Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats My new gun is done. 338 Rogue pics

just got her back last week, and had to share:)
Well, she's done, for the most part. painter got confused and painted the stock wrong, but i'll get that sent off to get fixed soon.

It's a 338-378 improved called a 338 Rogue. So far I've shot about 80 rounds through it to fireform brass, but have had pretty good results in the accuracy dept with very little load development. shooting around 2900-2950 with 300gr bergers(lighter load for now, so i can shoot the bergers), over 869 and retumbo. starting to lean toward retumbo, but won't know till i get more serious with load work up.

can't wait to get it all formed up, and then start working up a load.

i have shot it at 400, 600, 800, 1000 on paper, and have been shooting around 6-8" at 1000. i'm hoping that will shrink 2-3" when i get done with load workup.

I did run the numbers and shoot it out to 1825yds on monday, at a 12"x16" inch target and was amazed at how "easy" it was to hit it. just missed left the first couple shots, and got the wind dialed in, and then hit it 3 consecutive times. can't wait to finish getting this one all dialed in.

my gunsmith is Shawn Thomason from Idaho. this is 3rd custom from him, and have 2 more there right now, and have been very impressed with final results.

specs are:
TAC 338 stiller action and 20moa scope base
hart barrel 1-10� 28� #7 contour, spiral flute 1.300� at action, then follows
a #7 douglas contour to .875 at muzzle
nightforce NXS 5.5-22x56 high rev turret, NPR2, zero stop
Muzzle brake from nate dagley
jewell trigger
Weatherby mag box, spring and follower
Rem LA bottom metal
Manners MCS-T3
Nightforce Scope rings
ceramic coat
US optics scope level

Wow! very impressive, looks deadly!

Wow,what did that run ya?...very nice.

Can you Mag feed it?

at my current seating depth no, can't mag feed it. but i expected that, and wanted the mag there just in case.

I like the paint job..what went wrong with it..

oh, they painted it just like my 6.5x47 because they looked at my old order. i just didn't want matching twin guns. i like it, but i just want something a little different i guess.

My 30-378 Improved:

hey magnumdood, are you from idaho by any chance? i was just over there, and i saw some rounds from a gun that looked exactly like that from my smith. didn't think there would be too many wildcats like that one out there.

that is the shortest stinking neck, crazy looking. how does it shoot? would you do it again?

I bet that thing is a powder eating... fire breathing... mutha


Sweet rig!

nice
I filed Shawn's info for later

Nope, not from Idaho. Yeah, the neck makes it look like a 300 WM on 'roids. It shoots very well; it piles Berger 210 VLDs on top of each other. I have a 30" Krieger barrel, 1.350" in the shank, then tapers straight down to 1.1" at the muzzle. I've pushed the 210s to 3300 without any pressure signs using RL25. I'm going to try and gun it up to 3500, but expect I'll start loosening primer pockets at 3400 or sooner. Yeah, I'd do it again. I own the reamers for it. I love the round. My 'smith cut the throat to allow me to seat the 210s out and kiss the lands, but I'm getting my best results jumping .05 off the lands.

very impressive numbers! my 300RUM loved RL25 as well. have you had many problems with temp sensitivity with it? i'm trying retumbo, and H50BMG in the rogue to try and see if the extreme powders actually do what they say they do.

any ideas on barrel life with that bad boy?

If it were a plain barrel, accuracy would start dropping quickly after 500 rounds. But, I coated it with Ultra-Bore coat. This stuff, thus far, has been what the manufacturer said it was. You coat your bore, let it dry, then cure it by heat and pressure (firing). You fire 10 rounds pretty fast to get the barrel hot (which I normally hate doing), and it cured the bore coat. I can fire 30 rounds now and run two patches Montana XTreme, wait 5 minutes and patch out a light blue. Then the patches all come out clean. I don't bother cleaning anymore. The group that owns Ultra-Bore coat is Dyna-Corp. I deal with Doug Burche. He coated two full-auto 30 cal barrels. He told me the throats were finally starting to show some wear at 100,000 rounds. The stuff cures into a ceramic coat. It doesn't add speed or slick up the bore; their main claim is it essentially eliminates copper fouling, especially in custom tubes. I spent a small mint on my 10 gauge turkey barrel, so I had Doug coat that one for me (I did my rifle myself). I fired 30 10-gauge shotshells as fast as I could. When I was done, I pushed 1 patch wet with Hoppes 9, then patched it out. Nothing sticks anymore; no plastic, no powder fouling...nothing. I wanted it mainly to protect the bore of that barrel. I handload tungsten for turkey hunting, and it's a lot harder than my barrel steel. The tungsten doesn't even leave a streak on the surface of the bore coat. It's a Snake Oil that appears to work.

that sounds to good to be true.... i'll have to check it out. interesting for sure.

Yeah, it did sound too good to be true. I've tried everything over the years because I love these barrel-burners, but this appears to be what Doug claims it to be. At the very least, if you break your barrel in first, then apply it, you'll never have any hours-long barrel scrubbing sessions again. You probably won't really ever need to clean it, you'll just feel a desire to.

Here's my baby...

very nice. is that a badger front ring? i don't recall seeing a double in one piece like that. nice skulls;) is that a dip, or an actual paint job?

looks like a lot of fun

It's a dip; no way I can afford the price of that guy on Sniper's hide who paints skulls with DuraCoat (same stuff they painted your urban camo with). Besides, if I were going to use paint I'd do it myself. I have a pretty large store of DuraCoat and paint my firearms, stocks and metal, all the time. I'm a half-azzed decent artist and would have tried painting my stock, but I need to be shooting not painting.

That is a Near Alpha 1 mount. It's a solid bottom, then has 3 caps. It looks like 3 rings, but it's really a uni-mount. Richard Near's gear could double as art. That's a Near 30 MOA rail my mount is bolted to.

I'm sorry that I didn't mention this sooner, but I think you have a kick-azz stick. That thing says, "Watch me go looooooooooong"! It's bad-azz, even the stock, which I understand is not what you asked for.

lol, no worries at all. i liked hearing about something new. good times..