Agreed. If shots are in that range the little HAM'R has done everything I need it to on deer and bears, and done it really well. The last time the 308 even came out was last fall when I was after a black bear I knew I might have to make a long shot on. Finally ended up taking a 470 yard shot, after thinking about it quite awhile. Longest shot I've ever decided to take on big game. It worked out, but not something I normally do, or even want to do, really.

We have a 5 black bear limit here, so pretty good opportunities. It's that time of the year when the bears are up on the berries, and the HAM'R is ready to go...just need the rain to let up and maybe get a few more HAM'R pics.

It took a few days, but I made it through all 138 Pages. My 18" ,1 in 15 Twist,300 HAM'R Barrel and Rifle length Extension Tube is scheduled for delivery tomorrow. I will have to wait until at least Thursday to put it together. I have to go after a couple pallets of Clay Birds after work tomorrow. 4-H and FFA Trap/Skeet/and Sporting Clays go through a lot of Birds.

I have my Redding Die Set, and Lee Taper Crimp die on hand. I have lots of good bullets on hand thanks to the wife's Howa 1500 Mini in 7.62x39. Her Howa likes Shooters World Blackout, and Speer 130 HP-V Bullets, and I have a fair amount on hand. I will try SW Blackout powder first. I have 100 pieces of Starline 300 HAM'R Brass on hand, and 200 more inbound for delivery Friday.
The rifle will be pretty straight forward. MagPull MOE (A1) length Stock, 18" Barrel, Carbine Gas, 15" M-Loc Rail. I will probably start out with a 20X Super Sniper for a Scope to get a handle on accuracy. The rifle will probably end up with a Weaver 2.5-10X 30mm Classic Extreme Scope. No Night Vision, I do not hunt Hog's at night. Possible deer rifle, mostly a Range and General Carry Rifle. I am a fairly serious Handgun Hunter, and the Nosler M48 in 6.5CM most likely will be in the stand during deer season.

I am extremely pleased with how civil this site is. I am very pleased with how everyone gets along. I am looking forward to spending time on this site.

Bob R

Welcome to the sight. You will find there is a very good group of people here that don't show their [censored] like some on AR15.com

Who's putting carbine gas on a 18" ??? Will be a LOT of gas for this caliber.

FWIW, the SW Blackout might work really well for you. I'm getting higher velocity with less pressure signs with SWBO as opposed to CFE BLK, or anything else, in a couple of bullets.. Could be I have one of the slower lots of CFE, and a faster lot of SWBO, but either way, the SWBO works really well in for me with Speer 150s and 125TNTs.. Hopefully you find the same.

Curious how much more velocity are you getting and is it about the same volume of powder in the case? Thanks

Just checked my notes. Only about 20 fps , maybe a bit more, with the 150 Speer. About 90 fps with the 125 TNT. Charges were the same or very similar at the top end for both powders with very similar pressure signs.

All that said, I'm loading @ 2.325 so I have a little more room for powder than loading at ~ 2.26 I don't know if this holds at lower volumes/charges but it seemed to in my load workups. I'm probably pushing past 57k as well, but brass lasts a long time. No cratered primers, loose primer pockets or any unusual expansion, etc. I figure the AR platform, and brass (LC) I'm using, were both designed around 60k+ psi, so probably have a little margin of safety.

I got my M17S rebarreled from 7.62x40 to .300 HAM'R. While we weren't able to simply bore the chamber deeper, the extra powder and about half an inch of extra barrel now allows the gun to cycle with or without the can in place (with the 7.62x40 and a 17.5" barrel, it would cycle about 30% of the time without the suppressor). I haven't had time to work up new loads for it, but the brass from Starline is so cheap that all of the effort to make brass from 5.56 cases was absolutely not worth my time even if the .300 HAMR were slower. I found a tin of LVR today, and realized that the 160 grain HDY FTX over LVR from a 24" barrel is one of the very few .30-30 loads that outperforms the .300 HAMR at 100 yards. Every other .30-30 bullet's lower BC means that the .300 HAMR carries more energy at 100 yards, and LVR is basically the only powder that will push the FTX fast enough to win. Even then, the .30-30 requires 6 more inches of barrel.

This round is just a great piece of engineering: start with a list of goals and a list of constraints and then build something that fits both. There are far too many novel calibers which recreate extant rounds under different names; A true AR platform .30-30 is an achievement in the shooting sports. Well done, Bill!

Hello fellers! First post on the forum. Finished reading the whole thread and decided it was worth joining. I put together a 300 Hamr about 18 months ago and it sat until my suppressor got out of jail a few months back. I have put about 100 rounds through it and have decided it's time to do a load work up for it. Bought a good supply of the 130 HHC and some CFE BLK. I threw together a quick load while the rifle was new, 27.2 CFE BLK with the 130 HHC and was getting around 1.5" groups. Hope I can tighten that up a bit with a little work, if not, thats good enough to kill some pigs. I'll report back when I get around to the results.

Anyways, love the rifle and how it has been anchoring the pigs. Wanted to thank Mr Wilson and everyone else for the info that has been shared here.


3LT

Finally got my Trash Panda out of jail and installed on my Ruger American Ranch with the Wilson Combat .300 Ham’r conversion kit. Went with the Magpul stock and Trijicon Accupoint 3-9. Shooting Wilson factory 130 grain Hot Core ammo. Have all the components to duplicate this round when I run out of factory stuff, but I’m not sure I can make it any better. Still breaking in the barrel and tinkering with the trigger and am seeing some pretty impressive accuracy. The photo is the last three shots @ 100 with the “9” as the aiming point. Can’t wait to get this in the woods in November.

So i finally got my 2 hammers SBR AR 11.3inch/Ruger ranch 16inch and my .308 SBR 13inch out to the range today.

The Xtreme FMJs shot exceptionably well out of both rifles with better than 1inch groups @100 yards with both rifles. The TNT were decent on velocity but horrible on grouping with BOTH rifles about 1.5-2.0 inch groups. I was shooting very well but the TNT were just not doing it for me. I may be on a mission to try something else since i know both of these rifles are capable of better....

The pic is a group with the xtreme 125 FMJ with 26.5grains out of the ruger.

PS the .308 13inch SBR was just over 2400fps with 42.0grain IMR4166 and 150grain Hornady spire points (for hunting) 1inch groups.

Xtreme FMJS 125grain-
The Ruger -2550fps w/27.0grains CFE blk
The SBR -2300fps with the same load.

Speer TNT 125grain
Ruger- 2500fps w/27.0grains CFE blk
SBR-2356 with same load

So has anyone NOT had luck with the 125G TNTs? Or im i the only one? Im gonna play with the seating depths and report back what i get.

I'm one that never really had any luck with the TNT's. I've seen a lot of people saying they are great, but I have not been impressed. I have had the 130 HotCore, 125 Prohunter, and ALL of the various Lehigh bullets work well for me.

Thanks for all you do Bill! I have a quick question about H110. I built an upper with your 11.3" barrel but I am having some difficulty working up an accurate load with CFEBLK. So I'm wondering if you know what a good starting load is for a 110 bullet using H110 powder? Again, thanks for your help!

HAMR time. 125 TNT out in the dug peanuts. Big girl went 286 on the scales and her little sister 228.

You should be able to start with 19.8gr H110 and work up

Bob, welcome to our forum.

Awesome! Thank you for the info. I will try that and let you know.

Yesterday was a good day for long range shooting. The wind laid down for most of the afternoon. On a lark I took the hunting scope off my 18" AR Ham'r and put on a 15X target scope. My standard practice load uses WC cases, 150gr btsp Speer bullets, CCI 450 primers and 25.2gr of CFE BLK. The MV is just under 2,200 fps (my chrono). That is about 60 fps under the factory load of the same bullet. These are not special loads in any way. The brass is on its 5th firing.

Let's be clear. I am not a target shooter. On a good day I am a 1.5 moa shooter for 5 shots. The results say that a better shooter would be under 1 MOA with this rifle/load.

Once fully locked in at 600 yards I went to the 12" steel plates. They were hit 7 of 8 times (I muffed one shot).

All this has no practical value except to see what is possible. The 300 Ham'r is an amazing cartridge.

Interesting. You can see in the last picture how your 150 grain is becoming unstable. The holes in the target are starting to tear with one edge showing a wider tear from the bullet starting to yaw. Good shooting, though!!

Thank you for that observation Chad. The Hornady ballistic calculator suggests the bullet going transonic just past 600 yards. My barrel is a 1-15 twist
so maybe 600 yards is the limit without more velocity and/or a faster twist. Not that I am complaining.

Just to add on yesterday's shoot. I printed out Hornady drop tables for the 150gr btsp having a .388 bc and for having a .350 bc. Speer claims a bc of .417. That is pure fantasy. Working off a 300 yard zero as the bullet drop came very close to .350. This is about the same as Bill Wilson got on his lab radar. The chart was correct for temp and altitude.

just built up a 300 Ham'r and am excited to try it on some Alabama hogs. I am pleased to see ammo prices dropping rapidly on Ammoseek for the Ham'r. Prices all the way down to $0.81... has their been a recent uptick in factory ammo or oversupply?

my hamr barrel was prolly shot out 5,000 rounds ago, which explains why this hog was hit in the faaace when i tried to shoot him in the rump while he was running away.

How good are the SIG Sauer 300 HAM'R 125 grain pointed soft points for hunting?

TNTs are wicked