.300 Weatherby Magnum

The .300 Weatherby Magnum is a .30 caliber rifle cartridge created by Roy Weatherby in 1944 and produced by Weatherby. It has become the most popular of all the Weatherby cartridges.

Background
Roy Weatherby already had experience with other custom cartridges such as his own .270 Weatherby Magnum when he created the .300 Wby. Like most of his other magnum cartridges, this is based on a blown-out .300 H&H Magnum case, using the signature Weatherby double-radius shoulder.

Performance
Weatherby claims that this is the most powerful .30 caliber magnum rifle commercially available, but the recently introduced .300 RUM is now more powerful. Of course there are quite a few very large .30 caliber wildcats around, not to mention Weatherby's own .30-378 Weatherby Magnum.

One must note however when comparing the .300 RUM and the .300 Weatherby Magnum the difference in factory loadings. Performance data is often listed on the side of the ammunition box for those who wish to do an in-store comparison. On average the Weatherby cartridge is listed with higher performance. This is because from the factory Weatherby loads its rounds with a greater powder charge than does Remington. This is because Remington generally sells rounds below the cartridges maximum performance envelope so that its recoil will be more forgiving to shooters. In order to take advantage of a power difference between the two one must either purchase Remington rounds on the upper end of available bullet weight, or be a handloader where one can take advantage of the greater case capacity of the non-belted Remington round.

The .300 Wby is in common use by big-game hunters all over the world.

Categories
Cartridge:rifles