Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .338-06 vs 35 Whelen vs 9.3x62

Finn Aagaard wrote an article for American Rifleman in the 1980s(?) that compared the performance of the 35 Whelen vs 338-06 vs the 30-06 (loaded with a 200 grain jacketed bullet).

Result?

The 30-06 loaded with a 200 grain jacketed bullet was as good as any of them, if not better. Can't remember if it was a Nosler Partition or Speer. My memory is ?like a steel trap, "old and rusty."

Findings were based on muzzle energy at various distances, trajactory, bullet ecpansion and penetration. I THINK there was some "real life" game performance in the article too. Typical high quality Finn Aagaard pragmatic reporting.

Bottom line? You may want to include the 30-06 loaded with a 200 grain jacketed bullet in your cartridge selection.

9.3X62 (and 9.3X74R and to a large extent the 9.3X57 also) The 9.3s all seem to have few week spots. If there was one thing I dislike about the 9.3MM is that in the lighter range of bullet weights they are very hard to find and as with all larger bore sizes, fairly expensive. One bullet that was the exception to the cost was the PPU 285 grain which seems to work extremely well to kill game, was easy to get (maybe not anymore) and in my four 9.3s they were accurate. Not the most accurate 9.3 bullet but shooting very close to MOA and in 1 gun a bit less then MOA, that's good enough to kill game with.

Finn Aagaard wrote an article for American Rifleman in the 1980s(?) that compared the performance of the 35 Whelen vs 338-06 vs the 30-06 (loaded with a 200 grain jacketed bullet).

Result?

The 30-06 loaded with a 200 grain jacketed bullet was as good as any of them, if not better. Can't remember if it was a Nosler Partition or Speer. My memory is ?like a steel trap, "old and rusty."

Findings were based on muzzle energy at various distances, trajactory, bullet ecpansion and penetration. I THINK there was some "real life" game performance in the article too. Typical high quality Finn Aagaard pragmatic reporting.

Bottom line? You may want to include the 30-06 loaded with a 200 grain jacketed bullet in your cartridge selection.

Have owned both 338-06 and 35 Whelen. You specifically ruled out big bears and confined your use within NA.

THEREFORE, forget both of those and get a 30/06.

For African use the 9.3-62 is by far the best choice as well as for use on “big bears” but you ruled both of those out.

RinB,

I agree 100%, if I am not using something, it goes down the road. None of my stuff owns me.

For plinkers and tinkerers the Whelen has 1 up on the others for being useful with mousefart loads and pistol bullets. Or pistol bullets at high speeds for varmints, or anything else imaginable. Mine is very accurate with cast bullets and it's a hoot to show up with it at the pistol club. Several threads on here have discussed these capabilities to the finest details by better scribes than me.

Before the bullet manufacturers forgot about somewhat obscure calibers I bought the Hornady 95gr Makarov bullets and loaded my various 9.3s with Trail Boss and the little jacketed pills. They were great in my older 9.3X72R guns and a lot of fun in the 9.3X74R and 9.3X62.

If you have a 9.3 and run across the Makarov bullets grab some.

Edit:

Graf has them, and I ordered some just now, the 95gr PRVI. They're virtually identical to the Hornadys I've been using.

Out of these three which is the best non-magnum medium bore if you had to pick one to use on all of the larger North American game, short of the big bears?