Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Sierra 338 cal 215 GK?

Any opinions on this bullet if ran at 3000 fps or so? Will it be good for elk or not?

I have read where it came apart, and on the flip side, it did not expand at all?

Any experiences?

Stick to 225 or 250 gr. Those are near perfect for the caliber, and the game in that caliber. MY opinion.. YMMV.

I used the 215 SGK for some time in my 338 Win Mag. I think I hunted about 50 animals with them including springbok, gemsbok, blue wildebeest, black wildebeest and kudu. I had one not open on an oryx (gemsbok). The bullet went trough the head (culling) and impact velocity was around 2450 fps. Found the bullet in the spine where it entered the animal again and it looked like a hollow point version of the bullet. Think I could probably have loaded and shot it again

Sierra said the impact velocity was too slow for that bulllet although the other animals were shot at similar distance. I did stop using that bullet after it not expanding as it would have been very problematic of it was for instance a lung shot. I am now using 250gr Berger elite hunters and 225 TTSx in my 338 Win Mags. Both produce regular sub 1/2" groups and perform well on game. I got the elite hunters to shoot with various jumps from almost 5mm to almost touching the lands. The G7 BC on the elite hunters is around .351 which is almost as good as it gets when you would like to shoot long range as well.

Sorry for going off topic but I have about $1200 worth of 338 bullets lying around as I tested just about any 338 bullet there was and these two were by far the most consistent of all the bullets I tried. The ttsx was the easiest of all to shoot with various charges.

Thanks guys

When I spoke to Sierra they stated they were designed for the 338 WM. They stated the 338-06 was too slow. That didn't really make sense to me as you don't have to shoot very far for the bullet to slow to -06 velocities. I can say they are a very robust bullet. They took the 250gn GK and simply trimmed off the tip so the jacket is unusually thick at the tip on the 215. My issues were with it not expanding at all. Drilled right through a lot (2-3 feet) of dry magazines and at least 4-5' of soil before I gave up digging. No other bullet made it through the paper including 225 Partitions and Accubonds, 210 and 185 TTSXs, and a myriad of others. I shot two GKs into the media out of a 338-06 and results were identical. I believe the test is part of the problem, and that with fluids (even damp paper), it would have possibly expanded. But I'm interested in the real results of others, like M77, as they did shoot quite well.