Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting The 300 Wby Mag for elk- is there anything better?

Used to see the .338 Winchester in the hands of more hunters here in Montana, but most of the guys know who used to hunt with it a lot (including me) don't much anymore.

I suspect the introduction of such a wide variety of premium big game bullets has something to do with it. The .338 was introduced primarily due to pressure from Elmer Keith and like-minded hunters, back when there was only one readily available premium, the Nosler Partition. Elmer and the others were fixated on heavy, high-sectional density bullets at moderate velocities, because those are what had worked for them on larger game animals when only cup-and-cores were available. He HATED the fact that Winchester brought out a 200-grain load at 3000 fps, when the 250- and 300-grain loads were perfect.

But newer bullets in smaller calibers penetrate at least as well, and often deeper, and the .338 Winchester doesn't have enough powder room or magazine length for the long, high-BC spitzers preferred by long-range hunters who might prefer .338 bullets.

I might still choose a .338 for Alaskan moose and African eland, as I did back when using the cartridge a lot, but the truth is smaller caliber cartridges work fine on both with bullets--which applies even more to elk, because they're not as large as moose and eland.

The .338 is a fine round, but it's a by-product of inferior bullets. Today we have better bullets that make smaller cartridges perform bigger. In fact, this has pretty much been the overall trend in hunting rifles ever since somebody cut spiral grooves in a musket barrel.