Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 338 fed 185 tsx-not expanding!!

185 TTSX from .338-06 they expand just fine






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Fantastic pics! Thanks for sharing, must have been one heck of an adventure to say the least.
I guess most were pass thru shots. What rifle & load combo were you using.

Cooper Excalibur .338-06 185TTSX over R-15

Some bullets are built to perform well in dry newsprint and sand, while others do best in animal tissue while hunting. I know newspaper is only worth shooting or wrapping dead fish in, but not the test of a hunting bullet.

Don't know about the tsx but my montana in 338 fed loves the 180 accubonds with RL15 or 8208XBR. The one deer I killed with this combo was a complete pass thru and the exit wound was pure devastation so I would say expansion was great.

ballistic gel / not dry paper is a far better method for seeing your bullets performance.

Bowandgun, how far was your shot, where did you hit it-any bone contact, how fast is your load(s)?
Reason I'm asking is because penetration on moose I shot, (posted above) didn't penetrate all that much. To their credit, the 180 accbnds held together incredibly well under high impact and lost about 30% of weight as advertised.
Not complaining, dead is dead, just expected a little more penetration.



(Hole in heart from chest shot)

4444, I have in my procession a 150 .308 Accubond that looks very similar to Brads Barnes Banana. I was shocked when I dug it out of the dirt bank it was shot into at 100yds at 2850fps. I shoot a 150gr TTSX in my -06 without any hesitation and I'm a long time Partition and Accubond user.

I guess I never understood the interest in shooting light bullets in the .338 bores. The 225 and 250's have much better BC's, work great at short and long range, and the Partitions, Aframes, Hornadies, and the like never fail to expand when needed. Don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about not enough expansion with the heavier bullets with any kind of medium, but especially animal flesh and bones.

If you want to shoot 180 class bullets, why not just shoot 30-06 and 300 Win Mags for those bullets? The .338 bores are happiest with the heavier bullets, IMHO, and have better ballistics at long range with the heavier slugs.

Bob

Great looking bag- that Gemsbok, Blue Wildebeest, and Eland are superb! Where were you hunting?

Bob

Well I can speak for myself to the "why use light bullets in 338 cal."
Most importantly for me is to carry a rifle as light as reasonably possible with a lot of "knock down" power (that's my kick), and when you get to 30-06 capacity it's getting up there with a 6lb rifle shooting 225's and up.
Really out there for me in the magnum class, so what I try to do is cheat a little by using the lighter bullets which allows me to push them a little faster and keeps the recoil down while getting the "partial" benefits of a 338 bore.
By going to a bullet like the tsx it allows better penetrating qualities to offset the lower S.D of the light for cal projectile.
That's my line of reasoning, when I read a post about a 458 win mag in a 6lb rifle, I thought to myself what craziness, but to each their own I suppose.

The problem with the .338 fed is anything bigger than the 210 part takes up too much case capacity. This is the trade-off with having a .338 in a short action with plentiful brass. For my purposes it's not much of a concern.

RSA Northern Cape

Exactly right. There are tradeoffs for using a short action, 308 based cartridge. In the end though, I don't find it to be a limitation. It shoots a 185 TTSX fast enough to still be doing over 2000FPS at 500 yards (at elevation), and that will kill anything I intend to hunt, as far as I intend to shoot (more actually). Interestingly, if you compare downrange velocities between the 338 Fed and the 30-06, each shooting 180-185s, they are remarkably similar at typical hunting ranges.

dvdegeorge, What was nearest and farthest shots you made on your safari and how did the heavier animals react to hits-bang flops/ran a distance and expired?
Which animals did you recover the 3 bullets from?

Closest was 176 yds(Mountain Reedbuck) farthest was 400yds(Springbok). Some dropped some went a short distance shot placement dictates that. 3 recovered bullets were from a frontal shot on the Blue Wildebeest, quartering to at 300 on Zebra and broadside on Eland at 359 yds

Nice, good source of performance info.
Was initially going to rechamber the 338 fed to a 338-284 kcg (similar ballistics to 338-06), got the dies, 100 pcs brass (expanded to .338) and the best powders according to load data.
Then the rifle arrives and I discover there's not enough room in the blind magazine, to seat bullets even moderately out.
Only bullet that was hardly decent before the ogive began to disappear in case mouth was the 200 speer hot cor.
Anyone know if it can be modified to go a little longer.
Don't regret the 338 fed at all, just could have gotten another 250 fps or so-talk about putting the cart before the horse!

you don,t need to spend money on premium bullets for use in the 338 fed the speer 200 grain hot core, and hornady 225 grain work rather well in my experience

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/14...iameter-225-grain-spire-point-box-of-100

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/14...338-diameter-200-grain-spitzer-box-of-50

I'd stick 210gr partitions in your cases and be done with it. No need for a hard bullet at 338Fed velocities, and the partition will break any bone you ever want to.

It's the same problem people have with the 358win. Guys want to use hard mono-metal bullets for cartridges that don't need them and then they complain about lack of expansion. I remember someone on this forum, or another one, that wanted to use 200gr tsx bullets in his 35 remington!!!!.

IMO,the 308 length case just doesn't generate enogh velocity to warrant a barnes tsx, Nosler e-tip, or Hornady GMX.