Good day,

I'm posting on behalf of a friend of mine.
He wants one gun that will do the trick on everything in North America. He wants a synthetic stock and stainless everything else. He wants one of the big .30 cals (RUM, WBY) and of course it has to be accurate, dependable, robust and everything else one would ask of a rifle.
He has been looking (on the internet) at the Remington Sendero in 300 RUM, Sako 75 SS in 300 RUM and the Weatherby Mark V in 30-378. They are all close enough in price to all be contenders. Now of these 3 rifles which has the stiffest stock? Best action? Best barrel? ect. Please give me the low down on these 3 big 30's and let us know what you think. He's pretty adamant about the fast .30 cal. Brown Bear won't happen every year, after all! I've checked out some Synthetic Tikkas and the stock wasn't all that stiff. I'd imagen that rifles 2-3 times as expensive would have better?

Thank you for any feedback you have.

not a 30cal, but I'd pick a 338-378 Weatherby, a 240gr Northfork over 109gr of Reloader 25 and never look back.

One load, one gun, that will do it all.

How experanced is he? Can he stand up to more recoil than he needs? Does he have deep pockets? Any chance he will be hunting 100 miles outside of Bumfuck, Nowhere and need to buy ammo?
There old school but either the 30-06 or 300WinMag. Perhaps the "new" 300WSM will satisfy his lust for a "modern" cartridge. Sorry it's not a direct answer to your (his) question.

The most popular cartridges in Alaska, where the biggest and meanest game in the U.S. exist, are the .30-06, .300WM, and the .338WM. If I was going to hunt bears I would take my .338WM, but the other two as just as popular up here.

I would recommend a .338WM, or a .300WM, and even a .375H&H to your friend, for all his hunting in the U.S.

Now, if he wants more power than a .300WM, then the .338RUM is the cartridge for him, since over 2,800 fps is very possible with a 250-grain bullet. There are other .33's that offer a great punch on any game in the U.S., starting at the .330 Dakota level and ending at the .338-378.

If he wants a Weatherby, the good old favorite .300 Weatherby Magnum is a better choice all-around than the .30-378. There's really not a gnat's eyelash of difference practically between it and the .300 Winchester Magnum. Either is more flexible to handload, with proper bullets can be used on anything in North America (though not the first choice on the big brownies), and will work well with sturdy conventional jacketed bullets. The .30-378 can easily push them into the velocity range where they're fragmentation missiles you wouldn't want to shoot at a big bear, for sure! The .300 RUM was explicitly designed to more or less match the .300 Weatherby at a reduced chamber pressure and doesn't offer a big advantage. It can of course be loaded to higher pressures and velocities than factory loads, but again the question becomes "Why?"

The big super magnums will quickly burn up barrels IF this guy plans to shoot a lot, which sounds unlikely.

Having shot most of the worlds big game with both, my choice is the 338 Win. hands down...I love my 300 H&H but I like the 338 with 210 noslers at 3005 FPS and the 300 gr. Woodleighs at 2500 FPS better than any 30 caliber.....From deer to Brown bear and even Cape Buffalo the 338 has served me well.

375 H&H

'nuff said

Thanks for all the info so far guys.
Reason he is fixed on a .30 cal is that Big Browns might happen twice in 10 years. Deer, Elk and Moose much more often.
So far no one has commented on the synthetic stocks. What kind of quality are they? Sako and Wby are both injection molded I believe. The Rem has an aramid fiber reinforced fiberglass stock. I was browsing the Wby site last night and they also have the Mark V Fibermark. Worth the extra $150 for this stock?

Keep the comments comming guys. Lots of good info here.

It might only take one time with a Brown bear for him to wish he had a 338.

I'll second that one - go with the 338 WM. It's an American classic that is enough for anything, yet not too much for everyday use. If I had to chuck all my guns and go with just one rifle to hunt everything in NA, it would be this one. The fast 30's look real nice on paper, but for most normal deer hunting, we're looking at ranges of under 200 yds - possibly out to 300, but then, you can always get closer (that's the "hunting" part). Pretty much any magnum class rifle will be a point and shoot at these distances. Compare the point blank range for a 9" kill zone for all these cartridges, and then compare these distances to where and how he will hunt.

Buy the gun for its action and barrel. If the stock is not acceptable after trying it at the range, this can be fixed by adding any of a number of aftermarket synthetics. Swapping out a synthetic stock is easy, and should not really affect the decision of what rifle to get. The cartridge and metal work are more important to me when buying a factory gun. maxman

State and national fish and game departments report that year after year, 90% of all big game is shot at ranges under 150 yards. The big 30's may be just the ticket for mule deer across coulees or canyons in the West but even there an '06 with its POA raised a couple of inches hits plenty hard enough, accurately enough and is portable enough to be the better choice, IMO. "Hydrostatic shock" has been established as a fraud, muzzle blast and unnecessary recoil are bad for you, and overbore cartridges are inefficient products of marketing hype. Now you haven't said where your friend does most of his hunting. Brown bear may not happen every year on purpose but if you are an Alaskan, they can happen very suddenly by surprise. In that case, see my signature. For general hunting all over NA, better choices are things like the 9.3x62, 36 Whelen, .338/06, 30/06 or, as has been adamently said above, the .338 Win.

Well I printed this thread off for him to read and I also printed off a couple articles from chuckhawks. He thinks he wants the Sako SS in 338 Win Mag now. His hunting is done in Sask/Manitoba. Looks like the 338 Win Mag will do it all for him. I hope he's happy with it and lets me shoot it at the range if he picks one up!

Thanks for all the comments.

The 338 Win is a good choice,you can buy factory loads in weights suitable for everything in North America and just about anywhere else. For one rifle in the US I'd probably go with a 300 Win, but when you through in Canada and Alaska the extra bullet weight in the 338 makes a lot of sense.

This one gun guy should get a 9.3 x 62.

I am not sure I understand this post. Your friend wants "one gun to rule them all"...This leads me to think of 3 conditions that might exist....that all of his guns that he has, he feels are too big for some of the tasks at hand? Or... is it that all the guns he has are too small for some of the tasks at hand. Or... that he has no guns at all.

If he has no guns, I am assuming he is not a reloader, and is not very experianced rifleman. So I would suggest he starts with a 30-06 or a 270/280. The few I know with just "one gun" dont shoot it and just sits in storage. I know far more people with no guns as opposed to "one gun".