Drew Goodlin, Nosler Reloading Manual 6th edition, 2007:
"My favorite rifle has always been the Winchester Model 88 (a lever action discontinued some years back.). I have had several over the years chambered for various cartridges. When I began moose hunting in 1960, I looked for one in .358 Winchester, but they were rare and expensive, and besides, my .308 seemed to work just fine, as long as I used Nosler Partition bullets. Every time I did my job, it killed the moose, or elk, or deer in front of me.
But in 1971 a grizzly showed up in the midst of our packing-out my son's moose in Alaska. We never saw the bear, but it was there, and cover was thick, and I suddenly felt under gunned. When we got back home, I decided to fix that. I briefly considered finding a model 88 in .358 winchester, but ruled it out because Nosler didn't make a .35-caliber Partition bullet in those days. While they did make .33-caliber partitions, there didn't exist .33-caliber cartridges for the short action 88.
Thus was born the idea for what is now called the .338 Federal (back then it was called the .33-308 by normal people; I called it the .338 *****cat.) With encouragement from P.O. Ackely, I had my gunsmith, Larry Bloomer, re-barrel my .308, and I began load development (the story can be found in the May-June 1974 issue of Rifle Magazine.) I am now 82 years old and no longer hunt, but I can still remember my hunting experiences with this rifle and cartridge. And one thing that I remember is that I never found a .33-caliber Partition bullet in a dead animal. I have killed around 25 elk and moose combined with my favorite load of H4895 pushing the Nosler 210-grain Partition bullet. In every case, the animal died with a bullet hole on each side. I have not had to use this cartridge on an upset grizzly, and I'm happy about that, but I've always felt better having it with me when in their backyard. The .338 Federal doesn't have enough power to kill the animal and field dress it with one shot, but it does extraordinarily well on game and is easy to shoot. That's a good combination."
