The thread about case life of belted vs. non-belted brass and the advantages of headspacing belted rounds on the shoulder got me to thinking....

I'm in the process of building a 300 H&H. Knowing that one of the raps on this rounds is oversize factory chambers I asked the gunsmith to cut the chamber to minimum specs.

Anyway, how feasible is to partial FL resize the 300 H&H with it's long, low-angle shoulder? Are there any tricks?

More importantly, is this something I should do... this is a hunting rifle, and while I want to maximize accuracy reliablity is far more important to me. Case life is a consideration, but a distant third to the above factors.

Since headspace to the shoulder is only part of the web life equation you may be better off than many if the diameter of the rear of your chamber is better than most.

I have made 300 HH brass from 375 HH's to start them off right. The so called partial FL sizing is what should be done anyway on all rounds!

Web case life with hot loads in the 300 HH is not very good no matter what I have tried. Of course each person's standards for whats acceptable could vary in web thinning.

Remington 375 HH brass is much thicker at the web than WW brass. This does not seem to help web case life all that much however.

With that cartridge just hunt with once fired brass and make sure your bolt is easy to close on each round.

I shoot the 300 H&H a lot, fact is it's coming with me to Africa next year as my light rifle. I've settled on one hunting load, 65gr of IMR 4350 with WW brass and CCI-250 primers. I'm sure there are hotter/better loads out there, but 2950 fps works for me along with less than half inch groups. I've reloaded my cases uo to 8 times with no significant case thinning, using a piece of wire to test for incipient head separation on the inside of the brass and I always full size . As to hunting, I make it a habit of using nothng but virgin brass for my loads. jorge

Partial sizing in the H&H is almost a necessity! The long slender H&H case really lends itself to stretching. If you're not pushing the pressure envelope too bad you can get pretty good case life out of 300 H&H brass (as Jorge noted). You can either partial size with your FL die or you can get a neck sizing die. Either one is going to help you get the most out of your brass. I've done both and I prefer partial sizing. With hot loads I generally can only get 5 firings out of my 300 H&H brass.

Several years ago I had HART barrels up in NY do me a minimum chamber specs .300 H&H in a #3 taper , 24" for a Sako. I routinely get 3000 fps with 180 NP's and fine accuracy. I use a standard REDDING FL die set and size just short of the juncture of the neck and shoulder,maybe .020" short. I have probably shot a few of the 20 rd boxes 5-7 times so far. I'm still on the same 60 rds of brass I started with. I trim very little, certainly no worse than my .280's or .375's.
IMHO the classy old .300 H&H makes more sense than the new whiz bang short case mags. Why not shoot a "classic"??

FN in MT

I've bought a Redding S type bushing neck size die in 300 Weatherby Mag so I can neck size my 300 H&H seeing as Redding choose not to make a die for it. It works! Minimal runout (<.002") and brass working. Brass is made from 375H&H too.

One happy camper.

Pete