Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 300 WIN or 338 WIN for elk?

The opinion that I liked best was the one where the man had unlimited hunting opportunities and his choice of firearms and left the 338 at home and took the .300's.

Now I have hunted and used them all and the one thing that I have found is that there is no real comparison between the 300 Winchester Magnum and the 30-06.

Comparing light magnum loads for the 30-06 to a standard round 300 Winchester Magnum - the 300 Winchester magnum will run circles around the 30-06. The velocity of the bullet at 200+ yards is still faster then the 30-06 at the end of the barrel with the same bullet. So when you compare apples to apples - there is no reason for me to believe that you need anything more then a .300 Winchester Magnum.
It was a great gun in 1962 when it came out and it is still a great gun today.

My only problem with the analogy of using the short magnum over the standard length magnum is that I believe that the short magnum was nothing more then a gimmick and that if you buy one - you are wasting your money. It does not do anything that the standard length magnum doesn't do and the standard length ammo does it cheaper.
I honestly believe that it is was nothing more then just a fad that was created by the gun manufacturers to sell more guns. If I was a professional gun writer and you put bread in my pocket to praise the new short magnum and you gave me a rifle to keep and a couple of cases of ammo to use - I would sing from the highest roof how great it was and how it knocked the poop out of this, that and the other. BUT
In a couple of years - and I mean this literally - you will see the production of the ammo phased out and the people who bought the rifles and does not reload will all be left SOL - paying $50 a box for regular factory loads.

I saw the same thing happen 36 years ago when Winchester stopped making ammo for their .220 Swift and the only manufacturer to continue making the ammo was NORMA and you paid 5 times as much for one box of .220 Swift ammo as you did for the best ammo for a .270 or 30/06 in 1974....
Just 10 years after Winchester stopped making the model 70 in .220 Swift.

Because multiple manufacturers came out with similar rounds at the same time the confusion between the similar rounds (with different names) and the price factor is enough that you cannot walk into any store in any town in any state and say I would like to buy a box of 180 gr - Winchester Short Magnum / Remington Ultra Mag ammo and buy it like a can of soup or a loaf of bread.
That was the classic example between those two rounds and the stuff they came out with today.
As more and more MOM and POP grocery - general stores goes out of business and as more and more retail giants like Walmart comes to town, many old or obsolete rounds will fall by the way side just simply due to the fact that if the store does not carry the round you are looking for - you will either carry something else or resort to online sales of ammo to fill your ammo belt every year for a couple of days of rifle hunting.

Also - in my opinion - there is no weight savings between the two rounds - one is just shorter then the other.

But as long as some dumb gun writer says that this is what you need and this is how much it should weigh and this is how much pull you need in your trigger etc - people will buy into the hype and will believe that unless they have the latest and greatest rounds and guns that they cannot kill a deer, bear, elk, moose etc.
Meanwhile- the people who lives there and hunts them not for the sake of trophy's - but to fill their freezers will continue to shoot just as many if not more then you - with a old 30-30, .270 - 30/06 or 300 Winchester Magnum - not because they are poor and can't afford nothing better - but because it worked for their grand parents, their dad and for them and that they know that it is more important which design of bullet they use then the caliber of rifle that they use to harvest their game from year to year.

In the grand scheme of things - there is not all that much difference between a hole in a Elk's lungs that is .308 in diameter or one that is .338 (dead is dead).

Take whichever you can shoot the best the Elk won't be able to tell the difference if you hit him in the right place.

Daniel_Boone,

I don't know where you get the statistics for:

"Comparing light magnum loads for the 30-06 to a standard round 300 Winchester Magnum - the 300 Winchester magnum will run circles around the 30-06. The velocity of the bullet at 200+ yards is still faster then the 30-06 at the end of the barrel with the same bullet."

Nobody makes anything called a "light magnum" load for the .30-06 anymore. Hornady does make a Superperformance load, with the 180-grain bullet listed at 2820 fps, for a 200-yard velocity of 2443 fps.

The standard .300 Winchester Magnum 180-grain load has a muzzle velocity of 2960 fps, for a 200-yard velocity of 2400-2600, depending in the bullet used. That isn't even the muzzle velocity (2700 fps) of the standard 180-grain .30-06 load at the muzzle.

I agree with you about the .30-30, .270, etc. but your math and logic when comparing the .30-06 and .300 Winchester is totally screwy.

I think it all comes from Duquesne ...

There's nothing like developing ballistic statistics from beer.

Aw shucks (grin)...

No worries I'll get you back...when you finally get that Mashburn built..

Now that would be shock and awe..<g>

Dober

I have used and loaded the 300 Win Mag over the years and i have found you have to pick your powder wisely to get the 300 WM to do what it was designed for, give the 30 cal bullet more vel in a standard length action. Rel 22 is a powder that will make the 300 WM walk on the 30-06 especially when bullet weight reaches 180 gr and heavier. The high energy loads in the 06 may come close but they never reach the potential of the 300 WM in my experience.

Strongly disagree. I am a huge 300 win mag fan, but there is something I really like about having nearly the same performance in a lightweight short action rifle. Although, if you are not a handloader...stick with the 300WM. I really like the SAUM vs the WSM, so you really do need to handloader in my case. If you were to shoot/handle my custom Rem700 7SAUM and 300SAUM, you may agree that these are no gimmicks

Mule Deer - Daniel Boone sounds alot like our old "friend" Larry aka bosslady, oldman, ect.


ddj

The 338 winchester is the best elk rifle of these two. For large big game I like 338 and bigger.

Funny, I was thinking he sounds a lot like Duquensebeer.

Trick question for fun and shnizzles,and older guys on here will remember its' origins:

"If it takes a 338 and 250 gr of bullet to kill a 700 pound bull elk,how much bullet weight and bore diameter does it take to kill a 14,000 elephant?"

Hmm?

Easy as it gets scoop of vanilla scoop of rum raisen...

.270 and a 130 Bitterroot of course my friend

Dober

Dober I suspect that would woik!

My vote would be for the 300wsm. Loaded my son Winchester mod. 70 300wsm with Nosler 200gr. Accubond with 68.0grs. of IMR 7828ssc and chronographed average of 2874fps.

105 mm howitzer for the elephant. I like to make sure he's dead so I don't get stomped. Really, I think the 50 bmg is better than either of these two for elk. But you got to have the right bullets to make the 50 a big enough gun. Those elk get tougher every year as the riflemakers keep making bigger stuff to kill them with. I don't know why I even bothered 35 years ago trying to kill elk with my 30-06. Amazingly I did manage to kill every elk I shot at with that '06. I must have just been lucky I guess. All I can figure is the gun makers did a study and the elk got way tougher through the years. But I figure if I can't kill it with an '06 and Barnes bullets I need to be running instead of shooting.

How so?

So what would you use your 30-06 or The 338 winchester is the best elk rifle of these two. For large big game I like 338 and bigger which you said a couple posts before?

Of your two choices I'll take the 300wm everytime,it's a cartridge that is hard to find fault in,they shoot flat,extremley accurate in a well built rifle,and hits hard, whats not to like!