Hornady has introduced its first .300 WSM rounds, giving shooters what appear to be two more solid choices when heading afield.
If there is a cartridge that has the cards highly stacked against its widespread adoption, it’s the .300 WSM. Strange legal doings and eventual royalties due for chamber and case production made many gun and ammo makers shy away from this hot-rod midget. Yet through these troubles it’s persevered, a favorite with shooters addicted to the magnum power and abbreviated cycle rates.
There is good news for this hearty and patient facet of the gun world, as yet another brand is taking up the banner of this .30-caliber short magnum. Hornady recently announced it is now shipping two cartridge options for the .300 WSM, a 165-grain GMX Superformance cartridge and a 200-grain ELD-X Precision Hunter round. The options give shooters two solid hunting rounds, which should cover plenty of bases afield.
The GMX offering gives shooters a monometal option (copper alloy) fueled by Hornady’s “ultra-progressive” Superformance powder. The bullet is designed to deliver controlled expansion upon hitting its target and produce devastating wound channels, with the projectile routinely retaining 95 percent or more of its original weight. The .300 WSM round moves at a good clip, leaving the muzzle at 3,220 fps and losing just a little over 30 percent of this velocity at 500 meters.
The heavier round is from Hornady’s new Precision Hunter line, which attempts to replicate match performance in a field round. Aiding it to this end is the company’s ELD-X (Extremely Low Drag-Expanding) bullet, outfitted with what Hornady heralds as one of its biggest recent breakthroughs. The projectile’s Heat Shield polymer tip is engineered to resist thermal warping, thus retaining the bullet’s high ballistic coefficient over the entirety of its flight. Hornady reports the velocity of the new .300 WSM round at 2,820 fps at the muzzle and 2,106 at 500 yards out.
Presently, the GMX round is retailing at $62.53 for a box of 20 and the ELD-X for $58.11, also in a box of 20.
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