looking for best performance powder brand to reload .300rem.ultramag

Hi, my son just brought home a new .300 rem.ultramag 26"bbl.
I would like to hear from some of you that own and reload the same cartridge, recommendations in regard to the brand of powder that work best for you in combination with 180 grain tip near max load.
This is a new toy, a new mag. addition to the 7mm rem.mag. , .300 WSM, . 300 win.mag., 8mmx.338win.mag. and .338win.mag.
I reload since over 30 years couple of doz. of different caliber.
Appreciate your input, thanks,
_________
roberto
 

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It'll vary with the bullet choice.

A good rule of thumb is to use the 85% rule, as described in the Precision Shooting Reloading Guide. Fire a round in the brass brand you want to use. A commercial load is just fine. At this point a new bullet should slip into the case mouth, since it has not been resized.

Weigh the fired case and spent primer (still together-this has not yet been resized). Fill the case with water. Stick your bullet choice into the case to the seating depth used for it in the manuals. This will push the excess water out. Now wipe of the outside of the case and weigh it again. Subtract the empty fired case weight from the case + remaining water weight. This is the water capacity of the case under the bullet. Use 85% of that weight as the a charge weight guestimate for your prospective powder.

Now go scan through the load manuals looking for powder charges for that same bullet seated to the same COL at that same charge weight or very close to it. Pick the ones that give highest velocity. Those are good prospective powders, regardless of the final charge weight you land on.

For example:

Suppose you use the Speer SPBT seated to 3.600, as mentioned in Speer's manual. Let's suppose you find the fired case holds 106 grains of water after the bullet has been pushed in to 3.6 COL and the excess water has run out and been wiped off. 85% of 106 grains is 0.85×106 gr. = 90.1 gr.

So you want the powder that gives highest velocity with around 90 grains of charge. Well, the Speer manual suggests that Reloader 22 and Reloader 25 are the two best candidates, with the former having higher peak pressure than the latter (it's a maximum load for Reloader 22, but a starting load for Reloader 25, so, even though Reloader 22 has a little more velocity, being at maximum, there is no guarantee your rifle will get there, and if it does, you've got nowhere further to go. So I'd start with Reloader 25, and work up from 90 grains to find best accuracy.
 
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Mike / Tx

New member
As usual UNick did and awesome job. In working up loads for my friends 300 we found that while RL-25 did give good velocity with the 180gr loads, once you get to around the 86 and up grain area it starts to get a bit flakey with temp swings. This was also noted by several other folks who were also working with it at the time on another board.

We felt that giving up a tad in velocity and going with H-1000 was much better than worrying about the differences in a 20 degree temp swing as we found with 25.

As Nick mentioned your rifle will let you know what it lies best, but I highly suggest giving H-1000 a try. I doubt you will be disappointed in the results.

The components we used were Remington brass, several brands of bullets, Fed GM215M primers. We tried other cases but found that even with mid level loads the pockets would open up with only two or so loads, but the Remington held tight up to highest we tested.

Good luck with your loads.
 
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