Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .338 Federal?

I've always been a little intrigued with the .338 Federal, and have been halfway looking for one since the round was introduced. Oddly enough, I've never come across a used one (or new that I can recall) in any of the local shops, so I kind of gave up. Well, Midway has been running a sale on their 185gr bonded soft points, so I ordered 5x boxes. Now I just have to find a rifle, brass, and dies! I'll probably end up ordering an Encore rifle barrel, but I have been considering rebarreling a short action 700.

Looks like it uses all the typical .308 powders, and seems that forming brass from .308 is relatively straightforward. Doesn't look like it would be hard on brass, and recoil should be tolerable at around 2600 fps. A 20" Encore would be a very compact setup, especially with a 1.75-6x Leupold or Burris!

For those who have experience with the .338 Federal, how do you like the round?

I don't own one, but I have made 7 of them for customers and all of them report very good results.
3 of them were made on AR10 style auto-loaders. Very good accuracy and the effects on game are very good.

I really hadn't considered the AR option, but would be an easy conversion...all you'd need is the barrel.

I have a close friend who is an outstanding hunter and who has at least thirty hunting rifles for different cartridges. The .338 Federal is his favorite rifle of the lot and he has it suppressed with an 18" barrel. With it he has killed many large red deer stags and they grow big in my neck of the woods (New Zealand) and numerous sika stags as well.

I’m having a 99 made into a 338 Federal, can’t wait to get it back. I have some 160 Barnes waiting on it to try. It should be fun to shoot.

Jason, The "History" of the 338 was in an AR-10 platform, guy in AK sheep hunting with a 308, taking the sheep out and saw a bear (or suspected a bear), he would feel more comfortable with something larger than 30 cal, thus the 338 Federal. So why not a 358 Winchester, because he worked for Federal and I guess decided to create a round that was already a wildcat and put Federal's name on it?

It's a great round, one of those that performs much better than the paper ballistics says it should. I've never seen a used one anywhere, Thinking of buying a 308 and having it re-barreled.

Like the 350 legend, I don't NEED one, but I really WANT one,

Hanco, Who's doing the work for you?

Great round! If your getting into hand loading for it the 160ttsx and the 210 partition are great bullets for all your hunting. I use benchmark for the 160ttsx and LVR for the 210. Performance on deer and elk have been excellent.

Pre-panic, how available was 338 fed at brick and mortar stores? I know it's easy to find online, just curious how "mainstream" it's become.

I have a Kimber 84 and these are the two bullets I load for my .338. I have shot a few deer with the 160s and they went right down. I loaded the 210s for bear but have not had a chance to use them.

I bought a .338 Fed in a stainless Ruger from someone on this site back in 2017 and really like it.

It is one of my picks for assembling a set of 3 rifle cartridges to cover the contiguous 48 States, the others being the 223 and 6.5 CM.

I have 3 stainless Rugers chambered for those 3 cartridges set up about the same, all three bedded in McM Hunter stocks, but with different scopes. The idea being that if they all have the same ergs, that they feel the same, moving between them won't cause any decrease in performance. It is a lot less expensive to practice with the 223 than with either the 6.5 CM or 338 FED.

i have only occassionally seen 338 FED factory ammo on dealers' shelves since I bought mine in 2017. I have only bought it from on-line sellers.

Why not the 160 for everything?

Retained weight will be as good and most likely higher than the Partition.

Here is one listed locally. I have no connections to the seller. Just passing on the information.

https://www.theoutdoorstrader.com/threads/fs-tikkka-t3-win-338-federal.2656174/#post-11971142

I have to say I like mine a lot even though I have only shot one deer with it so far. I had a new Winchester model 70 in 308 rebored to 338 and put it in a McSwirly stock.
Have been almost too busy building a house to hunt this year, but last year I took a very nice buck on my new property. It shoots very accurately with hand loads, especially the 200 grain Hornady Interlock. Last year’s buck was taken with a Federal factory loaded 200 grain fusion bullet. Dropped him in about 10 yards!
Do a little thread searching on the cartridge. There are a couple of very good conversation threads on here.
Here’s mine.

I have considered doing the exact same thing for a great elk and hog setup. With a Silencerco 36M, it really has my gears turning to do it.

i have a ruger frontier in 338 fed. it is my go-to gun for foul weather hunting. the 200gr fusion factory loads are DRT for deer and really accurate even with the short 16.5" barrel. i've had it for probably 10 years when i was on a quest to have every variation of the 308.

260 - how come only lower 48? 210 partition seems Alaska capable?

ctw on the fire

I have a Kimber Montana in 338 Federal with a 3X Leupold weighing in at less than 5.5 pounds.
I started with the 210 NP as that was available and I've stuck with it as the performance on bears and moose is just great.

That's the only way I'd build one.