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

Doug: Me too.....I just didn't want to get razzed for loading too hot...

sundles have you shot 1000 pound bears with the 338? Those are big one's for sure!

I'll bet it worked well....bullet?

I'm not opposed to loading hot, but then again I'm not opposed to a very accurate "representative" load either, which is what I have. Or had. I'd like goose it back up to 2800-something.

It does chap my ass when I can't get representative velocities out of a cartridge. My 2 7-08's are both like that. I have to run way over book max to even kiss 2800 fps with 140's from my Mountain Rifle. My M7 ran 150's down in the high 2500's. That's annoying.

I think the thing that gets overlooked is a supposed Guides experiences..Guides are normal people that get to take a month or two off work to Guide for an outfitter.Usually,local boys that have other jobs to sustain there families and ways.

1-One right here spends 10 months of the year behind a counter selling sporting goods and cherishes the time he has guiding in the Selway country.

2-Another is a Baker at a grocery store who is,like us,a hunting nut but he also spends the other 10+ months baking bread.In the Snake River breaks area he guides.

3-And maybe my favorite..A Budweiser delivery guy who takes off,and gets to help an outfitter up the Salmon river and calls himself,a guide and he is.

Any local with alot of experience hunting can be a Guide,if they like what you have to say.

Do they see alot,some do and others don't but they do here about it depending on how large the outfit is.For the vast majority it is not a full time job,just a part time job which they were hired for because of there previous knowledge of hunting/horses and the other goodies that go along with that.

Who did these dudes learn from?

Jayco

Jeff_0, All Hail to The Almighty 338 Lapua a perfect example of the Supreme Cartridge designing skills of the Lapua engineers, they know what the hell they are doing.

For North America's big bears...the Coastal Grizzlies of BC, Alaskan Brown Bears from Kodiak and the Peninsula and Polar Bears.....bears that could reach 1,000 pounds my experience has been to use a 375 H&H...with good BBC or Nosler Partition bullets of 270-300 grains...of the above bears, 14 of my 16 have been taken with a 375...using 275 BBCs..a 300 Weatherby and a 338 Winchester accounting for the other two...using 200 and 210 Nosler Partitions ...

Well, I suppose Almighty doth trump mere Mighty....

Now if they could just make a 338 Lapua that weighed 7 pounds all up, with the recoil of my beloved 270 Winny, that would be 'super duper Almighty!'

7 pounds is doable, the recol maybe with a proper brake

None Tim. Have hunted in BB country and have had them around my tent at night. Was toting a 338 WM.

Bet most BB guides would be happier if their guy showed up with a 375 H&H they could shoot well... I know I'd rather use a 375 than a 338. To me the 338 is neither fish nor foul really.

Aside, I suspect our Phil Shoemaker wouldn't mine a guy showing up with a properly stoked 30-06...

jwp,
quite possible I will admit, but I was being 'tongue in cheek.'
I've never even tried out a 338 Lapua, though I am a big fan of it's 'cousin' the 340 Wby.

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It does chap my ass when I can't get representative velocities out of a cartridge. My 2 7-08's are both like that. I have to run way over book max to even kiss 2800 fps with 140's from my Mountain Rifle. My M7 ran 150's down in the high 2500's. That's annoying. [/quote]

I find Brian Pearce to be among the best at running cartridges at "representative velocities". I clip and save all his reloading articles for future reference.

Jeff you done much work with the 338 since the cut job?

Dober

In both of my current 22 inch 338's I've been using R19 with 225gr. bullets. I've loaded (and used) the 225gr. NP, 225gr. Hornady spitzer, 225gr. Speer BT spitzer and A LOT of Barnes 225gr. TSX. I find myself using around 74 to 75grs. of R19 and a Fed 210M primer to get roughly 2850 fps in both rifles with all those different bullets. R19 is a great 339 Win. Mag. powder and I have found no advantage in using mag. primers when using R19 or R22 powder.

I generally use R22 in my 340's.

I totally concur about R19 and the 338 it's a rock star in that round. Also like H4350 and would like to try R17 as well if I ever own another 338. (which I kind of doubt I will as I have a 338/06 I use a ton)

In my .340's I've used a lot of R22, 7828 and some R25.

Dober

Oh sweet Jeezus. I was peacefully reading through this thread and thinking of taking my 338 out of its semi retirement when I read this. Now all I can think of is a trip to the rifle range with that same 338 about three days after my personal 'cut job.' Recoil vibrations transferred from the shooting bench to the metal stool the jewels were resting on. That happened in September of '97 and the memory still hurts.

Now that would leave a mark, maybe we should get JB to do an article on it...grin

Dober

Mark I thought we agreed we wouldn't talk about the lobotomy....

I rezeroed it; the POI moved about 6" (!). It seems to still be sub-moa. I need to load up another batch of 225-NAB's before I can get too involvedshooting it at LR etc and I can't do that from Hawaii...........

You summed it up, so you hacked 4" of the barrel anyway.. WOW

You said it

jwp, I think Jeff did one of the most intelligent things a guy can do with a 338 WM... they don't "need" a 26" or even 24" barrel... Mark told him to cut it to 23" and I told him 22"... he wisely split the difference and went 22.5"...

The bore-volume/case-capacity ratio of the 338 WM is exactly the same as the 30-06 and I doubt anyone would argue a 30-06 doesn't work well with a 22" barrel.

Me personally, if I'm going to have a 24" bbl'd rifle, I'd sooner it be a 7mm RM or 300 WM. The fact a 338 WM works well in a 22" barrel is the main reason I'd chose one over the other popular Mag's.