The shortest .300 Win. Mag. I've ever owned was an H&R 'Ultra' that I bought back in the late 1970s. It was built on a Mark X Mauser action, and came with a 22" barrel. As far as I'm concerned, a 22" barrel leaves you with little more than a loud, obnoxious, harder-kicking .30-06. If you want a 22" or 23" barrel, you're better off with a .30-06, no question about it.

The longest barrel I've ever had on a .300 Win. Mag. was a 26" Kreiger on a custom David Miller Company 'Marksman'. I hunted with that rifle quite a bit, from B.C. to Sonora, and I have to admit, that rifle soured me on 26" barrels for all time. It was a nuisance to lug around, and it was a nuisance for a horse to carry around as well.

The rest of the .300 Win. Mag. rifles I've owned have worn 24" barrels, which I consider to be the ideal length for this cartridge. You get plenty of velocity, good balance, reasonable muzzle blast, and this length is handy enough to carry up any mountain or to shove into any saddle scabbard. You can expect right at 3100 fps. or better with 180 gr. hunting bullets and good, safe handloads, or with Federal's High-Energy factory loads.

The .300 Win. Mag. is a great cartridge, and it's blazed a bigger, deeper, wider trail in the hunting and target shooting world than any other .300 magnum in history. It's been used to taken trophy specimen's of all the world's big game species many times over, and it's won countless big-bore rifle championships, including the 1,000 yd. Wimbleton. It's the biggest-selling belted-magnum in the world, and today has eclipsed the sales of even the fine 7mm Rem. Mag. The .300 Winchester is the cartridge that put magnum thirty-caliber performance into the hands of more shooters, world-wide, than any other round. By comparison, rifle sales in .300 H&H and .300 Weatherby have been a drop in the bucket by comparison.

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