Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game .338-06 Brown bear bullet

How are you guys getting 2800 fps from a .338-06 with 210 PT, 24 inch barrel? I'm barely getting 2700 with mine, which has a 22 inch barrel.

Billy, in the photo, was a very big guy, quarterback at UConn and pitcher, well over six feet and very broad. Those deer IIRC came from the West side of Kodiak, fairly far south. That is out of the trees and the deer are much larger out there than in the heavy forest.

Crime scene for sure!

(You can always tell something's fishy when the hands and feet have been tampered with or removed. Thank God for DNA these days!)

We leave them like that for the whole hunt and skin and cut up in town. They are left on "stringers" over the side in saltwater. Very little meat touches the water and the blood is cleaned up nicely.

Makes it tougher for the Troopers to make a positive ID, for sure.

Like hanging them from rafter ends at a cabin!

Hey Teeder, H-380 is your friend with the 210's, and yes, my barrel is 24"s, let me know if you want the load recipe.

Gunner

MuskegMan,

Here are some quotes from your posts on .338 bullets:

“180 or 210 TTSX. Run the 210 TTSX or 250 NPT in my Winny when gunning for Brownies.”

”73.o gr H4831SC with 250 partition.”

“I've captured quite a few .338/250 partitions in our Sitka BT's, so I doubt they'd pass thru a brownie. I'd want full penetration if at all possible. This leads you to the TSX/TTSX, or failsafe (good luck finding them).”

Not trying to argue. Just suspect you mis-typed when writing you've "captured" quite a few 210 Partitions in Sitka BT's, rather than 250's?

"If" it were me I'd use the 250 NPT and a max. load of H-4895 in my HVA and get as close as I could and shoot him in the "grapefruit" as many times and as fast as I could, which is pretty fast w/the 6 rounds that would be in it (5 down and 1 up).-Muddy

So you pull them around in the water for a few days? Am I reading that right?

If that is so it is an interesting way to keep them. I've always heard that you shouldn't wash game with freshwater because it spreads the bacteria around. I suppose salt water is different and up there it's probably cold enough to keep the meat very well.

Anything in the sea ever nibble on them?

I like the idea of using a 250 gr. bullet more than bullets in the 210-225 gr. range, for the greater penetration. Nosler makes a 250 gr. Accubond -- what do you think of that choice? I can drive it to 2500 fps.

I caught a 150TTSX in a SBT at 30 yards lengthwise. Found under the hide which suffered no damage. That's the only TSX I've caught in anything else I've shot with that.308...including Elk.

Trying to type on a brand new laptop with Windows10 and hating every second of it!

I pull them in to cruise, but mostly we leave the boat in one spot and skiff around. We have left many in the water for over a week.

A river otter decided to claim one once... it will not be a mistake he can repeat... another guy anchored way too shallow and the sea lice hollowed a leg.

We did it the first time because we got some ridiculous cold and wanted to keep them from freezing. It worked so well it became SOP. Lots of people do it now.

I have seen a number of 338WM 210gr X bullets exit a huge Kodiak brown bear lengthwise.

I have seen 4 270gr Accubonds shot into a big Kodiak bear broadside and none made it through. And they did make 270gr Accubonds in 375 according to the folks at the Nosler booth at SHOT. I have yet to see an Accubond of any flavor make an exit wound. That is with a small sample of about 30-40 of them so far.

That's excellent information Sitka. How did the bears react to the Accubonds that didn't pass through?

They died!

But, they had been shot first with the 270gr TSX first.

To be clear, my dissatisfaction with the Accubond is the fact I insist on complete penetration on brown bears. The downrange leak is generally bigger than the entrance leak and I want BP to drop ASAP and secondarily, failing that, I want a generous blood trail.

Bears are not big-boned, the bone is relatively soft, and muscle is pretty much all water. Bullets can find their way through bears pretty easily, IME.

That is not to say bear bones are not extremely tough and quite flexible. Bears evolved to withstand huge blows from other bears and a little give is probably critical to their survival. Bullets were not part of their R&D.

If I were using my 338-06 on big bears it would likely be with a 210 or 225 Partition. If using the TTSX, I'd drop to 185. I think they kill a little better going faster and opening wider. In mine the 225s run a little over 2600. Just picked up some IMR 4451 to try with 210 Partitions.

Note: I contacted Hodgdon and they do have load data for IMR 4451 and the 338-06. Not yet in their online guide though.

Just curious has anyone seen a brownie live an unusually long amount of time on a lung shot?

One of mine did; not an unusually long time,just typical for a lung shot animal under a full load of adrenalin,and long enough to travel (I dunno) maybe 75-80 yards. But in that time it was back in the alders and forest blowdowns.

They are fast....unbelievably fast....a blur. Far faster than we comprehend. And through heavy cover,too.They make a deer or elk look sluggish and slow by comparison and in those few seconds it takes for them to expire from a lung shot,they can get into knarly cover and that's where mine headed.

This happened because I was a dumb bear hunter,did not understand grizzly anatomy,and hit right where I wanted, which was too high on the first shot. I got lucky and got the second in the lungs. You have to hit them very precisely IME and with an eye to holding them where they are if you can.

Agree with Art that lots of blood on the ground is reassuring. I had a LOT from the375- 270 NPT,more than I had ever previously seen from an animal hit with a rifle.

I have seen a number of them live far longer than expected with significant lung damage.

In 2012 a friend killed a huge bear in Uganik Bay with me and we hit it repeatedly full length with 210gr TTSX from the 338WM and 270gr TSX from the 375AI. It is the single most ridiculous example of a tenacious animal I have ever seen. Punched through the center coming and going seven times with complete pass-throughs...

He was a really big bear... he was chasing a little piece of sow up the mountain and objected to our interest in their tryst...