Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 338-06 and 225 gr. Accubonds.

My 338-06 has a 21 in shaw barrel. My first load to work up was a 250 gr. sgk at 2500 and a 240 North Fork same mv. I am now working on a 225 accu. and was hoping for 2700 mv for that. Both the sgk and nf bullets produced the 2500 with 56.6 gr. 4451.
So far I am at 2560, more or less, with 62 gr. Stabil 6.5 and 57.6 of 4451. I have Hornaday, Winchester, and RP cases and am only using the cci 250 primers. I can go a little hotter on each of those loads but not much, according to the primers.
I have varget, H4350, IMR4350, A4350, Hunter, R19, to play with and will be trying some varget loads next.
Any suggestions? Is the 21 in. barrel too short to get to 2700?

I load rifles all over the map, getting the full use out of them... I find a lot of things out doing so...

I look at the utility of a rifle...


one thing I can pass onto you concerning the 338/06... I've noticed you have a lot of velocity turning up in the 2500 fps range... your barrel is 3 inches shorter than my 24 inch one...

in all of my handloading on the round... I have found one thing to make a 338/06 easy....

IMR 4064.. a 50 grain charge... no matter if using a 200 grain bullet, 225, 250 or any other in between.. ALL have an MV of 2500 fps out of my barrel.
and the point of impact at a 100 yds at the extremes, is only an inch of two apart... still plenty for minute of deer etc. right up to moose or elk...

recoil noticeably starts picking up beyond that velocity of other powder charges.. regardless of bullet weights..

I personally have found this to be awfully handy....

if you are looking at wanting higher velocities, the powders you have listed that you have, are too slow for the 338/06... the neck opening is getting too wide, which reduces pressure... if you want higher velocity.. look at the mid range powders...

I can recommend two choices..

1. look at powders you'd typically use in a 223... the 338/06 is pretty much a big copy of a 223 case..
2. Reference 35 Whelen data... see the burn rate of powders that are used in that cartridge... that is what I learned to start doing..

Like with a 200 grain bullet, I can get 2950 fps MV out of mine... but that is using either 4895s or RL 15....NOT 4350 and slower...
a real sleep powder for that cartridge for max velocity and accuracy is the old H 380... you can't get enough in a case to exceed SAAMI specs.
and you don't need a mag primer in it...

Varget is an excellent choice for the 338 06.

Big Game is one I haven't tried but will run some tests this off season to see how it performs. I have high hopes for this powder.

H4350 did not give good accuracy and the ES in my velocities was over 70 FPS, so I quickly moved away from it.

Varget is my favorite for my 338-06's.

Have messed around with 4064, big game, 4451 and Rel 15.