A .300 Win Mag won't hurt you with a steel buttplate. There's just not much recoil to it.

And by the way, a leather covered pad usually is a hard rubber pad at its core. That hard rubber doesn't give you anything over a hard buttplate. It's illusion. And if you put leather over a soft pad like a decellerator, the leather will wrinkle and bunch up.

Your rifle will be the envy of the single shot afficionados. I have liked the Hagn single shot action since it first came out in the early '80s. Bravo!

Curl