Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Question for Mule Deer and others: .338 200 Grain Accubond performance?

I've read Mule Deer's comments about the effectiveness of lighter bullets in the .338 Win Mag and I'm thinking about loading some 200 grain Accubonds to use for hunting elk and possibly moose. I've had good luck with Accubonds in 7mm and .30 caliber but I have no experience with them in .338. I was thinking I might try loading them at around 2800-2900 fps to keep recoil down.

I would like to hear how these bullets perform on elk and other larger American game from folks who have used them for that purpose. The other possibility I've considered would be to go with 210 grain partitions if they provide significantly better penetration.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience.

In my experience, the 200-grain ABS shot a little tighter groups in the two rifles in which I have used them: a Ruger No.1 .338 Win Mag and a custom Mauser in a version of the .338-06 Improved. It was also easier and quicker to find a sub-MOA load at or near the velocities that I desired.

I have taken only one elk with the .338 200-grain AB. As nearly as I could tell, it penetrated and performed virtually identically to the .308 200-grain in a .300 WSM. Both expanded, doing lots of internal organ damage resulting in one-shot kills. Both bullets exited, so neither was recovered.

The .338 Wln Mag was traded year before last, but the 200 AB remains my preferred bullet for elk in the .338 Howell.

bowmanh,

I haven't taken any game bigger than deer and pigs with the 200 Accubond, where of course it worked fine. But have taken plenty of game up to elk size in both North America and Africa with the 200-grain Ballistic Tip, which is the unbonded version of the AB, and it's always worked fine, including penetrating from the right shoulder to under the skin of the left ham on a big gemsbok bull.

When Nosler decided to create a bonded, tipped bullet, they started by bonding already existing Ballistic Tips. Then they shot the BT's and AB's into the same media to compare penetration. With some bullets there wasn't any difference between the BT and AB of the same diameter and weight, so they didn't bother making an AccuBond of that size. If the AB version penetrated deeper, they started producing it, indicating the 200 AB was a winner in the tests.

In my own penetration tests with the very first 200-grain Ballistic Tips, they penetrated 90% as deeply as 210 Partitions in dry newspaper. My guess would be the 200 AB's would penetrate somewhere in between those two bullets--but would also guess the 210 Partition would occasional pop through the offside hide when the other two (with their wider mushroom) might not.

I killed one elk with the 200 gr. Accubond and one with the 225 Accubond out of my .340... Both were found on the off side perfectly expanded..

Thanks for the information John! The story about the origin of the Accubond and the testing process that occurred with Ballistic Tips is an interesting one. Based on your observations and those of mudhen and WyoCoyoteHunter it sounds like the 200 grain .338 Accubond should work fine on elk. I've killed a couple of elk with the 180 grain .30 caliber Accubond out of a 30-06 and a .300 Win Mag and they both gave one shot kills with good penetration. I think I'll give it a go and work up some loads.

Thanks to everyone for the input!

Best of luck.. I think you will be satisfied.. I have killed several more elk with Accubonds in my .300's all worked fine, but you ask about the .338..

Bow, A good friend of mine has killed several Elk with his .325 WSM and 200 gr. AB's, by far his favorite bullet. Muddy

FWIW, but the 200gr BT and 210gr Partition have been the only bullets I've used out of my 338 Win Mag. I've killed a couple head more with the Partition, but not alot. Interestingly enough, I've caught more Partitions in critters than I have BTs, which I have never caught. Both have worked super for me on everything from pronghorn to bull elk. I imagine the 200gr Accubond would fit in right with those two performance wise.

Here are my test results with the 200 gr AB from my 338 RUM.


JD338

JD338, was the media water jugs for these? They look good. This bullet is what I'm thinking of running for elk next year. A tad bit slower though, say 2650ish. Your 300, is about what I'd be seeing on a <100yd shot.