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

To me, lugging weight unnecessarily is dumb. And as the saying goes, if you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough.

I think tough and smart is better.

Aside, I'd bet money you couldn't keep up with me all day in the mountains.

Your probably right..45 years of logging turned me into a whuss.Grow up Brad..Your sounding like one of my four sons challenging Daddy from 21 to 42 years old and they don't whine about rifle weight.

Jayco

Jayco, I stay in pretty good shape, working at it year long and while I could carry a nine lb rifle in the Rockies, I won't. It's not essentially what I can or can't do but what's easier and outside of formal, competitive paper pouching, neither do I believe a heavier rifle is easier to shoot more accurately as many claim.

So add Talley LW's and a 3-9 Conquest and probably just a bit over 8# with a few rounds loaded...

JWP: the weight of the rifle at 26" didn't bug me. The balance and ungainliness did. A 22"-23" barrel just stays in my "personal space" mo' betta than a 26" does. And doesn't snag chit when slung either.

Merry Christmas my friends and mahalo for the great thread!!!

Guys,where have you been? 8 pound 338's have been around since the early 80's.....and we made them relatively pleasant to shoot,too!

Now my pal's 340 Weatherby is a stock Mark V lefty he dropped into a Brown Precision stock back around 82-83 IIRC.This is one accurate rifle and I doubt it'll go more than 8 or 8.5.It will not kill you on an elk mountain,and ain't half bad.

We found it reared back a good amount so he sent it to magnaport which keeps recoil straight back and more manageable.Accuracy was not effected in the least and this is less loud than a muzzle break.......you still have to hang on but it won't kill you;manageable.

There have been others here including a couple put up with pre 64 actions, Kriegers,and Brown stocks. These were lightweight and not bad to shoot;a couple of original pre 64 70's which were nicely balanced but heavier,and a flossy Griffin&Howe pre 64 that liked saddle scabbards on hunts I took it on....including the day the horse ran off with it.That taught me to never dismount without taking your rifle....

Of the bunch the Brown stocked 338 rifles were really best as they were easy to lug and not bad to shoot.

Jayco, I thought this was the immature post, said to people you know nothing about.

The better shape you're in, the less weight you're carrying, the longer you'll be able to go. I thought every grown adult could have figured that out.

9lb rifles have their place, and if all that was available in the world were 9 lb rifles and no other alternatives, that's one thing. There are other choices... just don't imply to me I need to get in shape when you've never met me.

So as you said, but which better fits you, "Grow up"... you're macho act is childish.

Bob, I'm more inclined to sub 7lb rifles all-up weight!

But sub 8lb is fine too. Have lugged 8.5 - 9.5 rifles up and down Montana. I like lighter better. But I'm a backpacker/climber and came to hunting thinking about ounces.

Of course not all weight is the same either. 25lbs carried in a quality daypack with good suspension doesn't even feel like it's there... the weight is carried close to one's center of gravity and is born by the hips. A rifle, especially if it's carried in one's hands at-the-ready, is away from the center of gravity. The heavier, the more fatigue. The farther from one's center of gravity the weight, the more fatigue.

So my question is why not a sub 8lb rifle?

(When I'm talking rifle weight I'm talking all-up weight, scope, sling, rounds. The whole enchilada).

Merry Christmas guys...

Brad: Agreed....I was just reliving various 338's of the past.

But I am not sure I'd want a 338 that weighed less....

I like the Rem 700 AWR in .338 Win. It is one of my all time favorite rifles. All up it might kiss 8lbs, but is not unpleasant to shoot at all. It weighs almost the same as my KS in .280, having the same barrel contour, but a larger hole keeps them very similar. There is no doubt that stock design keeps recoil very managable, I have shot quite a few .338's that were heavier, yet the recoil was much worse. I have never had a chance to shoot one in a NULA but would really like to try-from what I hear it is not a hard kicker in that rifle.

Another reason for 30-06's and 270'S!

Have had an 8lb 338 WM (22" bbl M700 ADL)... most accurate 338 I ever owned. Not too bad at the bench but I just can't see the "why" of the 338 for elk anymore.

But this is all fun and games... except on the internet

4 me and this kid only I have a tendency to prefer a rifle that's mid 7's to a skosh over 8 all up, mainly cause I like that weight to hit something with when trigger time comes.

And Merry Christmas to my Mashburn brother..grin

Dober

Dober, reminds me so much why I like NULA rifles... with no. 2 barrel... "hang" like an 8lb rifle, "carry" like the 6.5 lb rifles they are.

One of these days I'd like to own one.

Just a quick google says this in rifle weight all 30-06..

Weatherby Sporter-7 lbs
Sub MOA-7.5 lbs
Ruger Hawkeye-7.5 lbs
Win 70-7.4 lbs
Super Grade-8.0 lbs.

Now throw a scope/ammo and sling on there and your over 8+ pounds in all of them and that's what the normal Joe uses without even thinking about it.

Merry Christmas...Jayco.

Now you're talking Mac!

Just hang a #2 cut to 23" on your Lil Sky and call it a day. We can pursue Nilgai with the cheddar saved.

Dober

logcutter,

That's because the "normal Joe" doesn't have a clue that there's an alternative to carrying a 9-pound rifle.

I remember taking a 7mm Remington Magnum on a black bear hunt once with a buddy of mine, a "normal Joe" who had only hunted with one rifle all his adult life, a post-'64 Model 70 7mm RM with a typical over-sized walnut stock and 3-9x Redfield scope in one-piece-base Redfield mounts. The mounts alone weighed almost half a pound, and I'd guess his whole rifle weighed close to 10 pounds loaded.

He picked up my synthetic-stocked rifle at one point for some reason and said, "Wow! That's sure light. I'd love to hunt with something like that!" My rifle weighed 8-1/2 pounds with scope.

Within a couple of years my buddy had a .300 Winchester Magnum that weighed 8 pounds scoped, and loved it.

You guys must be darn near brain dead! 338's with not bad recoil at all! Jeez! What a load of BS!

Last one that I had would turn my ear muffs around side ways on my head when shot off the bench!

Hmm. Must be something very mismatched with that rifle's stock and your body. Either that or you were shooting heavy-bullet loads.

I've seen shooting a .338 that weighs between 7-1/2 and 7-3/4 pounds, depending on the scope, for almost 20 years now. It is a little obnoxious off the bench with 250-grain loads, but there's no reason to use 250's on any game under 1000 pounds. With 200-210-grain loads it's no worse than any .300 magnum, and not as bad as some.

MD

At some point in the weight/recoil ratio in certain calibers,heavier is better.A good example is the M-1 Garande weighing in at 9.5 lbs and Military issued some time back.Alot complained about the weight and alot complained about the recoil but they all learned to handle and carry it and got used to it.

Recoil being the same,sure,most hunters would like lighter..Just saying the Normal Joes I mentioned are not gun looney's and think nothing of carrying that 8.5 lb around the hills and even loaded with factory ammunition.

Heck..I don't own a custom made rifle of any sort,just factory offerings like the majority of hunters out there.

Jayco

Good stock fit makes a world of difference. The typical m700 stock fits me better than the M70 stocks and even though my M700 338 was a fair bit lighter than my M70's, it handled recoil better for me.

Also, never saw a bullet out-perform it's "numbers" like the 210 Partition!

Uh, ooooohhh...