Monty wrote:Out of curiosity, what inspired you to pick up the 300 Win Mag for Fallow and Roo in the first place?
That's a lot of gun obviously and I take it from your other posts your not a "fan" of big calibres as a general rule.
Just giving it a go, or...?
It was real cheap in payment for a debt and dad thought it would be handy for the odd trip up North (2003), up until that point the family rifle had been a .243 and my .303 had been fine for deer with the .22LR and Hornet for spotlighting. I now use a .223 for longer spotlighting sessions where a .22 isn't enough.
At the time I also had a mate with one egging me on a bit which didn't help so I thought I should give it a run and that was what made me see sense, it was totally unneccesary for what I was doing and I had also come to realise on the fullbore range that I was never going to hunt anything much past 300m (I have been known to take the Omark in .308 and sit and wait at distance but it is too heavy to cart around)
Live and learn, I have now come to realise that a 7/08 or .243 and a 300m max shot are more than enough for anything down here(even stags- yes in TAS we call them stags). I still take the old .303 for a run occaisonally and will do for doe this year but the most used rifle in the family(the one that they all borrow off me) is the .243 T3 lite stainless/synthetic running 100grain softpoints- a fine rifle in a great calibre.
The .300WM doesn't do anything on the range out to say 900 that you can't do with a .308 but I still take it out for a stroll occaisonally just to remind my self of what it is like.
The 7/08 is for Sambar (but the .303 was more than capable in its day) and I am working on a few more mainland trips to justify the space the .300wm is taking up in the safe, but it really can't be beat with a big woodleigh out front and this is where I see the .300WM -big pills at a decent speed.