re: For those of you who have actually hunted whitetail with it… is a 300 Win Mag too much?

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like the power potential,

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Not the right reason to get one. If you don't have good experience with a rifle, get something normal and smaller. 6.5 creedmoor is a really good one. Guns that kick hard and boom loud are terrible for people who aren't very well practiced with rifles.

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Is it a bad idea?

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With the wrong bullets, yes. It's totally unnecessary, and to avoid nuclear meat waste at normal ranges you'll need to use an over-built bullet that is going to deposit most of it's energy into the background. High recoil and noise for no real advantage in deer killing ability and depending on the bullet, it can be less effective than a .223 with the right bullet.

The recoil isn't bad in a rifle that weighs enough and fits well. A muzzle brake can tone it way down for way more muzzle blast. I dont like them.

I shoot deer with a .338 win mag quite a bit. With the right bullets it doesn't destroy deer as badly as a .270 with 130gr bullets. It also doesn't crack deer in half like people think it would. Just a .338 hole in and a half inch hole out. It's a terrible choice of caliber for a dedicated deer rifle. I just use it because it's also my elk rifle and will be my alaska rifle one day. It works, but it's silly.

All that said, get a normal deer rifle. .270, .308, .30-06 or 6.5 creedmoor. All are far easier to learn to shoot well than a .300 win mag.

If I didn’t come across a fantastic deal on my 300 wm, I probably still wouldn’t have one. Now ask me if I regret using it to shoot deer on the pipeline….absofrickinglutely not.

There’s a ton of factors that go into meat loss from speed, bullet weight, bullet construction and distance. Is the 300WM too much? No such thing. Are there more manageable options to do the same job? Absolutely! Hell I have one and it’s an amazing piece of equipment…. BUT for 90% of my hunting applications, I just don’t need it. I haven’t found anything I can’t kill with my .308 (150gr Accubond) or my 280AI (155gr Terminal Ascents)

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That ol 6.5 creedmore is also good for a new hunter to teach them about shot placement and tracking deer 500 yards

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Man that’s a shiny hook!!!

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is a 300 Win Mag too much?

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Not at all. I rotate between my 3006 and my 300 depending on my stand location.

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One of these does not look like the other. That was entry at about 80yds

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The thing is that has as much if not more to do with bullet construction than it does the headstamp. I’ve seen a 300win mag send a Barnes straight through with a golf ball sized exit and a very minimal wound channel. If that same bullet expands it leaves a crater. All the cartridge is doing is pushing the bullet, it’s the bullet that determines what’s gonna happen at a given velocity.

That looks very typical of nosler accubonds. I quit shooting them through my .270 as I like to shoot a deer and get as much meat as I can. I always shoot very high and behind the should about 6 inches. Typically it is a rib pass through getting lungs or it barely clips the spine and drops them. I find this loses very little meat. There were some I shot with the accubond that is blood clotted the whole side of deer all the way through the neck and I was throwing away lots of meat. The worse part is they never passed through and I had several deer I was damn lucky to find with no blood trail.

Didn’t deer hunt much growing up, got on a stand in the marsh every now and then with my Pops old 8mm Mauser as a teen but never got one. We fished and hunted rabbits and ducks all the time instead in Lafitte.

Got into deer hunting in my 20s when I moved to IL for a few years for work. Shotgun only two weekends a year there, so mostly I bow hunted.

Shortly after moving back to La, work buddy
that had moved to Co, got me into elk hunting in the Flat Tops, so my first rifle I bought was a Browning A Bolt .300 mag with BOSS




Great gun, made some nice shots with it over 5 or 6 elk hunts.

So after I stopped elk hunting in 2013, I used it for deer hunting here but it’s more gun than needed for La whitetail for sure. Any shots not restricted to just the heart/lung area do a real number on the meat.

Got a single shot CVA .350 legend last year for the LA primitive weapons seasons, and use it sometime during the regular season now as well.

Would like to get a Springfield M1A in .308 or 6.5 and/or Marlin 45/70 in the next couple years as a new deer gun, just haven’t pulled the trigger on it yet.

As many have said... 308, 270, or 30-06 if you are hunting in the south.

I also have a 7mag. To much gun for where I hunt

Eta: I have also harvested deer with .243, buckshot, and a slug. Shot placement is main thing

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I had a 300 wm to deer hunt with, I'd use something heavy and fairly tough. A frame, oryx, mega, bear claw, tsx, etc. Basically, something with a picture of an elk or moose on the box. It's intentionally wasting the extra horsepower, and if you're only going to shoot deer it's totally pointless. With actual deer bullets, like 150gr SST's, some nasty stuff is going to happen at close range

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Yeah when I had bought it about all I could find was corelokt and that is what grenaded that buck. I have since switched to Barnes tsx and that’s what I will be taking with me to Colorado for elk and mule deer next month.