Cigar,
What weight bullet are you planning to use? I have a 25" bbl. 338-06 Ackley Imp. built on a Browning stainless stalker that weighs 7 3/4# complete with a Leupold 1.5-5x that's a joy to shoot. I used a reamer short-throated for 210 Partitions seated to the base of the case neck, so I've only ever shot 200 or 210s up to around 2850 fps out of it. With the long bbl. it's a tad nose heavy, but was an experiment & can be shortened if I dont like the balance. I dont know your recoil sensitivity. Think a tad less than 35 Whelen/200gr. recoil. With a proper stock it is noticeably less punishing than a standard weight 308 Win BDL in that ugly old '80s Remington stock.
The 160 TTSX over Varget moves at around 3K and is very accurate in my 338-06.
The 180 NAB is a great bullet and works very well with H-380.
The 210 NPT over H-380 is another great load, all three of these are sub MOA, at least in my rifle.
Not much big game in NA that those loads won't put a crimp in. No bouncing off.....
DF
