Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 338 win mag with 225 nosler partion

Never have killed any elk myself with 250's. Have killed a handful with 200, 210 and 225-grain bullets.

But one thing I learned long ago that it's much easier to gain considerable experience with bullets by giving them out to other hunters, and to go along any chance I get with other hunters. I distributed some 200 Ballistic Tips among local friends when they first came out, but only after I'd done some penetration tests and used them myself on enough game to know that they'd penetrate sufficiently. And I only gave them to people I knew would make precise evaluations of performance, not just say, "Yeah, it worked good."

I've also used the .338 on other large North American game considerably, including musk ox and Alaskan moose, and in Africa even more, where I also observed other people using it a lot. My experience is that African game of about the same size as elk (especially gemsbok, blue wildebeest and zebra) is a very similar bullet "test." The data gathered was considerable, encompassing dozens of animals and a wide variety of bullets from 200 to 275 grains, though probably the most-used bullet weight was 225 grains.

My overall observation is that on both elk and other elk-sized animals, in general 200-210 grain bullets kill at least as well or better than heavier bullets from the .338, and are easier to hit with because they recoil less.

They also penetrate plenty, except possibly on rear-end shots. I've only shot one animal up the rear with a .338, a blue wildebeest that was already wounded. It worked, but took a while, despite the 250 Nosler Partition ending up in the front of the chest.

The 200 Ballistic Tip has always penetrated plenty. Some people object when any bullet is found in an animal, but my experience is that the 200 BT either exits or ends up under the skin on the far side of the animal, after doing a lot of damage. The most penetration I've seen was on a bull gemsbok of around 450 pounds, shot quartering toward me at about 150-175 yards. The bullet broke the shoulder and the spine (the spine drops down between the shoulders on a gemsbok) and ended up under the hide on the rump on the far side, at least 3-1/2 feet of penetration, some of it through heavy bone. That is one of the few I've recovered, and I've seen the 225-grain Nosler Partition and AccuBond recovered just as often on the same size animals.

Oh, and all the friends I gave 200 Ballistic Tips to 20 years ago reported fine results on elk. My most trusted friend shot a big cow at 300 yards. The bullet got part of one shoulder and the bottom of the spine, and exited.

I should also point out, however, that I've shot more elk with .30 calibers than any other bore size, the cartridges ranging from the .30-06 up to the .300 Weatherby, including my three biggest bulls. None have gone more than 25 yards, and my biggest bull went only 20 feet after being shot with a 180-grain bullet at 250 yards--from a .30-06. So I'm also a natural skeptic when people start proclaiming something "the best" on any kind of game, partly from having seen so much game shot with various cartridges and bullets.

With the .338 and elk part of my skepticism comes from a survey on the Campfire several years ago--after yet another post proclaiming the greatness of the .338. Turned out he had shot one elk with the .338.

So I asked everybody else to post their experience with the .338. It turned out that very few had taken more than a dozen animals with the cartridge, and the average was between 4 and 5. In my experience, a dozen animals is a start on learning what a cartridge will do, but several dozen is a much better number. Four or five doesn't tell us much at all.