.300 Savage


The .300 Savage cartridge is a rimless,.30 caliber rifle cartridge developed by Savage Arms in 1920. It was designed to replace the less powerful.303 Savage in their popular Savage Model 99 hammerless lever-action rifle. Despite having a short case and a rather stumpy neck, the cartridge is capable of propelling a bullet at over with an effective range of over.

History

The original intent of its designers was to offer a cartridge that could approach the ballistics of the original version of the.30-06 Springfield, while at the same time using a smaller case that could be cycled through a short-action lever rifle. Although it fell somewhat short of its ballistic goals, its performance out-classed other contemporary.30 caliber lever-action cartridges including the.30-30 Winchester and.30 Remington. It soon became a popular deer and medium-sized game cartridge among North American hunters, and by mid-century nearly every major US firearms maker offered a.300 Savage chambering in at least one of its rifle models.
The.300 Savage distinguished itself further by serving as a peer to the.308 Winchester cartridge, a round that was developed for the United States Armed Forces in the 1950s and which is still in use today.
Despite its decline as a sporting round, the.300 Savage remains quite popular with handloaders who are able to obtain optimum performance from it.

Performance

Pressure level for the.300 Savage is set by SAAMI at 46,000 CUP.