Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game What's Your Favorite 338 Winnie Bullet?

Jason, thanks for taking my post in the spirit its offered.

Thing is, you can search pressure tested data far and wide and not find 2,850 with a 250 from a 24" barrel.

You have to use the entire "tapestry" of data as a backdrop in order to appraise your own loads.

If you're the lone-eagle out there with a velocity far beyond the data, it's generally because you're pushing things.

I remember when I got my first 338, and was a bit disappointed how hard it was to reach into the mid 2700's with a 250. When I cut the barrel of my first 338 to 22" it became absolutely impossible. But by then I'd grown to accept the cartridge was NOT the same as my best friends 340 Wby. 2,850 and a 250 is really 340 Wby country.

Frankly I see no need to run the 338 with 250's for lower 48 game, though there's nothing against it either. I did hunt AK in 1995 in Brown Bear country with a 338, but it was loaded with 225's.

Here's the last head of game I ever took with the 338, going back 15 years... Started out the morning at -12*F when I left the truck and the high was right at 5*F when I killed this bull in the afternoon. One of the hardest, yet finest days hunting I've ever had.

A 210 Partition is a game crumpler... it's extra velocity combined with the frangible front core makes a bit of a difference I'm convinced.

I don't have a 338 now as it became a 340 and that one finally went down the road too. But if using either one I'd jump right to the 210-gr TSX/TTSX and try make it work. These bullets work very well as fast as you can push them and as has often been said, you don't need the weight of the heterogenous bullets. And they are almost invariably accurate.

I probably took 8 or 9 bulls with the 210-gr TSX out of the 340 and out to 500 yards.

Great pic Brad!

The last two years I've used 250gr winchester silvertips on moose with excellent results. I don't think they make this bullet anymore although I have a couple hundred and they shoot accurately under a moderate charge of H4831.

Thanks George... would love to see more of yours!

Slugo, the Silvertip (the old one) is a cool bullet!

Here's mine laying on a pronghorn...

Brad, tells us that ...fast barrels, slow barrels, that's all meaningless... and, sorry, I have to disagree on this.

I had my original P-64-.338 in the early 1990s, then, a serious collector and genuine expert on British SS rifles, contacted me from my hometown, offering me another one. I bought it and began loading and chronoing using IMR-4350, my first choice in powders at that time.

My original rifle, bought unfired in January, 1968, gave a consistent 2700+ with my final load of 70 grs, 250 NP, WW brass, CCI-250.

The second rifle was always 35-40 fps faster with exactly the same load, same can of powder, lot of brass, box of bullets and tray of primers. I replicated this several times and the results were consistent.

I soon found another, near mint Alaskan and needed to move to another home, so, sold the second one and never did chrono it with my eventual load of RE-22-76 grs. However, given the average of 2800 fps-mv from the four of these I now have and the increase in Pearce's charge, I am inclined to accept his claim

As I posted, when the weather improves here in the Fraser Valley, I will take all seven .338WM rifles I now have to the Mission, BC, range and test this using my chrony and report back here. This should happen next month, March, 2015, just to see what happens.

I will buy two cans of fresh RE-22 and fresh primers and will even try to get a witness to my tests. I have never even blown a primer in 47 years, thousands of rounds with about a dozen .338s I have owned and I expect that my rifles should be a reasonable example of what can be expected, no offence or anything other than simple interest intended.

I DO agree with Brad on the "hot rodding" issue with this superb round, I have spoken with guys who load 78-RE-22-250Npt......and shot lots of BC game with this load, but, too dicey for this old geezer!

Anyway, lots of fun to debate and discuss here!

Very nice, thanks for posting it up. What was the shot distance on that speed goat?

225 grain accubond.

Why: Very high BC yet light enough the .338 case will get it moving ok. Bonded core.

Killed? So far only some digger squirrels and my right shoulder.

Tom

TOM,
Did you get good penetration on the squirrels? Did they travel far after being hit?

A couple of older fellers I used to work with had a couple of dedicated squirrel rifles themselves.
One of them shot a Whitworth 375 H&H
the other a Ruger No. 1 in 458 Win mag.

Thanks! Around 250yds.

225 Barnes TSX Tikka T-3 Lite SS

TJAY,

Very nice. That moose cape looks a little soggy, was it a water retrieval?

Hmmm ...

1) Well, I guess you could say I had a pretty high percentage that had both entrance and exit holes.

2) Yeah, some went quite a ways ... airborne.

I shot a few with .375 H&H over the years. I shot two with a friend's .458, one with a powder puff cast bullet load, the other with a 510 grain factory load. That was pretty much like using enough gun.

Who needs a 340 when you can get 2850 from the much smaller 338 case with 250 grainers? (Hodgdon shows 2784 fps as their top velocity with a 26" barrel in the 340. And Alliant gets 2781 with RL 22 in a 24" barrel; 85 grains.) The most optimistic data I've seen published was a 90.0 grain load of IMR 7828 with a 250 Speer SP in one of Speer's earlier manuals. It would get 3000.)

Running any rifle 'hot' or tight when you're hunting stuff that matters never seems like a winning method. Getting the brown eye wink is never a desirable ending while dealing with chambering/extraction issues.

Is that the departing wink or the one Ed Zern wrote many moons ago about the bug in the grass?

Seems the bug was crawling around in the grass when a cow ate him. It was nice and warm inside the cow so the bug fell asleep.

When the bug woke up the cow had gone...

I have used 250 grain nosler partition on about 40 African animals and many deer and elk. On my new .338 I use 225 accubond and have killed a couple of deer and one bear.

225-grain TSX for moose or anything else in Alaska, but have only killed moose with it. However, since I can now use the blue-tipped TSX, that will be my favorite from now on.

About reloads: I still have a few Federal 250-grain NOS HE (factory) that were loaded at 2,800 fps, and a few Federal 225-grain TB HE that were loaded at 2,900 fps.

OK I'll bite, on limited experience with the 338. About a dozen moose and two caribou.

Any damned thing in 225 to 275. Won't use the 210NP ever again after one moose experience. He might have et me...... or at least damaged me (posted many times before).

Yeah, I know, but it SHOULD have worked, but didn't. The second one from about 10 feet did. I might have developed a slight bias......

I don't need the excitement....