BOASTING a water capacity of 88 grains of water against 89.2gn for the .30 Newton, the .300 PRC could well be the reincarnation of this 110-year-old cartridge. They even look enough alike to be twins! Both have big, fat rimless cases with a reasonably sharp shoulder and similar body dimensions. The .30 Newton’s neck length is 7.87mm (.310”) against 7.81mm (.307”) and case length is only 1.52mm (0.06”) shorter. These are minor differences.
Having almost identical powder capacity, the same charges of a particular powder should give almost the same muzzle velocities. That’s something we’ll look into as we go about developing hunting loads for the new .300 PRC.
The only place where the two rounds differ widely is in overall cartridge length — the Newton’s loaded length being a modest 81.28mm (3.20”) against 93.98mm (3.700”) for the PRC. A modern design, the .300 PRC seats long, heavy-for-calibre, high-ballistic coefficient bullets so far out of the neck of the case that the bullet base is level with or just below the base of the neck and does not encroach into the powder space. Chambers are cut to keep the bullets in close alignment with the lede and barrels have the fast 1:8 twist needed to stabilise heavy .30-calibre long-range bullets.
Based on the non-belted .375 Ruger case necked down, the .300 PRC has a standard 13.51mm (.532”) magnum bolt face and
