Remington 721 300H&H

[Tumbleweed]

Hi guys. I have been looking for a 300 win mag in a Rem 700 for my sons first elk rifle. My intent was to find him something that I could work up a load with Berger 215's and shoot out to 700 yards. At this range, 1 MOA accuracy from a factory rifle will still be adequate. Any longer distance work and we will dig out my custom 300 RUM with 230's.
Yesterday I went to visit my uncle and he gave me an old Remington 721 chambered in 300 H&H. It could use a stock refinish and re-blue but looks to be in fair condition for it's age. It has a 26" barrel. Tomorrow i will clean the barrel thoroughly and run my video bore scope down the pipe and see what condition the bore is in. If that checks out, I don't see any problem getting this rifle to do what we need it to for my son. I would need to buy the dies, shell holder, brass ect. in order to reload this cartridge.
Here is my question:
Before I start down this road with the 300 H&H I would like to know if there is any pitfalls ahead with this model of rifle or with reloading this caliber? I understand the 721 action is basically the same as the 700 aside from the safety and trigger. It looks to have a soldered on sight at the muzzle that will need to come off for a muzzle break too. I appreciate your responses.

 

[roninflag]

quite a while ago i helped a friend sight in a 721 300hh. it had a 2.5-8 bl scope on it . factory ammo. it shot fine.

 

[Elkmen]

I have two 721's both fine rifles. The trigger may need some work and from my standpoint the stocks are horrible. I have had both since the 60's and changed both out years ago, and again recently. One has a Bell & Carlson the other a Brown. MOA may be a challenge depending upon the rifle. They are a great rifle, and the 300 is a great cartridge.

 

[HARPERC]

The one 721 in 300 H&H I know of was decent, the others makes I've had were exceptional. 2900 fps with 200 grain bullets in a 26" barrel is pretty standard.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

The 300 h@h is one of the two current belted mags that actually somewhat needs the belt as the shoulder angle is rather shallow. That said, you should be able to get decent brass life out of it anyway. My brother is shooting a #1 in 300 h#h. He's getting good perfomance out of his rifle, with 3K on tap with a 180 at moa or better. Same case capacity as the 300 wsm, so no wonder on speed.

 

[Tumbleweed]

Well, I ran my video borescope down the barrel last night with some extra back light to see better. The throat looks really good with a good square start to the lands. It is in great shape as far as "wear" goes. It does have some small pit spots here and there from rust that are fairly deep. The last 6" has a slight overall roughness to it on the lands and down in the groove. I'm not sure if it will shoot well or not in this condition. I hate to buy the dies to find out it's a 2MOA or worse shooter. I guess that's a risk I have to take to find out.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

Find yourself a box of factories and have at it first. The brass will serve you well if you keep it and can be sold of you don't....

 

[Tumbleweed]

Well I mounted my Shepherd on the gun and got it centered up good at 25 yards. Moved out to 100 yards and shot a 3 shot group. This old thing printed a .8" group with two almost touching. I am very pleased considering the questionable condition of the bore and shooting 1980 handloads. It should make an excellent 700 yard gun for the kids with 215 hybrids and modern propellants. I took the brake off of my shot out ultra and had the local gunsmith install it and bring the trigger down to 3lbs. Looking forward to seeing what we can do with this!

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

Good to hear she shoots.

 

[Tumbleweed]

Just wanted to give a quick update on my old 300 H&H. Once I discovered that in spite of some barrel pitting that it had accuracy potential, I went to work making it a nice rifle for my sons. A gunsmith had previously drilled holes in the side of the receiver and installed a peep sight. I tig welded the screw holes back in and sanded the stock down in that area to blend in the chunk they had removed from the stock. I also opened up the barrel channel for a nice free float as the stock had been tight into the side of the barrel. I stripped it down, cold blued the entire rifle (that was a PITA) sanded and refinished the stock. I had the muzzle break from my other shot out barrel installed on this rifle. I installed a 20MOA canted scope base as I noticed for some reason on this receiver it requires tons of up adjustment to even get zeroed. I knew I wouldn't have enough scope adjustment for LR without a canted base. I installed a Vortex Diamondback 4-12x40AO with BDC. After zeroing at 100 yards, I have right around 32MOA of up available in the scope.
Now for the load:
There was only one bullet I wanted to run in this, the Berger 215 Hybrid. The goal was for this rifle to be a 0-750 yard rifle on elk. To keep this a magazine feeder for the kids I ended up seating the bullet .127" off. I kept load development as brief as possible with the component shortage I have. I worked up to a max load of 69.0 grains of H1000 which put my load density at a very happy 95-98%. I used Fed215GM's. Velocity is 2670fps and ES is under 7. The rifle has proven on paper targets to hold 1 MOA out to 800 yards and sometimes much better.
I took my oldest son up in the woods to do a little cross canyon shooting with it last weekend. I have a rock with a .75MOA white spot painted into it at 827 yards. I inputed everything into shooter, made the scope adjustments and let him fire the first shot. Boy did that 215 take a huge chunk out of my white paint on that rock!
I am excited that I was able to make a really nice weapon out of this old girl and it really blessed my uncle to see what it has become as he gave me the rifle.

 

[mountainman56]

Wrong post

 

[The Guide]

Nice rifle. My buddy has the same rifle but it needs a new stock. Boyds has finished stocks if you need one.

Jay

 

[Demon061]

Not too familiar with the 721 but the .300H&H is excellent

 

[Tumbleweed]

The boys and I love the old gun. In fact, both of my sons took their bucks with it this last hunting season. My youngest shot his buck off hand at 130 yards while on the move. My oldest shot his at 175 yards. The Berger 215 did a number on both