300 Lapua Improved

[FireMedic]

Any update on that rifle, barrel life, throat erosion, etc? I’ve been thinking about doing myself one of these.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Any update on that rifle, barrel life, throat erosion, etc? I’ve been thinking about doing myself one of these.

Barrel life is short. You want to get it dialed in quick and go hunting. Its a rifle for a specific purpose. The ballistics are impressive. Personally I prefer the 338 version. In fact the 338 Lapua imp is probably my favorite cartridge. But if you want the baddest 300 out there this would be one of them.

 

[Sgt. Brumbaugh]

Barrel life is short. You want to get it dialed in quick and go hunting. Its a rifle for a specific purpose. The ballistics are impressive. Personally I prefer the 338 version. In fact the 338 Lapua imp is probably my favorite cartridge. But if you want the baddest 300 out there this would be one of them.

If you were going to build either this or your 300 NMI for ELR competition (barrel life not a concern, only the best cartridge for 2500-2900 yards) which would you choose?

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Id probably do a 338 Lapua imp. The 300 Lapua is not suited for competition in my opinion. Its for hunting. Barrel life matters in competition because it has an effect on tune as the throat moves. Easy to keep up with on a hunting rifle, not so much in competition. If you have to do a 30, Id do the NMI. Jeff Brozavich on the long range only forum shot his elk this year with one of my 300 Lapua imps. The 245 at 3080 fps or so worked very well. But you dont ever want to sit down and get one hot shooting targets.

 

[Bill K]

Maybe I have the wrong Idea, but why not just build/buy and go with a 50BMG in a bolt rifle ?

 

[Sgt. Brumbaugh]

Id probably do a 338 Lapua imp. The 300 Lapua is not suited for competition in my opinion. Its for hunting. Barrel life matters in competition because it has an effect on tune as the throat moves. Easy to keep up with on a hunting rifle, not so much in competition. If you have to do a 30, Id do the NMI. Jeff Brozavich on the long range only forum shot his elk this year with one of my 300 Lapua imps. The 245 at 3080 fps or so worked very well. But you dont ever want to sit down and get one hot shooting targets.

I have three cartridges in the works; I am going to do a 300 NMI based on your reamer design (got a recommendation for free-bore for the 245 Bergers?), I competed with a 338 LAI last year and will pick up a 33 XC next week. I know that the 33 XC is the darling of light class ELR, but I "think" the 338 LAI and 300 NMI both have potential to unseat the 33 XC if in the right hands. My last 338 LAI barrel finished at 30 inches, next one will be 34 and I am strongly considering the 300 NMI finishing at 34 inches as well. At this point leaning towards testing both an 8 and 9 twist in the 300 NMI. None of the competitions I shoot are in very thick air so I assume I can get by with a 9 twist, but there is a reason why the MRAD is an 8 twist and when I talked to Litz about it, he also recommended an 8 twist and he knew it was only for ELR. I have seen doppler that suggests twist ratio's even faster than what we think are necessary end up having better BC's.

Hoping to run the 338 LAI and 300 NMI very close to 3100 fps with 300 Bergers and 245 Bergers. In my 30 in. 338 LAI, 106.5 grains of RE 33 ran 3050 pretty comfortably, I assume I can get another 50 fps with 4 inches of barrel. Obviously, whatever is most consistent and flat on the water line is what I will end up with as far as a load. Most guys run the 33 XC right around 3100-3150, one buddy of mine runs his just shy of 3200. Tubb says a lot of his customers run it at 3050.

I figured you would say what you would about the 300 LAI, in addition to your observations about the throat (although I have not tested it) velocity migration could be an issue as well. My 338 LAI (Krieger barrel) was dead in 800 rounds due to the tempo of ELR competition.

Thanks for your contributions to the precision shooting world Alex.