Frankly...
After some experience guiding folks I can understand why the guides always hated guiding anybody with the 338. It was always a situation where hubris, inexperience, or basic failure caused problems... but they always seemed to happen with 338 shooters.
The shot was clearly bad...
The 338 produces a huge percentage of "bad" shots based on nothing more than excess recoil...
When clients got off the plane we would line up and try to get as much info as possible to influence the pairing of guide and hunter. Another old guide friend and I were talking about that just this evening. We hated anything over 30 caliber...
Yeah, we had hunters that could shoot them... but not many. The 338 is huge overkill for black bear. I have seen a bunch of 338 flinches and make no bones about saying few handle it well.
Location
Bullet
Nothing else matters...
Damn, Art! My .338 doesn't recoil as much as my '06's...
Of course, my Ruger .338 is Mag-Na-Ported, with 880 Decelerator pad, stick-on cheek piece (makes it fit me off-hand with the high mounts for the 3.5-10X scope- and ya, I know it's over-scoped...) and weighs in all tricked out at about 10 lbs. Other than glass bedding and the above, it's factory..
It's my short range, often off-hand, moose-hunting rifle in thick stuff/ brown bear country...but it's good to 500 or so, with a rest.. Ain't kilt nothing over 100 with it since I acquired it, except a couple caribou out of Barrow a few years back, at about 200... - besides, it's accurate....
As opposed to the also accurate OM Ruger '06 with the 17 inch barrel, otherwise mostly factory standard, which I commonly carry in high-country/ open tundra hunting - good to 400 or so - assuming I have a fair range estimation..
Only "failure" I've ever had with the .338 was when I forgot the bolt at home after cleaning it from the previous weekend's rainy hunt...
As a guide, I realize YMMV with DSMFs.., not that I ain't are one, but then I don't use guides..
But caliber never trumps placement.
