.300 Remington Ultra Magnum - 12 years later.

Remington tried a long beltless case with a rebated rim to increase powder capacity:

Introduced by Remington Arms in 1999. The .300 RUM is one of the largest commercially available .30 caliber magnums currently being produced. It is a beltless design, but feature a rebated rim case and based on a blown out and necked down 404 Jeffery case with a 30 degree shoulder. It has 20% more powder capacity than the .300 Win Mag and 13% more than the .300 Weatherby Mag.

It is listed to throw a 200 gr bullet at 3119 fps and a 220 gr bullet at 2970 fps.
SAAMI recommended Maximum Average Pressure is set at 65,000 psi (4,500 bar).

Belted cartridges are normally criticized for not controlling headspace precisely as it headspaces on the belt. But both the 300 Win Mag and the 338 Win Mag are still popular despite it, as the can be made to headspace off the shoulder. Remington must have seen the beltless design as a selling point and offering more velocity, but did Remington succeed in convincing hunters to buy it.

So the question is .... has it gained a following in the US, being a US cartridge not chambered by other manufacturers?
Or is it heading the same way as the 300 Dakota, also based on a 404 Jeffery case?
The Weatherby .30-378 Magnum was another doomed attempt at a super .300 Magnum.

Perhaps it has dawned on US hunters that they need no more than a 338 Win Mag and it has been pretty much proven.

On the short and fat case front we have:

Remington's SAUM has been discontinued, but most agree that it was actually a better design than the WSM's.
It seems the 300 WSM's have established itself as a cartridge that will stay and may be the 270 WSM as well.
After 10 years we can review the progress on Ruger's Compact Magnums.

Back to Remington:

But for now, is the .300 RUM dead or alive?
And how long will its cases be available

Warrior

I just took my 300 Extreme to the range today to shoot some old loads I took to Zimbabwe in 2000. The 180gr Swift A-Frames still shot a nice .75" group at 100yds like they did when I prepared for my safari. They chronographed at 3360fps. This was a Rem 700BDL built by David Tooley back in the 90's before the 300RUM was being offered. The brass was formed from RWS 404 Jeffery. The rifle has a McMillan stock with 700 action (sako extractor) and Hart barrel. I shot my mule deer in New Mexico with this rifle at a ranged 410yds across a canyon. I have a couple of 300RUM's now but prefer the 30-378Wby if I want to carry a fast 30 caliber. (Before anybody says anything--I deer hunt primarily with a 25-06)

I always liked the RUM cartridges. Good velocity in all three rounds. The 300 rum is so close to the 30-378 weatherby which was out first. kind of redundent. I think they are all a lot better than the rsm cartridges. Just my opinion.

But are they Big Bores?
Doesn't this belong in Medium Bores?

quote:

Originally posted by Snellstrom:
But are they Big Bores?
Doesn't this belong in Medium Bores?

I just dont see how remington thought this was a good idea. Its like commuting to work with a funny car. I just dont see a need for 30 cal going any faster then what a 300 wm can do, and that maybe a tad much.

quote:

.300 Remington Ultra Magnum - 12 years later.

I have yet to see one at the range.....I was pleasantly surprised one day as I pulled in with my .260 Remington to find two folks there and both of them were shooting a .260 Remington.....but have yet to see a single .300 RUM at the range or in the field.

Apparently it's not heavily in demand.

Well, in reality very few people really need much more in a 30 caliber than a 30-30, which is good for 150yards and that is within the range 90% of game is shot. Ok, maybe I can give you a 308 Winchester to keep the bolt guys happy and get you to an easy 250yds. Surely, one would not need more than that.

As for commuting to work, which is usually done in my Chevy Aveo....once in awhile I thrill myself and take my C5 ragtop Vette. Cuts my travel time in half.....about what my 300 RUM does compared to most other standard cartridges.

If you wonder about the continued success of the 300 RUM, check with Christensen Arms or any of the custom synthetic rifle builders. I'll bet better than 1/2 their builds are chambered in 300 RUM.

Of all the guys I know who hunt only 2 of them use the 300 UM. The number of 06 shooters I am personaly aquainted with outnumber them by far.

and there's to all the ludittes

that told us it, along with any number of other rounds, would be dead and gone in a year or two.. 5 at the most.

WAKE UP- i can buy rum and wsm rounds at walmart .. never seen an HH anything there

quote:

Originally posted by Wstrnhuntr:
Of all the guys I know who hunt only 2 of them use the 300 UM. The number of 06 shooters I am personaly aquainted with outnumber them by far.

So it should, its been around 100 + years

The RUM has it's place. I bought mine when I used to elk hunt in Colo where most of the shooting was from one side of a canyon to the other. I needed a reliable killer at 400-450 yards. The RUM cost about 600 bucks and was less than MOA right out of the box pushing 180gr X bullets at 3400fps. Note- DO NOT try to duplicate this load.
I bought it for a special purpose and it served that purpose well.

I just bought one in a sako mod 75, working up some loads for my upcoming Maral hunt in Kazakhstan where shots are long. I have a 200grain accoubond going around 2960 fps with 94.5 grains of retumbo. Out of 10 rounds it put 7 into one ragged 1" hole at 100 yards. Have not shot anything with it as yet, we shall see!

quote:

going around 2960 fps with 94.5 grains of retumbo

Also try H1000 and Reloader 22 and 25. In the right rifle, it can be made to be scary accurate.

quote:

Originally posted by Blacktailer:
The RUM has it's place. I bought mine when I used to elk hunt in Colo where most of the shooting was from one side of a canyon to the other. I needed a reliable killer at 400-450 yards. The RUM cost about 600 bucks and was less than MOA right out of the box pushing 180gr X bullets at 3400fps. Note- DO NOT try to duplicate this load.
I bought it for a special purpose and it served that purpose well.

My thoughts exactly. The reason I purchased one along with brass and dies and it sits in the safe unfired. Even though it does not fit into my current needs it does fill a niche. When you need a long range heavy hitter it is about perfect and the price is right.

I see shooters at our local range with the 300 RUM on a regular basis, the 338 not so much, but the 375 is more common than the 338 but not as popular as the 300.

Often thought about rebarreling a Win 70 to 300 RUM and using 220's for moose and bear. Should be awesome.

The RUM is fading away around here.

I sort of feel if I can't kill it with a 180grn TTSX at 3050fps out of one of my 300WMs, the RUM isn't going to help.

I have a Win M70 Gen II Clasic in the .300 RUM. It took a little work to get accuracy, but it now gets sub moa. I have a large supply of Brass for it and was able to pick up a factory take off barrel for it. I have shot it so much I have erosion over 8" up the bore from the chamber but the accuracy is still there.

Get real the 300 Rum can do it all in spades. If you reload you can take her down to a 30-06 level or open it up to 30-378(almost). I can understand if you only get out to the range every couple of years and think a 270 kicks pretty hard a 300 RUM is crazy. The 300 RUM is a GREAT round and will live on. All my rifle shoot sub MOA otherwise I sell them! The 300 RUM shoots great just go and try and find one in a 70 classic or a non-Rem 700 for a fair price. Yes, you burn more powder than you need but for that extra margin it is nice. If you don't want one no worries but I ain't selling mine unless you want to trade me for a nice pre war 300 H&H model 70 then I'll consider it.

Brad

The RUM has made it this long and its not going anywhere.
The fact of the matter it has a better case design and it outs performs the other 30 cal magnums except the 30-378, and even then its very close.You can also use Trailboss powder to turn it into a 30-30 for plinking, etc.

I know at least 4 people who shoot a .300 RUM But I don't.

I have a winchester 70 in 300 rum. Its never even had the bolt installed. Everytime I think maybe I want to shoot it--- my hand goes to the 300 H+H winchester sitting next to it. Frankly, most of the time I just use a 30-06 or 338wm.

I have one and know of 6 other people that have one.

The 3 things that will make a cartridge fade away:

1. Scarcity of cases or worse, no factory made cases anymore.

2. Factories not offering the rifle any more (discontinue production).

3. The demand dries up and so the factories cut back and eventually quit.

This process is self-feeding, it runs in a circle.

We have seen this with many cartridges, although some were engineered, some were mistakes, some were simply late entries, some were not really needed in offering anything better, some were packaged incorrectly, some were propriety, some simply did not gain a sizeable following, etc.

Some cartridges are still stumbling on, but are on death row.

Warrior

I loaded a fine long range load for an Elk hunting buddies .300 Rum. I shot the rifle for several months perfecting the load. I could get 3050 fps with accuracy with a North Fork 200 grain bullet. My buddy used it on a Premium hunt he won from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation along with the rifle. He got his Trophy at 418 yards with the rifle and load. I was impressed but not enough to start using the chambering. I can get 2950 fps with my .300 Winny and just as good accuracy with 10 grains less powder. I hunt extensively with 30 Elk hunters in Colorado each year that I am intimately aware of what they shoot, out of those vastly experienced hunters, the one .300 Rum is used. Out of the rest of the hunters in the group there are 16 .300 Winnys used. The remainder of the hunters us many other chamberings from .270's up to .458 Win. Draw your conclusions from this information. Good shooting.

Bought one; never fired a round through it until it was rebarrelled to 404 Jeffery.

I think the 300 RUM is alive. The 300 RUM was initially very popular. I think it has faded a lot with all the new WSMs, etc... taking the spotlight. The .300 magnum lineup was crowded to begin with before the RUM and now it's clogged even more so doubt it is breaking any sales record. However, Remington still seems to push it and still seems to be popular with the "buying a rifle for my trip out west crowd". I doubt there will be any lack of cases now or in the future.

Lou

quote:

Originally posted by cable68:
Bought one; never fired a round through it until it was rebarrelled to 404 Jeffery.

And that's what the RUM is really good for.....necking up!

I've only seem two and those in rifles that AD'd. One into the ground and once through a fence and into a lady's A/C unit...now that was interesting. But no, it ain't dead...not by a long shot...

What's wrong with the 300 Weatherby Magnum?

Oscar.

Last time I hunted elk in Co., between five of us we had three RUM's & two WSM's - all .30cal.

I'm still happily tipping over big game with my .300 RUM 11 years later.

After shooting a 308 Norma mag for appr 20 years I decided to step to the 300RUM shot my first 300RUM deer with it loaded with 180gr Scirroco's @3380fps yes the deer was DRT with surprisingly little meat damage.

Here are a couple of groups load is 94gr Retunbo/200gr Accubonds my chrony shows velocity 12' in front of the barrel to be 3200fps.

Works for me but I live in British Columbia where the country is wild, the game is big and the ranges are long.

100 yards



300 yards

I think the .300 RUM is likely a very good cartridge, and under certain limited circumstances, probably very useful.

The problem it seems to me is that 98% of the hunters in the U.S. never are in any circumstances that will really benefit from it over something else which has been around a long time, such as a .270, .280, .30-'06, .308 Norma Mag, .300 Winchester Mag, .300 Wby Mag, etc.

So there is little point to most U.S. hunters buying a rifle in .300 RUM, and most of them don't.

As to buying one for out west, I think that is mainly the result of too much reading and too little hunting on the part of the buyers. I've hunted elk in Oregon and Arizona for at least 3 decades, and have never needed more than an '06 or .270 to fill the freezer.

Note, I said "never needed". I've actually shot several elk with my .300 Wby, but I took it just because I could and I like the rifle it is chambered in...not because there was any need for it.

I may eventually get a .300 RUM just because I like cartridges at both the extremes, big powder charges, and little tiny powder charges.

But I'll actually do most of my "big game" hunting with an '06, .270, or, in thick bush replete with "grissle ba'ars", a .338 Win Mag or a .404 Jefferey, depending on how thick the bush and how big the bears of the area.

I don't wanna snipe any of my game except p'dogs over in the next county from where I'm standing. I wanna spot it before it sees me, figger out how to sneak up on it, do that, and shoot it at arm's length or less. That's why I call it "hunting".

It's about fun, not whether I fill some tag or not.

Not saying anyone else should feel that way, just describing what I enjoy and what works to provide that enjoyment for me. Everyone else has to decide what THEY enjoy and WHAT works for THEM.

Most hunters have done that, and so far at our rifle range just at the bottom west edge of the Cascades in Oregon, I've seen a couple of .338 RUMS, two .300/.378s, a whole slew of .338s and .340 Wbys, and nary a one of the .300 RUM persuasion. But then I was only at the range virtually every Sunday for 21 years, and we only had 1,000 members in the club, and only allowed the public (non-members) to sight in for hunting season there from Labour Day 'til mid-October each year, so my exposure was somewhat limited.

The newer things I did see LOTS of almost every Sunday were the .270 and .300 WSM, and the factory versions of the .338/06. Oh yeh, and for about a year, maybe 6 or 8 .376 Steyrs. But after about a year the difficulty in getting brass seemed to kill them off.

I really suspect cartridges go by "fads" in each particular area. One place the .597" Xcel is the super pooper, and in another area it is the .229" Tush-Squeezer.

Which will eventually reach out and "grab" everybody everywhere is the problem the big companies wrestle with every day.

I couldn't agree more it is the fun of a new gun/cartridge combo that is why my go to deer hunting rifle this year is my Robinson Arms XCR-L in 6.8spc loaded with 95gr TTSX @ 2825fps.

Even in a pretty crowded .30 caliber field there seems to be a group that are willing to got to more trouble for a bit more performance. Personally if I decided I wanted an ultimate long range rifle I would go to a super 338 of some kind.

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
I don't wanna snipe any of my game except p'dogs over in the next county from where I'm standing. I wanna spot it before it sees me, figger out how to sneak up on it, do that, and shoot it at arm's length or less. That's why I call it "hunting".

It's about fun, not whether I fill some tag or not.

Then any of the hundreds of rifles you own are overkill. You should be bow hunting.

The 300 RUM is remington's marketing department capitalizing on consumer's fascination with velocity. Look at the most successful long range chamberings. Most launch a high BC bullet at 2800 to 2900 fps including the big dog .338's.

For every group like the ones above, I've seen at least 10 that scattered all over the paper, not because of the rifle but because the shooter was scared to death of the .300 RUM recoil.

Clarence

quote:

Often thought about rebarreling a Win 70 to 300 RUM and using 220's for moose and bear. Should be awesome

Why not just get a .338 Win to the job? You can buy a rifle off the rack, and it probably wouldn't kick as hard.

quote:

Originally posted by ClaMar:
For every group like the ones above, I've seen at least 10 that scattered all over the paper, not because of the rifle but because the shooter was scared to death of the .300 RUM recoil.

Clarence

I agree most people buy a rifle chambered in a 300RUM without ever having taken the time to learn how to correctly handle these kinds of heavier recoiling rifle/cartridge combos.

Too some of us the recoil of a 300RUM isn't an issue which is why I can shoot mine accurately.

What I call recoil is the recoil produced from my ghost ring sighted 8lbs 21" barreled Rem 700 LSS in 375RUM loaded with 350gr TSX @ 2520fps...