I am new to this site. Been trolling for a year or so and finally decided to join about two weeks ago. I have learned a lot just by trolling but am no where near the kind of shooter a lot of these people are on this website. I am working my way up to being comfortable with shooting an animal at 600 yards. If you are serious about shooting at long ranges, I have found that you have to work at it diligently and slowly with lots of practice.
When I say that I am working my way up to shooting an animal at 600 yards comfortably, that means that I can make the shot and humanely take an animal with the shot. Until I feel comfortable doing it at the range, I just wont do it.
First off, congrats on getting your PAL. Hunting and shooting is a blast.
When you say you want to do some long range hunting, how far is long range for you? I would say that long range hunting varies from hunter to hunter based on their skill level. For me, its under 600 yards as I have said before. Some people on this website don't think it is a challenge to shoot at an animal under 600 or 700 yards. Their skill level is higher than mine.
I would think that I am not far off to say that if you are thinking of only shooting at elk under 400 yds then a 308 with a premium bullet would do you just fine. But if you want to humanely kill an elk at 400+ yards then you had better go with the 300 win mag. The key word is to HUMANELY kill the animal with a precise shot.
Since you do not reload, I will go off of the velocities and ft. lbs. that the companies supply on their boxes of ammo.
Black Hills Ammunition 308 win. 180 gr Nosler accubond $35.49 on MidwayUSA
1. 2550 fps at the muzzle
2. 2598 ft. lbs. of energy at the muzzle
Federal Premium Ammunition 300 WM, 180 gr Nosler accubond $42.49
1. 2960 fps at the muzzle
2. 3502 ft. lbs. of energy at the muzzle
Running a generic ballistics calculator for both of those loads with the BC of the 180 Accubond being .507 the results at 600 yds are as follows
308 win at 600 yds
1. 1642 fps
2. 1077 ft. lbs of energy
3. The bullet will have dropped 105.8 inches with a 100 yd zero
300 WM at 600 yds
1. 1960 fps
2. 1535 ft. lbs. of energy
3. The bullet will have dropped 74.5 inches with a 100 yd zero
As you can see, the extra velocity that the 300 WM gives you will make it the better game taker at longer ranges. Also, you can go even heavier and go with the 200 gr. Accubond with the 300 WM. The price of ammo isn't THAT significant between the two ($7 per box) because you are going to be wanting premium bullets to be taking down an elk at a significant range.
Here again, this was just a quick ballistics calculator used to give you an idea of what you are dealing with. I am no professional long range gun shooter by any means but I believe that I can give you some base knowledge of these two guns to work on.
