Are you standing taking those shots? If so I would love to see footage of you controlling that recoil! I also shoot a lightish 300wsm with a brake and it's not easy. Now if your 6ft5in tall and 350lbs ok I can see it.
I tell people about the bullet and load every week up here in Alaska and people don't believe me. Hornady designed that 150g specifically for the 7-08 and 280ai crowd.
Bag flops everything other than big ass mean bears.
We had a 162g hit 2780fps with reloader also but found mag primers are a big help, Decent accuracy (just over moa) and zero pressure signs or stress on the brass. We use multiple brands of brass also.
I think your on the right path other than starting with the 300wm. Is this just for ammo availability or ballistics? If your friend hunt and reload for 7mm I would get a 7mag and start playing. You can ream the 7mag to a prc or swap barrels and you won't have 300wm beass/ammo left over.
We harvest moose every year with 150g eldx from 7mm08, moose are not as tough as people think and they tend to not run very far. Put any non bonded bullet in there 🫁 and they will die fast. We have over 20moose killed in my family with everything from 375-7mm and the 150g eldx is hands down the...
I went with a rugged can so I could take off the extension and have a 5in can for hunting and full length for shooting. It has been great on my 300wsm and our 7mm08.
I had a decent mix of grizzly and black bear. The ravens ended up clearing out the trailmix for me. Oddly my friends pigs wouldn't eat it either so it might have been tainted. Got these 2 guys 45min apart 2 days ago.