Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting All hail the wonderful and mighty .338 Winchester Magnum

I'm still trying to figure out why 2800 fps is so "perfect".

Nothing is perfect, of course.

I base my opinion on my experience. In my experience, shooting "moderate" calibers such as 7-08, 30-06, 30-30, 32 win, .358, etc I have NEVER had a bullet failure, I have ALWAYS had an exit wound, and I have NEVER lost an animal. That's in only 15 deer, but that starts to be a big enough sample that I can form an informed opinion. In my opinion.

In that batch of deer, bullets used included many soft bullets like Powerpoints, Hot Cors, Ballistic Tips, etc. Every single one exited the deer.

One hears no end to the horror stories about problems when one jacks the MV up too high.

Now is where you say "don't use a fly to flanders bullet, use a TSX" but to that I say, why? When standard bullets in standard, moderate calibers kill so well? It is foolishness to correct a velocity problem with an expensive, hard to get bullet when there is a much simpler solution- keep the speed in the "window" and watch things work great. And burn less powder, suffer less recoil, watch your rifle barrel last multiples of time longer, listen to less ringing in your ears... etc ad nauseum.

In a general purpose hunting rifle I think the perfect MV is in the 2900 range... that means that at typical killin' ranges the bullet will be going 2200-2600 fps. And the rifle will shoot plenty flat out to 500 yards is a person is so inclined. And you know what? That bullet will almost certainly perform... ta da... "perfectly"!

A person engaging in long-distance hunting is playing a different game, with different rules, of course. Those people represent a minority by far and yet everyone is getting addicted to extremely fast cartridges then shooting little dog deer at 125 yards and wondering why they just lost half the meat.

That's what I think anyway.

-jeff

Deer are so hard to kill... can't really see how they're a "test" of much anything.

Good old common sense is one thing, but confidence in a rifles ability is something else.

Your insecurity makes you think it does... I could care less. You're the one that started a pissing contest (as usual).

My point was and remains, deer aren't much of a test of anything... even big-bodied Carp Deer.

Would also add, those that haven't been around many elk kills tend to over arm themselves... just another thought.

Nobody said killing a 180+ class Muley is easy... I just said deer aren't much of a test of bullets and cartridges (which is what this post is about in case you'd lost track).

you forage around this forum looking for ways to take cheap shots at my friends and myself then act bewildered when you get called on it publicly and privately.