300 Savage Ammo
The 300 Savage Ammo is an impressive medium game cartridge that you can find in 150 or 180-grain weight projectiles. Its designer, Arthur William Savage, is the founder of the Savage Arms Company. He based his design on the .250-3000 Savage parent case designed by Charles Newton.
The idea behind the 300 Savage Ammo is to provide a cartridge more powerful than the 303 Savage Ammo. The designer also wanted a cartridge that could outrank the ballistics of the .30-06 Springfield while still using a small case you could cycle through a short-action lever rifle.
After production, the 300 Savage Ammo quickly became a famous deer and medium-sized game cartridge for North American hunters. By mid-century, most US firearm makers offered a .300 Savage chambering in their rifle models. The 300 Savage Ammo velocity isn’t high enough to cause hydrostatic shock, but it will ensure caliber wounding.
The performance of the 300 Savage Ammo is based on three types of grain velocity. They include 2765 fps for a 150 grain, 2676 fps for a 165 grain, and 2503 fps for 180 grain. Loading it with a 150-grain bullet will cleanly kill light and medium games at 300 yards. However, the choice of bullets has a noticeable effect on the performance of the .300 Savage Ammo. We discovered that soft-jacketed bullets produce the fastest kills but on light games.
When you use 180-grain projectiles, the .300 Savage Ammo will offer you the best performance at close range. Unfortunately, it loses the ability to render fast-killing woods at 150 yards. However, you can extend the range to 300 yards when you utilize soft frangible bullets and achieve a remarkable difference.
Charles Newton envisioned light cartridges that carried light and small-caliber bullets that were efficient for deer hunting. The cartridge would have to be projected at a very high velocity for it to be effective. This was the premise for the design of the 250–3000 Savage. The design would be revolutionary as other high-velocity cartridges of the time were at least 30 calibers, most of them being military derivatives.
In the year 1915, Newton teamed up with Arthur Savage of Savage Arms to create a 25-caliber, 87-grain bullet weight cartridge that was able to obtain a grand velocity that broke the 3000fps mark, hence the name "250-3000 Savage." It was achieved by shortening the 30-06 Springfield. Even though Charles Newton questioned Savage Arm’s decision to reduce the caliber of the bullet from his proposed 100 grains to 87, thereby reducing the penetration, the public received this cartridge with immense accolades and praise due to its brilliance in marketing by the manufacturing company. The 250 soared in popularity.
The 250-3000 Savage case was designed to fit into the Savage Model 99 lever-action rifle, a fast-handling, accurate rifle that was extremely popular amongst hunters. With the 250 Savage, the Model 99 produced lighter recoils that further improved the accuracy of shot placement on the game being hunted. It was a joy to use until the cartridge’s flaws began to be exposed.
The 250 Savage exited the barrel with 1670 foot-pounds of force at a velocity of 3170 fps, sufficient to produce killing power, on average. However, it was not enough to penetrate the muscles and bones of a variety of deer species. The shots were too shallow, and the wounded animal would run away after being hit with well-placed shots. This frustration caused hunters to grudgingly and slowly relinquish use of this cartridge until its bulging popularity faded, even after the bullet grain was increased to improve penetration. The cartridge has stayed around for years despite that, as hunters who were just beginners found it easier to start with.
