Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Round nose and overall length

I've noticed that I had around 7 boxes of the Hornady .338 250gr RN in my inventory. That's 700 bullets on top of the 200, 210, and 225gr ones I have.

Since this old bullet was used back in the day for the 338 win and 340 WBY would it be safe to assume it may well work fine for my 338RCM? I'm assuming that it might be a good fit for that because it's a bit more compact being a round nose form and that's good news for a short action. I've not tried this before but it seems like this may be sufficient for 300yds and closer. Shouldn't I make use of these roundnose since I already own them? Why not? Seems like they might be a good match up.

Why not use them? Under 300yds, it won't make much difference and lots of those old RNs are good shooters.

I have a bunch of 180gr RNs that are going through my 308 for the same reason along with some 220s for my 300H&H.

The high BC guys will be along shortly to berate you for such low tech gear. Pay them no heed.

Run them. If they shoot I can’t see you not liking how they work. If you don’t like them, it’s easy enough to send them down the road these days.

You might have to seat them deeper depending on the gun. I had some 180 grain Hornady RN loaded up for my 7600 30-06 but when I tried to chamber them in my Browning X-Bolt they wouldn't go in. I wound up re-seating them .030" deeper.

I like the heavier weight but I like the fact that I bought these at pre freak show prices. I've been using more modern bullets but I am wanting to try these in a short action and would be fine when I'm running my iron sights or optics when bear hunting.

I'll take some/all of them at a reasonable price if you don't want them.

I was in the same fix years ago with about 50 H250RN that came with the used .338WM. The original owner could not get that factory standard "POS Ruger77" - his words - to shoot well., so the rifle and his leftover components/dies went down the road to me. A little tweaking and it proved "acceptable" - to me, anyway.

One day I threw together "junk loads", without workup, just to get rid of those butt-ugly H250RN. Brass was shoulder-sized, barely. A pox on those belts!

At 100 yards the first 3 went into an inch. 9 for 9 went into an inch and a quarter "same hole". That one damned flyer!

I decided they were good enough for moose hunting, ugly or not. And did, twice. I still have 31? of them.

I should hunt that gun again....

Same thing - only better, happened with some fewer 250 GK bullets that also came with the rifle. GK had a rep for being "soft", and "come-apart". so..... I did not find them to be so.

Danged things go into an inch, + -, at 200 yards. Not as many as the RN, and I did hunt them for several years. I'm saving those last 3, which print 3" higher at 100 than the RN the rifle is now sighted in for.

I should note that moose at 100 yards, plus or minus, just aren't that hard to hit properly......

I came real close to taking that rifle caribou hunting this fall - average shot on caribou is about 300 yards for me. Those RN would do fine - probably less meat damage than the 150 gr '06 Corelokts I've been using the last few years.

Can't help you with the OAL thing, tho.

That's all and old friend used in his .338 Win. Mag. He liked them for lung shooting moose in the thick stuff that our Kenai moose hang out in. He also ran them past 300 yards a couple of times, with and old Leupold 4X scope with a Duplex reticle.