this one turns out as well. It is my project gun , it is actually lighter and way better handling then my 700 BDL SS in 7 rem mag. Go figure.

57hornet

A friend of mine has the same caliber, gun and problem as you.
The deer he shot had an exit wound the size of my palm, but it did not go anywhere.
I would keep the gun though. If you are like me your favorite guns are the one you want to buy and the one you just traded off.
As for a companion in the outdoors. Try a dog.

USMC PMI

Just a note on meat loss:
I butcher deer among other critters and everyone always tells me they want all the meat that I can salvage. If you hit a deer in the shoulder, that shoulder is at least 80% shot in most cases. It is not just the wound channel itself that destroys meat, but the hydrostatic energy dissipated through the animinal as the bullet passes. It is like dropping a rock in a lake, the water ripples, same for the muscle in an animinal (same effect animinals and ourselves are mostly composed of water), the first few "rings" of the ripple destroy the meat. For greatest meat yeild you need to hit the deer in the head (not the neck, there goes meat!) or directly in the vitals. Too many deer come in with poor shot placement. If hit in the vitals the 300 Win mag will destroy no more, no less meat than any other caliber, my personal observation.

bigcountry

First off, what meat damage are you referring too? If you hit the animal in the boiler room, or broadsided heart shot, there should be be very minimal meat damage. Unless you keep that brisket meat from teh chest to the ribs. I just don't get this whole meat damage thing. I shot a deer last year with a 300RUM just to see what it would do, and I got every bit of meat off that deer that I do with my 308. I don't shoot them i the hinds. Thats for sure. But I get all the meat I want off the shoulder. The rest is tough and full of grissle. If its a doe, I take the neck meat, but if its a buck, usally by the time I shoot it, its all swollen, and tastes rough.

I have asked this question I bet a dozen times on this forum, and yet to get a honest answer unless the guys are making shoulder shots or plain ole bad shots. Usually some guys say, "My butcher said alot of bloodshot meat", but where, or they never butchered an animal to know the different parts and what is edible, what is tough, or what is good for what purpose. They see that thin strip of meat covering the red all red and assume there is 10lbs of meat sitting there.

Second, a 300Win, is a great gun, good deer gun, little on the overkill side, great everything else gun. But I shoot some big guns, and none of them ever put my shoulders black and blue. That includes a 300RUM, and 338RUM. People that have this issue usually needs to work on thier posture and basic fitting of the scope and gun. Its worthwhile to pay someone to teach you basic shooting form, breathing. Only thing that turns my shoulder black is my 870 pump shooting 3" federal premium sabots. I have just been too lazy to change the hard junk recoil pad to a decent Simms. That would cure that problem.

USMC PMI

BC You are correct, hunters loose meat because of poor shot placement, not the caliber of the rifle, again this is from my experience. If someone is told by a butcher that there was a lot of "bloodshot" meat, they had poor shot placement. I grind the tough stuff upon the hunters request.