No, all of my personal guns and the ones I've had and sold shoot at least a few loads sub 1". I've shot groups as small at .2"

Congratulation Bill!
I have had a Ranger 16" 1-13 barrel on order for about 6 weeks and I understand that the wait should be over soon. However, I want to go all in on a Ranger complete upper. Will you be building uppers when the Ranger barrels are ready to ship? In other words, how much longer would I have to wait to get a complete upper? Who could I talk too at WC about that?

I just received my left-hand .300 Ham’r rifle last week and had a chance to shoot it over the weekend. Already had some of the Wilson 130 grain Hot Core ammo. Installed a Trijicon Accupoint 3-9x40 scope in a Wilson V3 Ultralight mount. Put 20 rounds through it sighting in and letting the barrel foul. Decided to shoot a 3 shot group to end the day. I’m going to say a good rifle driver could really make this gun shine.



As an aside, this is the first Trijicon scope I’ve had, and I really like it. The small luminous dot in the center of the crosshairs is fantastic for precision work on a darker target.

Don't sell yourself short...you look like a good rifle driver. Congrats on the new boom stick!

Are the Ruger Ham'r barrels available to purchase for those that can do their own barrel changes?

Ditto on the Ruger barrels? I was wondering why I this Lee Collet die set existed, now there could be a possible use for it in a bolt gun using fire formed brass. I'm not sure that neck sizing would be any substantial gain in the accuracy department. Also isn't the Ruger American still limited to Magazine length just like the AR platform?

https://fsreloading.com/lee-precision-collet-2-die-set-300-ham-r.html
Out of stock now, but they have been and were in stock for the longest time..

What would your plan for setting the headspace be?

Lee dies are back in stock and hopefully RCBS will be soon

go/no -go gauge during and after barrel installation. On the ruger I believe the barrel nut allows pretty easy adjustment.

Spongecop, send me a PM if you want one

You know what I would find interesting? A 300 HamR lever gun. Something like a Marlin 336 with a 16" barrel, all stainless with laminate instead of wood. Even cooler if they teamed up with proof research and had a carbon fiber barrel (threaded) with carbon fiber stock. That would be one cool lever gun. Or how about a 300 HamR in a bullpup design? Make it even shorter than the AR platform allowing the 16" barrel to be suppressed and keep the over all length reasonable? That would be cool.

Apparently Hornady just ran a big production run of the 110gr V-MAX and 125gr FMJ, we got a lot of them in bulk OEM for loading ammo and I noticed today that Sports South had a bunch in stock. So if you have a local dealer that buys from SS they can get them for you.

The following also show them in stock:

Graf
Midsouth Shooters Supply
Midway (good price on V-MAX)
Powder Valley

I have a question for you 300 reloaders. I was wondering who has measured case capacity on new WC stamped brass? I seem to be getting an average of 29.37 water grains. QuickLoad is showing a default capacity of 32.2 grains. That's a lot of difference in a small case. I know what your thinking, QuickLoad is almost bad as buying your first borescope! I can agree to that a little. I have loaded for my 300 AR a fair amount when it first came out but never measured velocity or even had QuickLoad. I used all of Bill's load data which I had no doubt was accurate and safe. I kept all my loads on the mild side but am putting together a bolt gun and will be running the pressures up a bit higher than in my AR. Running the numbers with my case capacity figures is scarry to say the least. Maybe the compressed loads are the culprit for the weird data and maybe I just need to stick with Bill's data and proceed slowly. Any input would be appreciated!

[spoiler][/spoiler] a couple zeroing groups of near max (2456fps 16" barrel) 125gr Speer TNT loads [s][/s]My WC 300HAM'R #2.

Its the 1/13 ugly duckling that can't hang with WC #1 1/15 rcarbine groups with any load I've tried between 110gr-150gr. Sometimes second place aint that bad.

100yds day optic was a 1.1-6 Bushnell Elite with the 2moa golfball of death reticle

Good shooting

I would be satisfied with a 125 moving 2450ish. My barrel will be a 1/13 Criterion. Will be interesting. Nice groups! I would still like to have some accurate case volumes on the WC brass.

Thanks.
That 4 o'clock hit on the outside of the orange was what happens when you put the cart before the horse.
I was giddy it was ripping another ragged hole. I knew I janked her pretty good when the trigger broke over.

At least now I have total confidence in my day & night rigs.

The mighty DJ should be proud.
The biggest pig I've shot was killed with 125gr TNT. He sucked up 5 of them though & it put me on the hunt for a "more better" projectile.
I burnt through several hundred 150gr Speer and 135gr FTX before I came to the conclusion that none of them are really magic bullets & I can sling 2 of the TNTs for the cost of 1 FTX. I'll save the FTX for deer culls.

Have you read through the thread. Bill had some water volumes somewhere early in it and he compared Lake City, Sig and another provider's HAM'R brass volumes

I need to go back and surf through all the thread. A lot of info in there to digest!

Most of the case volume stuff is on page 38 of this thread.

Just to add a little more information to the pot, the dies you use to resize your brass can also have an effect on your case volume. I acquired a set of RCBS dies and it sets the shoulder of the case back about .002" more than the Lee resizing die. I am also assuming it sizes the whole case just a little bit more than the Lee die. On a piece of Lake City 10 brass, that equated to about .2 grains difference in case volume. Not much but it's not nothing, especially if you're working with compressed loads. Now if you're wanting to maximize case volume and you have a bolt gun you could get by with using the Lee collet neck sizing die and gain a few tenths of a grain capacity.

For ultimate reliability in feeding I'm going to use the RCBS resizing die. For my hunting loads I'll use the Lee resizing die to gain just that little bit more volume and not work the brass as hard. For forming Lake City brass either one is likely fine since you're mostly just opening the neck up and not really moving the shoulder.

Thanks ShadowFast1. Going back and looking at my brass reveals I have both WC stamped and my new brass is Starline brass I purchased several months ago. It appears the average is around the 30.0 grain capacity area. I have no idea why QuickLoad shows a default of 32.2 water grains in case capacity. That's a lot of difference when loading in such a small case. More investigating needed! lol.....

I am not sure what it takes to over work factory ham'r brass.

I have a couple hundred pieces of range brass with 5 shots near or at maximum charge. I have a dozen or so lose primer pockets and a few ejector smudges but no other signs indicating failure.
Everything has been decapped then wet tumbled with stainless pins & ran through an rcbs full length sizer since I started with this caliber. I haven't even had to trim a case out of the 500 or so used cases I've reloaded.

That's a good thing Dzhitshard. I have about 400 rounds of new brass to play with. I don't currently anneal so I will be curious about brass life since my hunting loads will be pretty hot.

If your primer pockets are loosening up and your getting ejector swipes your loads are well over 60k PSI !!! I've loaded cases up to 20 times at nominal 55kish pressures and the pockets never got loose.

I shoot hogs several nights a week and I used to push max on my hunting loads, but over time I've found that I don't see any terminal performance difference between a hog shot with a max load or one shot with a moderate load pushing the bullet 50fps slower. Now I focus on a "reasonable" power load that shoots really well. An example, I really like the Hornady 135gr FTX at 2400fps and the Lehigh 110gr CC at only 2600fps, they shoot very well and kill just as effectively as when they are loaded to MAX.. Sure I give up some on trajectory, but I so rarely shoot game past 200yds that it's somewhat of a moot point.

We are on the exact same page Sir.

The handful of loose pockets and marked brass that I have came from trying to push early experiments with TNTs & 150gr #2022 just a little bit harder.

A few months ago I came to the conclusion that max loads didnt give me anything that I needed for what I do.
I'm content with my 0.4gr area off max load. The ES & SD aren't exceptional but it lays them on target well enough. They drop stationary hogs on the spot and ball up runners well enough if I do my part. I can only recall 1 animal that was hit with these that I didnt find that night or by buzzard tracking the next day.

You do good work Sir. I appreciate you making it easy for us.