Left to right: .300 Winchester Magnum, .300 H&H, .300 Weatherby Magnum. The Winchester magnum has essentially replaced the .300 H&H, and the Weatherby round is actually one of several “improved” versions of the .300 H&H.

Short and fat may not be most popular build for supermodels, but it is definitely “in” in the world of cartridge design. We know that short, fat cartridges burn their powder columns more effectively, producing more energy per grain burned, and this burning efficiency is conducive to accuracy. So why, exactly, do I get such pleasure out of chambering one of those long, tapered, gently shouldered, downright archaic .300 H&H cartridges?

Well, I haven’t met a fast .30 caliber I didn’t like, and—thick-skinned game excluded—I have seen no hunting situations in the entire world that a fast .30 couldn’t handle. At the upper end, the fastest .30 caliber magnums such as the .300 Weatherby, Remington Ultra Mag, .30-.378 Weatherby and Lazzeroni’s Warbird are awesome—but with lots of recoil and blast, too.

At the lower end, the short magnums such as the .300 Ruger Compact Magnum, Remington Short Action Ultra Mag and Winchester Short Magnum are simply amazing in the performance they provide from such tidy cases that can be housed in short, light rifles.

I dearly love the .30-06 as well, but when I know the country is going to be a bit more open or the game a bit larger than deer, or both—or when I’m not exactly sure what to expect—then I’m likely to upgrade to a faster .30 caliber. A bit flatter trajectory simplifies shooting, and the impact of greater downrange energy cannot be denied.

With a fast .30 you’re prepared for almost anything. I mentioned some of newer, shorter, fast .30s, and I mentioned the large-cased fastest .30s. I didn’t mention the cartridges that fall right in between, the .300 Winchester Magnum and the .300 H&H—the latter a cartridge I never used at all until 2003.

I was 11 years old in 1963 when Winchester introduced the .300 Winchester Magnum. Late in that model year, it replaced the long-loved .300 H&H (one of the Model 70’s original chamberings) with the shorter, short-necked, straight-sided newcomer—making a pre-1964 .300 Winchester Magnum a real prize for collectors.

As a child of the magnum craze, I owned a .300 Winchester Magnum before I owned a .30-06, and through the 1980s and ’90s I became, and still am, a staunch fan of the .300 Weatherby. In the late ’90s, I used the big Warbird, the .300 RUM and the .300 WSM. So why in the world would I turn to one of the oldest fast .30s, a cartridge that is rare in any factory rifle, seems to be of antiquated design and appears to be right around the corner from obsolescence?

Two reasons. First, the .300 H&H was one the few .30 caliber cartridges I’d never messed with. It was a gap in my knowledge, and it’s a legendary cartridge with much nostalgic appeal.

A while back I talked Ruger into including the .300 H&H as part of a limited-run “safari” series, 250 rifles in each of five cartridges. I don’t really think this small gesture will bring the cartridge back, I had a wonderful experience with it in Africa.

Second, my buddy Geoff Miller of John Rigby & Co. is a lifelong .300 H&H fanatic. He insisted I try the .300 H&H, and if I did, he assured me I’d be surprised by the accuracy and the performance. We put a match-grade Pac-Nor 26-inch barrel on a Remington M700 action and cut a tight chamber. I’m not sure what other tricks were performed, but with that barrel the rifle and the cartridge walked and talked.

With the 26-inch barrel and Geoff’s handloads—ones you won’t find in any manual—he proved to me that the .300 H&H’s antique case design could produce 3,400 fps with a 150-grain bullet, more than 3,200 with a 180-grain bullet and almost 3,000 fps with a 200-grain bullet.

That shocked me. In theory you can do a bit better with a .300 Winchester Magnum because, despite its short case, its short neck and straight case give it useable powder capacity of 79.5 grains of water to the .300 H&H’s 72.2 grains. In theory, too, the .300 Winchester Magnum’s shorter, fatter case gives it more efficiency.

In reality, not all .300 Winchester Magnum chambers will beat those velocities. Not all .300 H&H chambers will produce them, either. Current loading data, as reflected in the accompanying chart, is fairly mild, probably reflecting the fact that this is an older cartridge—with almost no new rifles—and of course reflecting the steady downgrading of published data because of product liability.

The .300 Weatherby Magnum is actually just one of several “improved” or blown-out versions of the .300 H&H, but with the taper removed and the full-length case retained, it has a lot more case capacity, nearly 85 grains. It should be faster, and it is—but it starts to edge toward overbore capacity, so there are diminishing returns. To get to maximum velocity you have to burn a lot more powder, which means more heat, recoil and blast.

The .300 H&H, here in a Ruger No. 1, may be on the way out, but it’s an accurate and powerful cartridge capable of taking down nearly any game animal.

Realistically, to get the best accuracy I had to back off just a bit. I’ve been using Superior Ammunition’s loads, and they’re pretty darned fast and accurate. Again, in my 26-inch barrel (and it’s a tight barrel), I get a bit over 2,900 fps with a 200-grain bullet, about 3,100 fps with a 180-grain bullet and an honest 3,350 fps with a 150-grain bullet. That’s faster than any of the short magnums, on par with the .300 Winchester Magnum and not too far behind the .300 Weatherby Magnum.

Velocity, of course, is just one aspect of performance. With the great modern bullets we have, good bullet performance is pretty much a given at the velocities we’re talking about, but neither velocity nor energy are useful if you don’t have the accuracy to go with them. The next thing I learned about the .300 H&H is that accuracy, though never a given with any cartridge in any rifle, is often spectacular.

This is not a new lesson. The great British firm of Holland & Holland introduced the .300 H&H in 1925, originally calling it Holland’s Super .30. It’s based on a very simple necking down of the same firm’s .375 H&H Magnum, retaining the 2.850-inch case, with considerable body taper, sloping shoulder and long neck.

The original loads were mild by today’s standards, but they were a lot faster than the two most popular .30 caliber cartridges of the day: the American .30-06 and the .303 British. It did okay for Holland & Holland and was almost immediately loaded by the old Western Cartridge Company.

There are a few .300 H&H factory loads, and most are premium loads like Winchester Supreme. You can also go the semi-custom route. Superior Ammunition offers several superb .300 H&H loads.

Then, in 1935, Ben Comfort used a .300 H&H to win the Wimbledon Cup 1,000-yard match. This was the boost the cartridge needed, and it got another one two years later when it was among the initial offerings in the brand-new Winchester Model 70, “the rifleman’s rifle.” For the next 26 years, the .300 H&H was the world standard long-range magnum, known for performance and accuracy.

This was all before my time. The .300 Winchester Magnum uses a very short neck to maximize case capacity. It was long rumored that its “less than one caliber” (i.e., less than .308-inch) neck was a design flaw, giving the case a poor grip on the bullet that would inhibit accuracy. In theory this is true, but we have all seen too many spectacularly accurate .300 Winchester Magnum rifles to fully accept the theory.

Similarly, the short, fat cases of the new short magnums do promote accuracy, and if this is true, the long, tapered case of the .300 H&H is anathema to accuracy. Here’s the deal: Case design is a contributing element to accuracy, but it’s not as important as a good barrel properly mated to a true action, a precisely cut chamber and consistent ammunition.