Gun Digest – August 2019

gundigest.com GunDigest the magazine AUGUST 2019 (^) | 51
and Jamy gave that “yassssss” that PHs
give when the shot is placed properly.
The stallion, mortally wounded, did his
best to follow his herd, but as he paused
again at just shy of 300 yards, a second
180-grain bullet ended the game.
A BRITISH CLASSIC
To have the opportunity to hunt such
a majestic game animal was wonder-
ful, but to have done it with such a
classic rifl e and cartridge made the
hunt that much better. I had a 1959
Colt “The Coltsman,” chambered in
.300 Holland & Holland Magnum, al-
though the barrel was labeled simply
“.300 Magnum.”
Long before the .300 Winchester
Magnum or even the .300 Weath-
erby Magnum had reared their heads
on the scene, there was but one im-
provement over the .30-06 Spring-
fi eld: Holland & Holland’s .300
Magnum. Also known as Holland’s
Super .30, it would drive a 180-grain,
.308-inch-diameter bullet to more
than 2,800 fps, bettering the velocity
of the Springfi eld by 100 fps, mak-
ing it a magnum length equal to .300
Winchester Magnum (which would
take nearly four decades to arrive on
the scene).
H&H MAGNUM BACKSTORY
The year of 1912 saw the prestigious
London fi rm of Holland & Holland
release its .275 Holland & Holland
Magnum—a 7mm cartridge so close
in form and function to the 7mm
Remington Magnum of 1963 that it’s
uncanny—and the undeniable .375
H&H Magnum.
These two cartridges feature a belt
of brass just above the cartridge rim,
used for headspacing. The .375 H&H
the hunting world would come to
love has a 15-degree shoulder (very
slight in comparison to many of the
modern designs) that has been associ-
ated with easy feeding and reliable ex-
traction. The .275 would take a half-
century to catch on—and only then
in a different marketing scheme and
under a different moniker.
1925 saw the release of the .300
Holland & Holland Magnum, a slope-
shouldered cartridge the same length
as the .375 H&H Magnum—3.600
inches, to be exact—yet designed with
an 8-degree, 30-minute shoulder
and that same useful brass belt,
which serves as a false rim. It
gives the positive headspacing of
a rimmed cartridge but offers the
easy feeding of a rimless cartridge
from a box magazine.
A decade after its release, Ben C.
Comfort shot the .300 Holland (in
a rifl e built by Griffi n & Howe on
a Remington 30-S action and with
a 30-inch barrel) to win the 1935
Wimbledon Cup.
.300 H&H MERITS
The virtues of the .300 Holland
& Holland were not lost on the
ballisticians and engineers at
Winchester. In 1937, the year the
rifl e was introduced, Winchester
added the cartridge to the lineup
of its prestigious Model 70 rifl e.
With ammunition already avail-
able from the Western Cartridge
Company, hunters and shooters
immediately picked up on the
benefi ts of the higher velocity
and increase in striking energy.
Remington followed suit, offering
both ammunition and chamber-
ing its reliable Model 721 rifl e for
the long cartridge.
It was regarded as a good all-around choice for the larger big-game species of
North America, along with all but the thick-skinned dangerous game of Africa.
It also had its place in hunting literature. John “Pondoro” Taylor stated that
“everything the .30-06 will do is done better by the .300 Magnum ... .” The car-
tridge was also featured in Robert Ruark’s Uhuru as PH Brian Dermott followed
up with a wounded leopard in the thick bush. It was also the cartridge that John
Nosler had in hand when his bullets—I’m not sure of their brand or weight—
failed on the shoulder of a mud-caked moose, resulting in the development of
the now-famous Nosler Partition.
Launching the 175-grain Federal Edge TLR at
a muzzle velocity of more than 2,900 fps, the
.300 H&H can handle a wide variety of hunting
ranges and is a very manageable magnum.
Even though the .300 H&H Magnum lands outside most popularity circles, options abound for
both reloaders and those searching for high-quality factory loads.