Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Help From Those of You With .338 WM Experience

I’ve owned two 338s, a blue-and-walnut Browning Safari and a stainless Ruger M77 in a Bell & Carlson stock. I’ve put maybe 400 rounds through them. I’ve killed a whopping ONE animal—a Roosevelt bull elk—with the Browning and nothing with the Ruger, so take my comments with that in mind.

I agree that lightweight magnums are a step in the wrong direction, but there are ways you can make it work.

The first is load choice. People say that the 338/250 matches the 30-06/180, which is true if you go by velocity. Going by sectional density, a .308” 180-grain bullet matches a 220-grain .338 bullet, and a 250-grain .338” bullet matches a 210-grain .308” bullet. Cutting the 338’s bullet weight to 225 grains won’t hurt anything, especially with today’s bullets, plus it cuts recoil considerably and gives you another 150 fps or so.

Second is the stock and recoil pad. My Ruger weighed about eight pounds scoped and my Browning weighed nine. I never hunted the Ruger, but I wanted the Browning to be a pound lighter when I was carrying it and a pound heavier when I was shooting it.

The Ruger was in a Bell & Carlson stock with a big, squishy recoil pad, which did a superb job of mitigating recoil. The Browning was in this walnut stock:



The Browning’s stock design didn’t mitigate recoil like the B&C so it kicked harder with the same load despite being a pound heavier. Also, the Browning’s recoil pad was over 50 years old, and it turned hard as a rock outside in cold weather.

I agree with the folks who say that you should stick with your 300 WSM if it shoots well. I see no need for 200-grain bullets unless you want to use a cup-and-core design. I also see no need to go heavier than a 180-grain Partition or a 165-grain TTSX. Plenty of folks hammer elk with lighter loads every year, but I’d feel good about either of those.

With all of this in mind, I’ll probably do the rest of my elk hunting with a 30-06. About the only way I’d get another 338 is if I go to Alaska. That rifle will be a stainless Model 70 in a McMillan stock with a 22” barrel. Ideally, it will weigh about 8.5 pounds loaded, scoped, and ready to go. It will be loaded with 225-grain ammo and will have the mother of all recoil pads.


Okie John

My experience with my 338's is stock design is everything, IMO. I have a customized Pre 64 338 with a 22" barrel that carries very well and is a great shooter. Nice wood stock that was a club when I bought the rifle and my gunsmith at the time reshaped it to be a very nice looking piece. The stock on that rifle is very comfortable to shoot with stout loads and I've never had a problem with shooting from the bench with it- my personal test for how a rifle feels and recoil tolerance. My second 338 is a Classic Win 70 Stainless. The original factory tupperware stock was okay, but not great. Okay for load work up from the bench, but got pretty old after 30-40 shots. I put a Mcmillan swirly stock on it that I had laying around and it feels like a completely different rifle. Much stiffer stock than the factory plastic, but a slightly better stock design and handles the recoil much better and more comfortable to shoot from the bench, bipod, in the field, and offhand.
My son has laid claim to my Pre 64, which is fine with me- I really enjoy carrying and shooting my Classic and it has accounted for a number of elk since I've had it. Personally, I see a completely different level of impact when shooting elk with the .338WM over the 300, 30-06 and other rifles I've used and my son and brother have said the same thing when they have been present when I've killed elk with them. I load 225 Hornadies for target practice and 225 Partitions and Aframes for game and they all shoot to the same point of aim. A stout load of H4831 takes care of pushing them along with CCI 250 primers. Both these rifles shoot the same load into well under an inch when I do my part. Longest two shots on elk were 525 yards and 600 yards and they went down like you would expect. Up close is just plain dramatic when hit in the boiler room or shoulders . You might say I'm a fan....

Bob

What shape McSwirly did you use?

Can't remember for sure. I bought this stock and one other way back when Rick used to have access to Mcmillan seconds and it set in the shop for a very long time. I actually forgot I had it until I was cleaning up the shop one day and found it. It had some white lightweight epoxy type material in the action cut out and barrel channel due to it being a second. But it did come with a recoil pad and sling swivels Had to inlet it and do some glass bedding but it works great. I believe it was a Model 70 style if I remember correctly.

Bob

I've had several 338's & it's a great round & easy to load for.

Take your time & find a Remington Custom Shop KS Mountain Rifle or a Custom Shop Alaskan.

Both are discontinued, but if you can wait a bit, they do come up for sale from time to time.

Just understand that light 338's will beat you up & are hard on scopes.

MM

Weatherby did chamber the Mark V in .338 Winchester in the 1st US series Mark V with the SB serial numbers. I have one.
John

Pretty pleased with mine, a Shilen DGA, McMillan stock, 8#s all up.............. I think there might be a CF member that would like to have it if/when I 'move on' as it were........... he has expressed interest!

shoots everything from 210s to the Barnes 300grn Originals, not too picky about powders. Does not like Barnes X-Bullets.

Wood stocked Mod 700 in 7 Mag. is a beast on my shoulder, not the Shilen..............

I don't know about your end of the pond, but for me in Alaska there is nothing better than the .338WM with bullet weights from 210 at the lightest, to a 275-grain A-Frame from close-range hunting. But for me the best do-all bullet is the 225-grain 3-Shock X Tipped.

My favorite .338WM rifle this year is a Ruger Hawkeye African model, but not the one Ruger shows on its online catalog. The one I have does not have a muzzle brake, and has a 22" barrel. Other than that, it looks exactly like the "African" models.

Since the wood stock is quite nice, I put it away and bought a synthetic McMillan Classic one with a Decelerator recoil pad. Before I ordered the stock, I had a gunsmith friend of mine measuring my LOP, so McMillan built the stock with the right LOP to include the recoil pad length. However, I did not want a light .338WM, so I kept it heavy around 8 pounds. What I like about this rifle other than being a good-shooter is that the shorter barrel makes it easy to point or to bring on target.

This one, but without a muzzle brake:
http://www.ruger.com/products/HawkeyeAfrican/specSheets/47120.html

I’d take a 338 WM over a 300 WM at anytime. And as for hunting elk specifically, I’d take a 270, 308, or 30-06 over 300 WM as well. If I thought I needed the range I would use a 7mm Rem Mag.

I shoot a Ruger .338 for all my big game hunting up here, unless it's winter time caribou.

Sheister! Good to see you are still with us! I’ve either “not” seen your posts or you haven’t posted in quite a while. Whatever the case....welcome back! memtb

I have shot out 2 barrels on my 338 WM Kimber 8400. My last barrel was something similar to a #4 which is heavier than the factory tube. I think the 338 WM barrel lasts longer than the 300 barrel which is a benefit. In the end I used 3 different bullets(tried just about every 338 bullet out there): 185GMX, 225 TTSX and 250gr Bergers. Each of those are good enough to kill just about anything. The 185GMX worked well for culling as it shoots really flat out to 300. The 225 TTSX is a great all rounder with decent BC at around 2850fps and the 250 Berger at 2700fps and a G7 BC of .351 is great for long range. I think the 250 berger in the 338 WM gets overlooked as a long range combo. The Kimber stock is good for recoil. I shoot mine with and without a suppressor depending on type of hunt I am doing. Recoil for the 3 bullets are very different and bullet choice can reduce recoil if it bothers you.

I know when shot placement is good, most cartridges can do the job, but we are humans and humans screw up from time to time. With that in mind, if it is one of those screw up days and the bullet flies through the edge of the vital zone, I might just prefer it to be a 338 cal bullet.

Regardless of how effective the cartridge might be, it is expensive to shoot. It might not be as expensive in the US but when you shoot a lot and you pay more or less double the price for bullets compared to 30 cal it does ad up.

Back in the mid-80's the 338 WM was widely touted as the perfect all rounder for North America and beyond. Since then I've had two, a Rem. 700 "Classic" and I had a custom built on a Sako AV action with a Shilen barrel and a laminated Sako stock; it's no light weight but it does shoot.
I've shot most bullets from the 200 gr. up to the old 275 gr. Speer (I think I still have a box of those on the bench) and settled on 225 Gr bullets for most of my hunting (Hornady for practice and Partitions/ original TBBC's for hunting).
After hunting and shooting with the 338 WM for thirty years it's been a long love affair; it's accurate, shoots flat enough to kill elk at 400 yards and stun moose at 100 yards, recoil is manageable and for me the rifle/cartridge combo has been lucky.
My current rifle weighs 9.5 lbs all up with Warne rings, Leupold 2-7X, sling and 4 rounds of ammunition; when I was in my late 20's it wasn't heavy, now as approach 60 it feels like I'm humping the "Pig" (M-60) again. I need to restock it, that should lighten it up some as those old laminates are a bit heavy.
If you want a 338 WM, get one.
May you have as much fun with it as I have.

StarchedCover

So, at 300 yards the .30-06 just falls from the sky? Please enlighten us.

The ballistic tables I've seen show that it at 600 yards the difference in trajectory between the 30-06 and the 300WSM is less than six inches and there is slightly more than 100 foot pounds difference in energy. I'm thinking that is much ado about nothing.

Agree.

There that. And the fa t that elk are not going to walk off after a properly placed hit from a "7mm".

I just had to scratch the 338WM itch. Used one for a year or two until I realised for killing stuff my 30-06 was as effective and a whole lot more pleasant to shoot!

I sent the .338 down the road. My biggest now is a 9.3x62 which pretty much fills the same niche with a little less bark and bite in a smaller and handier package.

I know I'm just wasting my time. But when I started my original post I asked for opinions from those that have experience .338 wm. Somehow how the .270, .280, and 30-06 owners with no .338 wm experience need to get there opinion in. I notice the 30-06 guys always have to chirp in about the 30-06. I agree that the 30-06 is a great caliber I've owned them but really have no need for them as I own a number of guns and for me the 30-06 is a tweener meaning it fits in between the calibers I have. The die hard 06 guys will tell you it's the only caliber you need, or if you can only own one gun get the 06. Well I'm hear to tell ya that there are many great calibers to choose from and the 06 is definitely not a do everything caliber. There is no such thing.

If I could only choose one gun I would take the .300 wsm hands down. Why? Well here is goes. If I want to shoot a 180 bullet at the speed of an 06 I can do that using slightly more powder, slightly. Same is true with the 200 grain bullet. I don't know if you would even be able to tell the difference in recoil. If I put two identical guns next to each other and you were to shoot each, I don't think most would be able to pick which gun was which. Short cartridges are inherit-ably more accurate than long cartridges. Short cartridges are not as dependent on the length of the barrel to produce speed. Good example of these are the .300 wm and 7mm rem mag. These two caliber in most rifles will come in a 26 inch barrel length and it because of the length of the cartridge. The .308 win is so revered because of it's short cartridge, it's easy to load for, has great accuracy (just look at the competition shooters), and it's recoil is light. Same is true for wsm's. The wsm came about as there was one guy who developed the cartridge and was winning so many accuracy competitions. Because short cartridges are so accurate it allows you to shoot a wider verity of bullets and powder while achieving good accuracy. Longer cartridges are more bullet and powder picky narrowing your choices. I could go on but I thinks that enough.

In the chart I put together I used the Nosler reloading data for bullet speeds. I used Nosler Partition as it is the standard by which all bullets are measured, or so they say. I used the Speer manual for my calculations. When picking speed from the Nosler manual I used the highest bullet speed listed. We can argue all day about how much more powder we can safely load in our guns to get more speed but I'm not going there and neither should anyone else as exceeding max for a few feet per second isn't to smart. It is all relevant. I rounded the 06 up on 200 grain bullet by 32 feet per second and the .300 wsm mag 6 feet per second so numbers are slight higher, slightly for the 06 with this bullet.

According to Nosler there bullet needs to be going 1800 fps up to 3200 fps to work correctly. However 1800 is pushing it as I've seen some bullets recovered from 1800 fps and I would not myself shoot them at that low of speed. My opinion is 1900 fps at least for proper expansion and I think that it is pushing it. According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife minimum Pounds per foot to kill an elk is 1500 lbs so that is what I am basing my opinion on.

So looking at the data for the 06. With the 180 grain bullet at 400 yards the fps is 1965 which is 65 fps faster that what I think minimum is for needed expansion. Foot pounds is 1543 barely over the minimum suggested by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The 200 grain bullet is 1965 fps, again barley over the 1900 fps mark. Foot pounds are still adequate for elk at 1754. But because of expansion on the 200 grain I wouldn't shoot it at 400 yards for elk. This is why I consider the 30-06 a 300 yard cartridge for elk. I believe in ethics when killing animals so me I can't shoot the 06 at 400 yards for elk. Everybody has different ethics. Just watch the hunting shows if you want see a lot of unethical shooting. There are a few exceptions out there one of them being Jim Shockey. But please note that all of info I just based the 06 on is maximum speed. Very few are achieving these speeds with accuracy again why I say it is a 300 yard elk gun.

Now let's look at the .300 wsm at 500 yards. The 180 bullet is traveling at 2014 200 hundred fps faster than Noslers recommendation and 100 fps over my minimum. Foot pounds is 1622 which I think is pushing the ethical 1500 foot pounds recommended by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. However, the 200 grain bullet just shines at 500 yards. Fps is 2036 and foot pounds is 1841 which is well over the 1500 foot pounds recommend by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

I think these number prove my statements. The numbers don't lie.