My first hunting rifle was a hand-me-down .300 Savage.

I’ve written at length about my rookie season. Mistakes were made, lessons were hard learned and will never be forgotten. One mistake I didn’t make was in my choice of rifle cartridge. As I knelt beside my first buck on the last day of that 1997 deer season, I realized that I was finally a hunter and that was thanks to my .300 Savage.

The .300 Savage hit the market in or around 1920. It was advertised as offering the same ballistics as the .30-06 but in the ever-popular lever action package so many hunters held near and dear. While it didn’t exactly offer what one could get from a .30-06 even then, it was so much of an improvement over other lever-gun cartridges of the day that it really sold.

Its biggest advantage over cartridges like the .30-30 was that it could use spitzer bullets instead of round- or flat-nose designs. The Savage 99 as well as other rifle designs for which the .300 was chambered could also be adapted for use with telescopic sights, something other lever-guns could not easily do. For big game hunters in the lower 48, the .300 Savage had a lot going for it.

My own .300 Savage belonged to my grandfather, Rusty Valade. He and Frank Cecil had raised enough pigs to each buy a new Savage 99 and one box of cartridges from the Dayville Mercantile, sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s. He, my father and I have certainly gotten his money’s worth of use out of the old gun. And with those kind of miles, it’s tough not to look as old as you feel. I know of a few other .300s still kicking around looking about the same.

Unfortunately for the .300, Winchester introduced the .308 in 1952. Doing so was the first nail in the coffin for the .300 Savage. The .308 Winchester itself was merely a “.300 Savage improved,” if you will, offering the same endearing features as the Savage, but with even greater ballistic performance. Combined with the fact that the .308 or 7.62 NATO was adopted as a military service cartridge, it seemed the poor .300 Savage was doomed. The final blow came when Savage announced that it would discontinue the Model 99 rifle altogether.

Devoted hunters and cartridge loonies have single-handedly kept the old game-getter going. Winchester, Remington and Hornady continue to provide seasonal runs of ammunition, with the latter having tailored a bullet custom for the cartridge. My advice to anyone that owns a .300 is to stock up on ammo where possible and keep hunting with the pleasant old round. Keep your empty brass and become buddies with someone who reloads. Take care of your old rifle and she will take care of you.

It’s always puzzling to me to see which cartridges get anointed to near immortality and which ones go by the wayside. It is sad to say the .300 is headed for obscurity like so many other cartridges that have come and gone. That being said, there is no reason we can’t still enjoy it while it lasts. If you’re lucky enough to own a .300 Savage, you know what I mean.

Do you hunt with a .300 Savage? Write to us at shootingthebreezebme@gmail.com and check us out on Facebook!