Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .243 vs 25-06

EB

guess I'm getting old and lazy. Also my taste in rifles is changing. Whereas I once was afflicted with �magnumitis�, I�m kinda backing off. At first everything was heavy barreled beanfield rifles. Now it more medium velocity rounds and lighter rifles. Even some synthetics.

I've owned two 300 RUM's. For my money they have more recoil than the 338 RUMS'. Decided I did not need the speed. I'm between 308 win and 300 H&H now. Do have a Merkel K1 in 300 Win mag coming in soon.

The 338 RUM is a different story. I will probably always have that one. I purchased two Senderos when the RUMs first came out. One in 300 Rum, the other in 338 RUM. I kept the 338. Later sent it to Hill Country rifle to be Accurized and Braked. It's a shooter. I load the 225 gr. Nosler Partitions and the 210 gr. Barnes TSX for elk country.


Most of the stuff in Texas is 300 lbs and under. I started out with 180 Gr. Ballistic tips around 3,400 fps. My longest shot to date with that is a whitetail doe at a laser ranged 590 yds. It has been my experience however that MV's above 2,800 fps do considerable meat damage at 100 yds. and under. Being a meat hunter more so than a trophy hunter, most of the game I kill is 200 yds. and under.

I realize that Nosler makes a .338 cal, 200 gr. Accubond, but I was able to purchase a good supply of the 200 Gr. CT Ballistic Silvertips a while back and will most likely exhaust those before I switch to the Accubonds.



My go to load for the 338 RUM is the 200 Gr.CTBST's over 95 gr. IMR 7828, Fed 215M primers, 3.650 COAL. Gives +/- 3,180 fps. according to my chrono. I've a Leupold VX-III, 4.5 X 14 X 40 with the B&C reticule. The subtensions on that reticle line up perfectly with a 200 yd. zero. It is 1" high at 100 yds. Dead on at 200, and first subtension, dead on at 300.

The 338 RUM Sendero is not seeing as much action these days, but I did break it out last fall.
A couple targets of opportunity.

The Auodad ewe at +/- 265 yds.




The whitetail doe at +/- 310 yds.


Even at those ranges there was blood shot meat.

FWIW, the 200 gr. CTBST does not appear to be a frangible bullet. I�ve shot quite a few animals with those and have always had pass throughs. No recoveries.

Oh,

Need at least one dead hog. Wouldn�t be right not to include that.


Best

GWB