As long as the 308 Win exists, the 338 Fed is dead as far as any market demand is concerned. Still a good round but dead in the water.
Only with the ill-informed and ballistically-ignorant.
I love the .308 Winchester, as I would assume most people who appreciate the .338 Federal do, but they are slightly different beasts. I look at the .308 Win as being an excellent all-around cartridge and the 338 Federal as being able to do all this too, but more of a specialized round that is at its best on things like elk, moose and bear. An old friend of mine used his .338 Federal not only on mule deer, elk, black bear, moose and bison in the lower 48, but on an Alaskan Brown Bear and a huge Asian Water Buffalo (est. 1,500+ pounds) in Australia. He used hand loaded 210 Nosler Partitions.
The .338 Federal is at its very best with the 200-210 grain fodder - a niche where the .308 is just a little too meek. Nothing wrong with using the TSX/TTSX/GMX style bullets of slightly lighter weight (180-185) in the .338 Federal, as well. At that point, I do agree that you get more into the ballpark of the .308/30-06.
The .338 Federal is a non-magnum offering that boasts magnum energy. Along with energy figures, let's look at some TKO (Taylor Knock-Out) numbers.
- 7mm Rem Mag........175-grain, TKO 20.3, 3180 ft-lbs, 2860 fps
- 338 Win Mag........200-grain, TKO 28.5, 3866 ft-lbs, 2950 fps
- 30-06 Spg..........180-grain, TKO 21.4, 2915 ft-lbs, 2700 fps
- 30-06 Spg..........200-grain, TKO 23.1, 3060 ft-lbs, 2625 fps
- 308 Win............180-grain, TKO 21.7, 2743 ft-lbs, 2620 fps
- 308 Win............200-grain, TKO 21.7, 2690 ft-lbs, 2461 fps
- 338 Federal........180-grain, TKO 24.6, 3200 ft-lbs, 2830 fps
- 338 Federal.......210-grain, TKO 26.7, 3224 ft-lbs, 2630 fps(TKO and energy at muzzle)
As seen above, the only cartridge in this factory load sample that surpasses the 338 Federal is the extremely powerful 338 Win Mag.
