The European Union now became larger, we have some contries with a lot of mountain hunting opportunities.
So its time for a new rifle project. I want to have my first falling block rifle for the mountains.
It should be a .300 caliber and so I have to choose 300 Pegasus or 300 Lazzaroni.
What do you recommend?

Burkhard

Why not go with the good old 300 Winchester Magnum? Ammo is a fraction the cost with much greater availability. Even with the hot super 30's you are only going to get a few inches less drop at 500 meters when using the same bullets in the 300 Win Mag. Not to mention much greater case life and less throat erosion with the 300 Win Mag.

BurkHard,

I have quite a bit of first hand experience with the Warbird and have researched a bit on the Pegasus. Here are my opinions of the two.

First off Lazzeroni list the Warbird as a +3500 fps round with a 180 gr bullet. Out of his long barreled, slow rifling twist custom rifles using his specially undersized and coated bullets this may be true.

If you take a conventional rifle such as the Sako that is chambered in the Warbird and try for 3500 fps out of its 26" barrel, you will be stretching primer pockets on the first or second firing.

Lets look at why, the Warbird is a large round but case capacity is roughly 8 grains more then the 300 RUM. Still Lazzeroni claims that his round will out perform the much larger still 30-378 Wby with its 120 gr case capacity, or 11-12 grains still more then the Warbird.

In a conventional 26-27" barrel the Warbird is a 3400 fps gun with the 180 gr pills, nothing else from what I have seen. This is exactly what my 300 RUM is doing out of a 26" barrel.

Brass wise, Everything I have seen with the Lazzeroni brass has been bad nad often very bad. I have seen very soft brass, I have seen brass with 0.030" difference in wall thickness from one side to the other. and it costs +$40.00 per 20 cases. I have looked away from the Lazzeroni rounds long ago and have been very happy since.

Now the Pegasus. This is a beast. Basically a 30-378 Wby without the belt or the god awful shoulder. IT will easily hit 3500 fps with a 180 gr pill and in some rifles it seems that a 200 gr bullet can be driven very close to that velocity. Problem here is that brass is again very hard to get and also pricy.

Of the two, I would have to say that neither is a real good choice. A wildcat on the big 30-378 Wby case would in my mind be a better bet. Hard to believe but brass is cheaper for the Wby and easy to get, plus it has alot of capacity compared to the Warbird and very close to the Pegasus.

I am building an extreme range rifle for my self when I have time between customers rifles and I am going to chamber it for the 338 Kahn(338-378 Wby with a 35 degree conventional shoulder). If I were you, I would look into the 300 Kahn if your married to that caliber. Same performance as the Pegasus with better shoulder design then the parent 30-378 round.

In my mind, the Warbird has shown too many problems for me to pick it over even a 300 RUM which I truely respect as a long range rifle round.

Good Shooting!!!

50

Fiftydriver,

thanks very much for the detailed informations. Its very interessting.
My interesst for the 300 Pegasus was on an article in a gun magazin about a falling block rifle in this caliber made by the primium gunsmith Scheiring in Austria.
When I asked for more informations and the price the answer was like " when you ask for the price, we are sure, this rifle will not be affordable for you" .
So a dicided to built my own 300 Pegasus (I mean my gunsmith will do that for my).
Trying to find more informations I found the Lazzaroni calibers, I never had heard about.

After all your informations about the different problems with the two rounds, maybe I should do what my gunsmith recommended ".. take the good old 6,5x68 an you will be on the right side.

Thank you again.

Burkhard

Seems to me I recall that someone in Europe was making brass for the 300 Pegasus, which certainly would be easier for you to get then A square brass from over here. - Dan