The Iconic .300 Holland & Holland Cartridge Celebrates 100 Years

In 1925, the Jazz Age was in full swing. Mount Rushmore was dedicated, and the Scopes “monkey trial” involving teaching evolution in schools was held. F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby. At the other end of the literary spectrum, Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf.

At the beginning of the year, the 10-year-old .250-3000 Savage was still the fastest commercial rifle cartridge. That would change. Winchester introduced its .270 and, across the pond, Holland & Holland introduced the Super .30 Belted Rimless, the cartridge we’ve long known as the .300 H&H Mag. It’s unclear which came first, but in quick succession they became the second and the third cartridges to break 3,000 fps.

The Super .30 was initially offered in 150-, 180- and 220-grain bullet weights at, respectively, 3,000, 2,750 and 2,300 fps. These velocities sound pedestrian today, but propellants were different back then, and the .300 H&H was fast and powerful for its time. It was a success, and shooting journals noted it.

The cartridge achieved rather sudden stardom when, in August 1935 at Camp Perry, Ohio, Ben C. Comfort won the 1,000-yard Wimbledon Cup match with a .300 H&H. His rifle was built by Griffin & Howe with a 30-inch barrel. The action was a 1917 U.S. Enfield, although it’s uncertain whether it was a military action or a commercial Remington action. Both have been reported.

Hard to Ignore

Comfort’s win didn’t open the floodgates, but serious rifle shooters took notice. And they did so again in 1937 when a .300 H&H won the international 1,000-yard match. That year, Winchester chambered its new Model 70 to .300 H&H, probably the first production rifle in .300 H&H.

The Super .30 was created by necking down the .375 H&H, retaining its long 2.850-inch case. In a time when smokeless propellant velocities were new and the cartridge world was expanding, it’s unclear exactly why Holland & Holland chose the “American” .308-inch bullet for its Super .30. One must wonder why the company didn’t go with the .312 bullet of the .303 British. This seems odd, and an obvious tip of the hat to the .30-06, which was superior to the .303 in all ways except recoil.

One note of caution: Case dimensions for the Super .30 and .300 H&H as it evolved in America, although very similar, are not identical. The original 1925 specifications held the Super .30 to 54,000 psi, while SAAMI specs for .300 H&H are 62,000 psi, in line with later fast cartridges. If an older rifle is roll-marked “Super .30,” it’s best and safest to be conservative with handloads.

The .300 H&H is often touted as the first magnum .30. This is almost but not quite true. It was the first fast .30 to achieve popularity, but in 1913, New York attorney and rifle crank Charles Newton developed a fast .30 caliber for gunsmith Fred Adolph. It was initially called the “Adolph Express” and later known as the .30 Newton, and it propelled a 180-grain bullet at 2,860 fps, much the same as the .300 H&H.

Cartridge Design

As a footnote to cartridge history, here’s what’s fascinating about the forgotten .30 Newton: An unbelted case with a .523-inch base diameter and 2.52-inch length, it’s eerily similar to today’s .300 PRC. Regardless, the .30 Newton failed, and the .300 H&H succeeded.

With a tapered shape and long neck, the .300 H&H case was ripe for improvement. Good old American wildcatters quickly got to work, increasing powder capacity and velocity by removing body taper, shortening the neck and sharpening that gentle shoulder. Using the full-length case, the best known and most successful improved version of the .300 H&H is Roy Weatherby’s .300 Wby. Mag., which was introduced in 1945.

His was not the only version. From the 1940s, my uncle, Art Popham, did most of his hunting with a .300 H&H Improved. There were several .300 H&H Improved versions, with various necks and shoulder angles—all increasing velocity by another 200 fps or so, depending on who was doing the loading. But the .300 Wby. Mag. is the only improved .300 H&H to make it into factory production.

Since about 2000 we’ve accepted what Peter Paul Mauser and Charles Newton knew a century and much more ago: The belt is unnecessary for headspacing, to contain pressure or to increase velocity. But all our various unbelted fast .30s—.300 Rem. Ultra Mag. and Rem. Short Action Ultra Mag., .300 WSM, .300 Ruger Compact Mag., .30 Nosler and .300 PRC—owe their lineage to the .300 H&H.

Sire to Many

So too does the world’s most popular cartridge to bear the magnum suffix, the .300 Win. Mag. In fact, virtually all belted magnums are based on the .300 H&H case or its parent .375 H&H.

The great .300 Win. Mag. is simply the .300 H&H case shortened, body taper removed and employing an unusually short neck to maximize powder capacity. It wasn’t initially popular. Fans of the .300 H&H, while never vast in number, were loyal and particularly miffed that their darling was so summarily displaced. They were even more miffed when the Model 70 got its post-’64 facelift and left the .300 H&H chambering behind.

The .300 Win. Mag. and .300 H&H are essentially ballistic equals, as Winchester’s engineers intended 60 years ago. But this depends on the load and who does the loading. With careful hand-loading in strong modern actions (more on this later), the. 300 H&H can exceed .300 Win. Mag. performance—but not by enough for any game animal to notice.

However, in today’s product-liability-conscious world, older cartridges are at a huge disadvantage. Factory loads and even most handloading manuals have been quietly downgraded, often holding older cartridges to lower standards.

Accuracy Head Scratcher

I’ve said several times that the .300 H&H is known for accuracy, and with its archaic tapered case, it’s hard to explain exactly why. However, as I’ve often written, cartridge design is a small part of rifle accuracy. Mated with a good barrel, rigid action, soundly bedded and assembled—and fed good ammo—any cartridge is likely to shoot.

I’m not going to pound the pulpit and suggest the .300 H&H is more accurate than any other fast .30. But there is one small secret to the .300 H&H that nobody ever talks about, though: That long, tapered, archaic, almost obsolete case feeds like a dream. In the No. 1, I simply drop it in. In a bolt action, whether a controlled-round or push-feed design, it seems to almost throw itself into the chamber. The long case is not efficient, nor is the shallow shoulder. Especially with 1925 manufacturing tolerances, it probably needs the belt to avoid sloppy headspacing, but it sure does feed smoothly.

While the .300 H&H cartridge was introduced with some fanfare, actual rifles were uncommon for several years. For one thing, Holland & Holland was—and is—primarily a “made to order” firm and at least initially maintained the Super .30 as a proprietary item.

Over here, action length was a problem. The 1917 U.S. Enfield action was long enough, likewise its civilian variant, Remington’s Model 30, but commercial Mauser actions long enough to house it were scarce. American custom makers took orders, but not in large numbers.

Lights, Cameras, Actions

The Model 70 I referenced earlier could handle it, of course. Other options included the Browning Safari on an FN Mauser action, which was gorgeous but costly.

The most affordable was Remington’s Model 721, which was chambered in .300 H&H from 1948 until it was replaced by the Model 700 in 1962. Although the long-action Model 700 will house it, initial chamberings didn’t include .300 H&H. In 1983 Remington offered its Model 700 Classic in .300 H&H. That was probably the last production bolt action so chambered.

Ruger built a small number of No. 1 single-shots in 1989 and has continued to do occasional runs. One was the African Adventure series I worked on with Ruger in 2008—250 rifles in each of five different chamberings, of which the Kudu model was in .300 H&H.

It’s the most accurate Ruger No. 1 I’ve ever owned. With fast handloads using 150- and 200-grain bullets, it’s always sub-m.o.a. and on good days has produced quarter-inch 100-yard groups.

Use in the Field

A long-action left-hand Remington Model 700 rebarreled to .300 H&H with a good Pac-Nor barrel was just as accurate and more consistent. The rebarreled Model 700 was my first .300 H&H. Its initial use came when I took my first desert bighorn in 2003. I’d be the first to say that kind of power isn’t needed for small-bodied desert rams, but I was so struck by the rifle’s accuracy that it was an easy choice. Later, I hunted with that rifle in New Zealand, also a couple times in Africa.

The Ruger No. 1 .300 H&H has also been to Africa multiple times, accounting for various antelopes large and small. Like any fast .30 with good bullets, the .300 H&H did everything I asked it to do.

The .300 H&H has been the choice of several friends as well. John Batten, hunting buddy to Jack O’Connor and my mentor in his later years, hunted widely in the 1940s and ’50s with a Holland & Holland .300 H&H. Mahlon “Butch” White, 1983 Weatherby award winner, did all his extensive mountain hunting—all over the world—with a pre-’64 Model 70 in .300 H&H, long worn silver.

A few years ago, I shared a sheep camp in Alaska’s Brooks Range with Dave Dressler. His rifle, lovingly carried up and down every mountain in a waterproof soft case, was another pre-’64 Model 70 in .300 H&H. My right-handed son-in-law recently acquired an incredible pre-’64 Model 70 built in the 1940s, complete with vintage receiver aperture sight—an awesome and classic rifle.

Handloader's Proposition

Try a .300 H&H if you get the chance. You might like it. Unfortunately, no production rifles are currently chambered for it, and fewer current actions are long enough to house it. Of the well-known ammo makers, only Nosler offers a factory load—a 180-grain AccuBond at 2,850 fps. Sure, it’s fast enough, but it’s barely out of maximum .30-06 territory and not what a cartridge with that case capacity is capable of.

Today the .300 H&H is a handloader’s cartridge. In my Ruger No. 1—one of the strongest actions, with a 26-inch barrel—I recently clocked some old loads and was shocked to see they approached 3,400 fps with 150-grain Sierras. You won’t find that recipe in current data. But with current published data, and depending on your barrel length, the .300 H&H can be worked up to 3,200 fps with 150-grain bullets; 3,000 fps with 180-grain bullets; more than 2,800 fps with 200-grain bullets; and 2,700 fps with 220-grain bullets.

Even today, competing against so many brave new unbelted magnums, these are credible velocities and speedy enough to do almost anything one needs to do with a fast .30 caliber.

Today there are many new propellants I haven’t used. Slow-burning powders like Reloder 22 and Reloder 25 are good. However, good old IMR 4831 gives me the best results. I went to Hodgdon’s Reloading Data Center (HodgdonReloading.com), plugged in the .300 H&H and was delighted to see IMR 4831 pop right up.

Happy 100th Birthday

So as it reaches the century mark, the .300 H&H is mostly historic, now uncommon and hard to find. Yet it’s still a great old cartridge that gets the job done, and some of us still value tradition and nostalgia.

In December 2024, on the eve of its centennial, I was amazed to see that three hunters brought .300 H&H rifles to our deer camp, and I took a nice buck in Oklahoma—the one in the lead photograph for this article—as well as a cull buck here in Kansas. The old .300 H&H still gets things done.

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