Not a cartridge where it will pay you to go cheap
I haven’t heard much good news about recent production Remington rifles, and it sounds like some of these posts are from people who have examined the 770 closely and been totally underwhelmed by the construction and quality. I have to say I’ve never even held one, nor been seriously tempted.
Regarding the choice of calibers, I don’t understand all the uproar here. The .300 Winchester Magnum was, in its day, considered an exceptional long-range target and benchrest round. It sounds as if you’ll be doing most of your shooting with your own reloads, not new ammo. If you’re reloading, there’s no significant cost increase for the .300WM over any of the other common .308 cartridges. Even the brass isn’t that much more. I’ve been shooting and reloading this cartridge for nearly four decades, and I speak from experience. A whole lot of what everybody knows about it is nonsense. I will say, though, that it’s a cartridge I wouldn’t want to shoot in an action that was in any way suspect.
There’s a lot on the internet and even a fair amount in printed form regarding the kick and the performance of this cartridge, and at least half of it is suitable for fertilizing your rosebushes. Everybody knows the .300WM kills at both ends and everybody knows that it shoots well only with heavy bullets at extreme velocities. Like the vast majority of what everybody knows, this is pure drivel. Yes, it can be punishing to shoot if you shoot max velocity loads with heavy bullets, if you fail to pay attention to your shooting technique, and particularly if you do either or both of these with a stock that’s not a good fit for you. If you have a rifle properly fitted to you and you pay careful attention to your shooting posture, it’s generally a pussycat. Performance is flexible enough that you can back off on any loads that really rattle your teeth and not give up much, if anything, in the way of accuracy.
The lousy performance with light bullets is another myth. Some people tried it, had poor results and blamed the cartridge, usually citing the unusually short case neck as the cause. There are some tricks to maximizing accuracy; neck-turning your brass to make the neck thickness uniform is the most important one I’ve found, but I can get cloverleaf groups at 100 yards using the Hornady 130 grain spire points or the Sierra 125 grain spire points. I’m actually compounding myth-busting with that one, because I’d doing it with my all-time favorite centerfire rifle, a post-64 Winchester Model 70. You know, the one that all the pre-64 snobs like to tell you is an inaccurate, trouble-prone piece of junk.
All this said, why buy trouble, literally? If you shop around, you can find a Remington 721 in .300 H&H or a Howa in .300 Winchester Magnum for a couple hundred more, and you’ll have a strong, well-fitted rifle that will outlast you and your kids, no plastic allowed. A bit more will get you a Model 70 or a 700 long action. As I said, I’ve had a long and good relationship with this cartridge. I love shooting it, but it’s not one where you want to skimp on your rifle.