Short Barrel 300 Win Mag Suppressed

[Aletheia]

Life is too short to let the internet make your decisions.

Yeah, but life doesn't get any longer if you make bad decisions all by yourself, and then you get to spend the little time you have living with the consequences.

 

[Gtscotty]

Yeah, but life doesn't get any longer if you make bad decisions all by yourself, and then you get to spend the little time you have living with the consequences.

You get to spend more of it doing what you want if you're not spending it worrying about speculation from folks who may never have actually tried what you're thinking about doing. I've thought about trying a chopped down .300 WSM rifle specifically for suppressed use on elk. In reading around, there was lots of input from folks who hadn't tried it saying that it would be a waste of powder, you'd lose too much velocity with short barrels, etc. But the few posts I could actually find written by folks with short barrel WSMs were pretty positive, they didn't lose as much velocity as some would suggest and while they were blasty, that doesn't matter with a suppressor. I don't doubt in the least that it's hard on cans like MachIVshooter said, but as long as you're within the can manufacturers specs, I'd shoot it and let them fix it if it blows up.

If the OP knows that he will lose some velocity vs a full length barrel, but will be faster then an equivalent length .30-06, is good with that, and has an appropriate suppressor then how is he making a bad decision? Using a 300 WM specifically for 300 yd deer raises my eyebrows more than wanting to chop the barrel, but who cares, it's his gun and he should do what he wants.

OP, here's a Quickload estimate for the ballpark velocity you might expect to lose by chopping the barrel.

165gr NPT over 71.1gr RL16 (Alliant book Max)
24" - 3,159 fps
20" - 3,013 fps
18" - 2,922 fps

180gr NPT over 76.7gr RL23 (Alliant book max)
24" - 3,055 fps
20" - 2,920 fps
18" - 2,835 fps

200gr ELDx over 74gr RL26 (Alliant book max)
24" - 2,915 fps
20" - 2,781 fps
18" - 2,697 fps

IME Quickload isn't usually way off, so if you're ok with long barrel .30-06++ numbers from a 20" package, go for it.