Anyone used it who'd offer feedback?

A couple years back I had a local gunsmith rebarrel a 700 .375 H&H that wouldn't shoot to .338 win mag with a Lilja tube. I set it up planning to shoot 225 grain accubonds and partitions. It shoots them, and everything else, pretty well at 100 yards but by 200 things are looking sad and at 300 yards, I wouldn't bet on putting 5 consecutive shots on a dinner plate. Not good enough.

I've tried 200s and 210s ... cup 'n' core, bonded, partitions, etc. Equally bad.

I've been fighting with the SOB for almost 2 years.

On a whim, last thing before punting the rifle ... either outright sale or rebarrel ... I got some 185 grain TTSXes just in the spirit of getting clear away from what wasn't working. At 100 they barely outshoot the Noslers, but at 200 the difference is pretty significant and at 300, damn good.

Just not sure they have the S.D. of a bullet I want to put in an elk, even as a monolithic bullet.

So, to make a long story short, I'm looking for input from people who've used these on elk. Do they exit on raking shots, say .. 45 degrees? If I whack one on the shoulder is it coming out the other side?

Tom

I hear that the owner of Barnes wife uses the 185 TSX on about everything with good success.

I have never tried anything smaller than 210 Nosler Partition bullets in my .338 rifles! It is a medium bore and gets 2900-fps using them. In my book that is fast enough and goo for any mule deer etc. I just can't see the sense of going lighter for the sake of velocity.

I can shoot my .300 Win mag or .300 Ultra mag with 180 grain bullets at a velocity of 3130fps to 3350fps respectively in my rifles. I like heavier bullets for medium bore rifles simply put. I have 2 loads for the .338mag.......210 weight and 275 weight in Swift A Frames.

The heavier bullets aren't shooting in his rifle, is the problem.

How fast do you think the little copper bastids are going, Tom?

Coni Brooks has taken several truck loads of big game including elk with a .338 Win Mag and 185 TSXs and TTSXs. Used to be the only rifle she used...

Might want to do a google search on Coni Brooks and big game?

Hey Jeff! I'd guess 3100+.

I tested out the 210 TTSX yesterday. They didn't do real well. I have 20 rounds left of the 185s loaded up. I'm going to pull the barreled action out of the Sendero stock I've been using (can you say free floated?) and put it back into the Bansner/High Tech stock, then see what happens at 300 yards on paper. Make or break.

Tom

I see no advantage to the 185s in a 338. I would guess that the reason Connie Brooks uses them is for less recoil.
If the Accubond and Partitions dont shoot well, I would try another brand of bullet.
Mine likes 225 hornady Interlocks.

She used the 225 for years

I spoke to Randy Brooks some years ago, when he made the muzzle brake for my .475-mag. rifle. He told me that he always suggested only going down ONE bullet weight when using his Barnes X bullets, compared to conventional bullets on the market like Hornady or Nosler's etc.

I tried religiously to get them to shoot well out of my rifles but No Cigar! The one's I did get to shoot decent, were at 30-06 velocities out of a .338 Win mag and I just didn't feel like 2500fps is where I wanted to be velocity wise using a 210 grain bullet, plus having 2.7 inch MOA groups from the bench.

I had to go back to Nosler Partition and later Swift A Frame bullets to get the results I wanted from my rifles at the bench and on big game animals such as elk and moose etc. My .338 Win mag shoots 275 grain bullets into 1.25 inch groups at 100 yards and 210 Partitions under 1-MOA (Nosler Accubonds .770), velocity being 2900fps. The B.C. on the Accbond is .414, S.D.= 250 great for mule deer and elk too at moderate ranges.

I've never been a huge fan of the idea of a .30 caliber bullet weight in a .338. I mean, get a .300 if that's the idea, and you'll get a better BC/SD to go along with it.

If I was going to try to get all Devil's Advocate about it I suppose one could argue that as long as the rifle shoots the 185's well it's not like there's anything actually "wrong" with that and you would have the option of going to much heavier bullets if you found yourself expecting to face, say, big bears.

Personaly I have never had a problem getiing Excellent accuracuy form TSX bullets in any of my rifles

I agree with that. I don't know why, but this rifle flat ass will not shoot any bullet 200 grains or up that I've tried into groups I'll accept. I built it around the 225 accubond. Prior to the 185 TTSX, those shot best. They're pretty respectable, sub MOA at 100 yards, around 2 MOA at 200 yards, and 3.5 to 5 MOA at 300 yards ... greater than linear increase with distance. I just doesn't cut the mustard.

Pretty sure it's going up for another rebarrel or outright sale within a month or two. I need to take it to the range one more time.

Tom

TOM, put in for a spring bear tag and I'll take you out for some field testing!

Shoot it and don't look back. It's SD is still above a 150 in .308. You will be hard pressed to keep it in an Elk. Frontal diameter in the .338 is an advantage no mater what the energy is. Large frontal area plus magnum velocity seems like a good combo to me. People always hate on light weight .338's but seem to love premium bullets in 165's or 150's in .30 cal. Strange.

Rifles is funny critters. My .340 dotes on 210gr TSX's. I've got a batch of 250gr Partitions that I badly need to work up a load for but there's so little that can't be done with a .338/210gr TSX at 3100fps I've been too lazy to try. My "gun guru" I gave the rifle to when I firt got it for the purpose of quickly putting together a load (he's got every powder and bullet you can imagine on hand) went through a few loads and hit the 210/RL19 combo and it's shot little else since.

Good luck!

By the way, have you tried the 160gr TTSX yet?

I was thinkin' I'd put in for that tag, yeah.

I'm guessing though that this .338's fate will be sealed long before that. I'm figuring one more range session will tell me. If it does good, fine .. I think. If it fails me, I haven't made up my mind yet, I might sell it outright but I've also brainstormed a couple possible projects for you to build for me.

Tom

What powders have you experimented with?
Stating the obvious but the same bullet will shoot very differently with different powders even if the velocity is the same.

I bang/flopped a bull in 2004 at 280 lasered yards with the 185 gr TSX from my 338-06. Muzzle velocity was 2950 fps. In behind the quartering away shoulder centering the off shoulder and found under the hide there. It weighed 122 gr having lost all 4 petals.

Dang gummit Tony, ya dun got those WM boyz pizz off! Ya know dem '06 toyz won't get er dun at distance!

Powders in the 4350 to RL22 range produce the velocities I'm after, faster 'n' slower do not. I didn't use every powder in the range, just those I can get readily. I didn't use every possible bullet, only those I'd be willing to use on game.

Each gun is different. In this one I didn't find the sort of accuracy difference you seem to suggest. Yes, there were differences, but the differences weren't enough to change whether a bullet shot well enough to be considered that otherwise wasn't. I usually had 2-3 "peak" powders, not just a single one. I could summarize all the results by saying up to 200 grains it looks like H4350 did the best, at 210 H4350 and RL19 did about the same, and heavier than that, RL19 did the best. But we're only talking about a difference of a quarter inch difference at 100 yards.

In case you missed it or in case I said it badly earlier, I had no issues getting good 100 yard accuracy, the problem for me was that accuracy did not hold up on farther downrange. I found a half dozen or so loads that broke MOA for the first 100 yard, they'd just "fall apart" at greater distances. To focus on a single example, my 225 nos AB load, I typically got groups no smaller than .5" and no bigger than .75" at 100 yards. Pretty fair, right? But at 200 yards, the groups varied from about 3 to 3.5 inches. By 300 yards my best groups were varying from 7 to 10 inches and perhaps 25% of the groups where only 4 of 5 hit on a 12 inch target paper.

So ... even for elk, I ran out of accuracy somewhere around 225 - 250 yards.

The niche this rifle was built for requires 400 yards worth of elk accuracy and should really do 450. Anything less is failure do deliver what I paid for.

I'm done with buying .338 components. I have small supplies of 3 different loads already loaded up to test. One I expect to fail but it's a good yardstick. If it delivers its normal accuracy, then the accuracy of the others, good or bad, is representative of what I can expect of them. One load shot better at 300 for the one group I shot but it's not a bullet I really want to use. The third load uses the heavier brother of that 2nd bullet, but it's the least accurate of the 3 at 100 yards. If it does deliver accuracy, the gun is a success. If not, it is a failure.

I'm not looking for help rescuing this .338. I asked about a specific bullet's terminal performance.

Tom

The 185 ttsx is an excellent bullet for the 338 winchester and will easily crush through anything you hit with it. Been there, done that. Mine is a lightweight rifle I consider an 800 yard rifle. It is deadly with those bullets to that range.

Tom ain't skeered to take a rifle apart and start over... grin...

Yeppers, that there is a well demonstrated fact. It doesn't pay hardware of any sort to disappoint me.

A smoking trail of guns and Jeeps behind you... grins...

Hey, can't remember if we talked about this.

The non-geometric way your groups grow as the range increases is still baffling to me. Now granted, baffling me ain't rocket science, but.... have you tried a different scope on there? Could the scope have a major parallax issue?

Otherwise, for the life of me I can't think of how your groups could grow like that other than a really wacky stability thing that seems unlikely.

I'm sure I'm just being daft here... no public floggings please....

I had a hunter kill a bull Tuesday with the 210 TTSX out of his 338-378 and they didn't stay in. He finished it up with a 150 TTSX in his 300 Wby and it did stay in!

I would imagine terminal performance will be fine with the 185 but ballistics not so hot.

I took it out today. Neither the 210 TTSX nor the 225 grain Nos AB shot well, ballpark 3 inches at 100 yards. I shot up the rest of that ammo. 80-85 rounds of .338 in one sitting ... my shoulder doesn't like me. The leftover 185 grain TTSXes went roughly MOA Couple squirrels came up on the berm and I whopped them. Got complete penetration.

It's time to move on. It's sighted in for the 185s and I have 12 shells left, good enough to kill something while I'm trying to figure out what the plan is. Probably nothing 'til after Christmas.

PS - Jeff - I've had 3 different scopes on this rifle in 2 different mounts, no difference in results.

Cool. That's a lot of shooting! Probably a good way for a Beavs fan to take out some frustration............

It'll be interesting to see what evil plan you cook up next for that action, if any!

For all I know I've phooked up MY .338 and will be joining you in figuring out a long-action M700 magnum boltface build...

7 Rem Mag...

Any Bolt Action rifle that shoots 3 MOA has something wrong with it. The last time I saw something like that was a guy at the local range with a SAKO in .300 Win Mag and the culprit ended up being an extremely small burr on the muzzle. A simply twist with a case deburing tool turned the same rifle into a .7MOA SAKO which is to be expected.

The issue will likely be crown, bedding, loose scope mount, scope, stock or shooter. The last thing I would blame is ammo because it is extemely hard to make bad ammo when all those bullets have been tried. It is most likely mechanical.

JW

That'd be most likely, yep! And leave the .325 Montana alone... find out soon here...

Sorry I missed your post. I was up crushing rock way out there with a outdated 7mm.

Why wouldn't a 185 cruising at 3000fps+ kill a bull? I would have no problem shooting an elk with that rig. BC's don't come into play until way down range anyway. If a 30'06 lobbing 180's will flatten elk, a 338 will do the same.

That being said, what is your barrel twist rate? Sounds like you have a slow twist or something...

I'm hunting in a funny spot, ranges are either real long or pretty short, not much chance of a shot at middle distance short of illegally shooting one right in the road.

It's big canyons with heavy timber and a few clearcuts which have grown up a lot. You'll be limited to seeing about 15 to about 75 yards in either the timber or the clearcuts. The reprod is 30 feet high and thick. The timber might be a hair more open than the old clearcuts. The other kind of shots are long: you can sometimes see down on top of those clearcuts into the holes in the reprod from above on the opposite side of the canyon; that shooting starts at about 400 yards and goes to goofy distances.

Whoever said if the 7mm mag and .45-70 (specialists for each kind of shooting) had a kid, it'd be called the .338 must have hunted here. My computation of ideal is a .338 with 225 grain accubonds. Unfortunately, after shooting up probably 10 boxes of them, I just can't get the accuracy I want. Flat based .338 bullets won't hold enough V to expand for the cross canyon type of shots. Lesser boat tailed .338 bullets probably won't hang together at full speed at in-the-timber distances. It's really a lot to ask of one gun, I know.

Anyways, I wouldn't pick an '06 with 180s here. That's better than not hunting at all, but it's far from ideal. If it were more traditional semi-open elk country where the shots came at 75 to 300 yards, that'd be a different story.

Twist ... yeah, I wondered about that. Checked, confirmed, it's a 1-10".

's ok, I'm past it, moving on, figuring out what to do next. I've literally shot more $$ worth of powder and bullets down the barrel than I put into the Lilja barrel it's installation, possibly could add the cost of finishing that Bansner stock blank, too and come in under the $$ that went into powder and bullets. I'm used up and worn out.

But like a punch-drunk boxer.... ready to out swinging on another build, right?

TOM, I've got a question: Have you tried the 250 gr sierra? They work exceptionally well in my 338 and I also know where you are coming from in your description of where you hunt. I also hunt there. So I can say "been there and done that". A lot of guys around here use the same combo I do as far as load goes. Good ol IMR 4350 (67-70 grains) with the 250 sierra and it gets the job done close or far, bsa.

BSA -

Thanks. I probably should try, but I've passed my give-up point. For now, I'm defeated. I truly don't care if this gun works or not. Maybe if I haven't "offed" it in 6 months or so, I'll come back and try again.

Jeff -

Not right now. I don't have any enthusiasm for any of the options. I drained the tank fighting this .338.

Tom

Sell it and move on...

I just got finished turning a .22mag that shot 4 inch groups at 100 yards into a rifle shooting 1.5-MOA with a 7mph wind blowing. Also took an older Savage a friend of mine owns and it shot 3-inch groups also at the bench. He had been using it for whitetail deer for over 12 years, shooting factory Rem. Core-Lokts.

Now after I free floated the barrel, removing wood from the stock that was touching the barrel and bedded the action, this rifle with my reloads shoots less than 1.4 inch groups at 100 yards. We chanaged scope mounts to a one piece and reset the scope on top (old Redfield) with a new Bushnell 3200 series 3 X 9 power, this rifle now shoots .990-MOA from te bench.