Anybody regret NOT going 338?

[D.Camilleri]

All great comments, I am biased towards a 338 rum or equivilent because of the hammer effect. That being said, I also really like my 300 rum especially now that I have been playing with 215 bergers. The 300 gr bergers out of the 338 are truly amazing, but the price to pay is recoil, even with a brake. On the other hand, a 225 nosler accubond at 3300 fps works very well under 1k and has much less recoil, hits hard and shoots flat. The other thing I consider is the one shot live or die shot when hunting in grizzly country. I want the biggest hammer and a bullet that won't let me down. I am not saying that a 300 won't accomplish the goal, I just think the odds are better with the 338.

On a side note, I haven't tried the berger 230 otms yet, and I was excited when my chrono showed 3100 plus with the 215's, but reality sunk in when my drop charts confirmed that my 215's are going right at 3000 fps and not the 3100 that the chrono showed. My 180's easily bump 3350.

Today I was shooting with a friend and getting him some drop info for his 300 wby. When it was all said and done, his 190 gr bergers had a corrected speed of 3225 and shot very good to 1000 and that was with a 25 inch factory fluted barrel on an action that has been blueprinted.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

8 mm seems like a good compromise for me, but brass and bullet selection scares me.

What lies between a 300 win and 300 rum in terms of performance?

The 300 Dakota. A great cartridge. Great brass but spendy and spendy dies too, but the brass will last longer than the RUM brass and one advantage over both is a shorter case that will allow you to seat long bullets to the lands and not encroach on case space for a repeater.

If I was going to do one, it would be on a Howa/Vanguard doner with a B&C medalist stock or a Manners.

Parts and smithing would runn about $1500 - $2000 or possibly more depending what parts and upgrades you do.

 

[MudRunner2005]

I have never regretted staying with .284" bullets. The .338 phase is just an overcompensation phase, IMO. However, before all of yall jump my *** about that comment, I was referring to overcompensating for abilities, and not referring to anything else. The friggin 2,000 yard plus abilities of a .338 Lapua or Allen Mag are awesome.....But way overkill unless you are just trying to shoot at game as far away as humanly possible... I was taught to get as close as possible, within your comfort zone. Yet, we probably have yahoos who make tons of money out there with custom rifles trying to take 2,000 yard shots on animals and inhumanely injuring them, b/c their rig can do it. But just b/c your setup is capable, doesn't mean they possess the abilities to carry out a shot like that.

Overbore magnums are, IMO, not for hunting. .338 Lapua is just too much gun to hunt ANYTHING in N or S America. Unless you're hunting in Africa, you don't need something over .30 caliber.

A well-placed shot with a .257 projectile can be MUCH more deadly than a ****-poor shot by a .338....

I have never regretted my choice to stay with the 7mm calbers....7mm-08, 7mm RemMag, & 7mmSTW.

My STW has impressed my buddy with a .300 WM so much, he has switched his opinions of rebarreling to a .338 Lapua to a 7mmSTW.

 

[lamiglas]

Subscribing to thread.

 

[barnesuser28]

I have never regretted staying with .284" bullets. The .338 phase is just an overcompensation phase, IMO. However, before all of yall jump my *** about that comment, I was referring to overcompensating for abilities, and not referring to anything else. The friggin 2,000 yard plus abilities of a .338 Lapua or Allen Mag are awesome.....But way overkill unless you are just trying to shoot at game as far away as humanly possible... I was taught to get as close as possible, within your comfort zone. Yet, we probably have yahoos who make tons of money out there with custom rifles trying to take 2,000 yard shots on animals and inhumanely injuring them, b/c their rig can do it. But just b/c your setup is capable, doesn't mean they possess the abilities to carry out a shot like that.

Overbore magnums are, IMO, not for hunting. .338 Lapua is just too much gun to hunt ANYTHING in N or S America. Unless you're hunting in Africa, you don't need something over .30 caliber.

A well-placed shot with a .257 projectile can be MUCH more deadly than a ****-poor shot by a .338....

I have never regretted my choice to stay with the 7mm calbers....7mm-08, 7mm RemMag, & 7mmSTW.

My STW has impressed my buddy with a .300 WM so much, he has switched his opinions of rebarreling to a .338 Lapua to a 7mmSTW.

The comments to follow should be interesting....... One question though, have you ever hunted with a 338 Lapua or similar powdered cartridge? If not then i dont think it is fair to make the comments you did.

 

[MudRunner2005]

The comments to follow should be interesting....... One question though, have you ever hunted with a 338 Lapua or similar powdered cartridge? If not then i dont think it is fair to make the comments you did.

I have shot a .338-378 Weatherby Magnum. I choose to not hunt with one because I think it just an overbore fascination. It's all in what the military is using is what seems to draw the most interest in the shooting communities trends. Now that the military has swapped the M24's from .308 Win, to .300 WM, people seem to be shucking off their .308's in favor of the LA counterpart... Once it the .338 Lapua came out....Popularity sky-rocketed.

.408 Cheytac.....Another prime example. .50 BMG...Another example.

Anything hot that can shoot for over a mile is the next big thing.

I am not saying that anything is a bad person for owning or hunting with such rifles. I am simply saying that I choose not to own or hunt with a .338 or larger caliber magnum rifle.

It's just my opinion.

But the comment about a well-placed small caliber being more deadly than a poorly placed large caliber, is about the truth, if you've ever made a perfect shot right in the pumpstation before. You shoot....They fall right over. You can do that with a .22-250....Doesn't have to be the hammer of Thor to do such a thing.

If you shoot Moose or Caribou, I MIGHT could understand the .338 being a bit of an advantage b/c of the size of Moose and Caribou. But for anything else, a .300 WM or smaller will do the trick.

Get ****ed about my comments all you want....But the reason it ****es you off so much, is b/c you KNOW deep inside that I am right in what I have said...

 

[barnesuser28]

I have shot a .338-378 Weatherby Magnum. I choose to not hunt with one because I think it just an overbore fascination. It's all in what the military is using is what seems to draw the most interest in the shooting communities trends. Now that the military has swapped the M24's from .308 Win, to .300 WM, people seem to be shucking off their .308's in favor of the LA counterpart... Once it the .338 Lapua came out....Popularity sky-rocketed.

.408 Cheytac.....Another prime example. .50 BMG...Another example.

Anything hot that can shoot for over a mile is the next big thing.

I am not saying that anything is a bad person for owning or hunting with such rifles. I am simply saying that I choose not to own or hunt with a .338 or larger caliber magnum rifle.

It's just my opinion.

But the comment about a well-placed small caliber being more deadly than a poorly placed large caliber, is about the truth, if you've ever made a perfect shot right in the pumpstation before. You shoot....They fall right over. You can do that with a .22-250....Doesn't have to be the hammer of Thor to do such a thing.

If you shoot Moose or Caribou, I MIGHT could understand the .338 being a bit of an advantage b/c of the size of Moose and Caribou. But for anything else, a .300 WM or smaller will do the trick.

Get ****ed about my comments all you want....But the reason it ****es you off so much, is b/c you KNOW deep inside that I am right in what I have said...

You are right about the shot placement, and who said i was ****ed? I just asked you a simple question... Lets see what others have to think of the 338 Lapua sized cartridges on game, dont be shy guys. I love my 338 Lapua and the affect it has on game.

 

[MudRunner2005]

I made my comments, as rhetorical.....Not intending for people to try to disprove MY opinions. Because everyone has their own opinions, but facts are facts.

Now. Since you seem to think I posted intending to ruffle feathers, you are wrong. I was posting my opinion. Therefore now that I have said that. I am done. No need for any nasty PM's or any lynch mobbing of me...

 

[MontanaRifleman]

You are right about the shot placement, and who said i was ****ed? I just asked you a simple question... Lets see what others have to think of the 338 Lapua sized cartridges on game, dont be shy guys. I love my 338 Lapua and the affect it has on game.

Yup, a poor shot is a poor shot, whether it's from a 223, 7mm or 338.
and a good shot from a 338 is better than a poor shot from a.... fill in the blank

I didn't think you were ****ed either and it was a good question. I bet that Lapua is a real LR hammer! No such thing as overkill, but underkill can make for a very long day and bad experience. gun)

 

[bigngreen]

Overbore magnums are, IMO, not for hunting.

The 7 STW is an over bore magnum there rock star

 

[D.Camilleri]

Caribou aren't really that big of an animal, nowhere near the size of a bull elk and elk is where the 338's shine. To say a 338 lapua is too much cartridge is like saying a 300 rum is too much also. All the bigger cartridges do is extend the good kill range. The 338 win mag has been dropping elk and brown bears for years and does it well because of the range of shots taken with it, less than 300 yards. Add some more powder capacity and you have a cartridge capable of making clean kills at double the range. Make a perfect shot with most any caliber and the results are usually good, but make a less that perfect shot with a marginal caliber and the results usually end up in lost game. If I was going to limit my longest shot to 600 yards on elk, I would still shoot my 338 rum. I believe in quick humane kills. This comes with lots of experience and plenty of kills with 30*06 7mm mag and 300 rum. The 300 kills great, but all of my elk have been taken with my 338. I once shot a very nice black bear cross canyon with a 160 grain partition from my 7mm mag at about 500 plus yards. Dropped him like a rock as I watched him bite his shoulder where the bullet hit. He rolled for 200 yards down a steep hill. When I got to where I had last seen him, he was gone with no blood trail. Later that year I killed a large black bear at less than 150 yards with the final shot going through the boiler room from my 7mag. I recovered the 160 gr partition in the chest cavity, it never touched a rib on the off side. This was a 500 pound plus bear that sucked up 3 hard hits and almost got away. At that point I bought a 338 and never looked back.
When you live in elk country, you will here of good shots being made with small cartridges and sometimes they work and sometimes the elk runs off to die miles away. I have seen and heard of it many times and many times the fault isn't the caliber, but the bullet and failing to perform the way it should and this can happen with any caliber. I have personally witnessed bad hits from a 300 weatherby that made a cow elk sick but didn't put her down with a bullet that didn't fully penetrate and didn't do much internal damage, luckily I was able to track her down for my friend and finish her off. Big animals need lots of trauma to effectively put them down. I am really impressed with how much trauma berger bullets do to animals, with these types of projectiles, smaller calibers have a better chance of making quick clean kills and when you have lots of DRT kills on big elk, it trumps the theory and on paper ballistics. Broz has good solid data backing up his 300 win as an excellent killer, however he is getting some pretty impressive velocities that not all people will get with a 300 win and when you drop the velocities down to the more common numbers, the results aren't quite as good in my opinion.

That being said, I know a guy from Casper that has killed many animals from many different continents all with his trusty 30-06, using different bullets for the game he was pursuing. One time while elk hunting I told him the canyon I was going to hunt and he told me he called that canyon long shot and that he wouldn't shoot a bull there because he had shot a bull in the shoulder and the bullet from his 06 failed to penetrate the shoulder blade. That canyon was only 400 yards across. I asked him if he ever felt under gunned while using his 06 and he told me that while on a Kodiak bear hunt in alaska he was charged by a 10 foot man eater Kodiak, he was shooting 220 grain bullets and put 7 bullets into the charging bear. It dropped within several feet of where he stood and he told me in hind sight he wished he had a bigger gun.

 

[MudRunner2005]

The 7 STW is an over bore magnum there rock star

Bore has to do with diameter. The 7mmSTW is a speed magnum, designed for long-range hunting with high BC bullets and a super-flat trajectory. It's not designed for shooting through redwoods and still killing your target. LOL

Maybe I used the wrong terminology....Should have said "overkill"....and yes, I was getting Caribou and Elk confused, as we have neither one down here in my neck of the woods....My bad.

Also, I do think the RUMs are overkill.

 

[CA48]

But the comment about a well-placed small caliber being more deadly than a poorly placed large caliber, is about the truth, if you've ever made a perfect shot right in the pumpstation before. You shoot....They fall right over. You can do that with a .22-250....Doesn't have to be the hammer of Thor to do such a thing.

I agree with this comment but how many times does someone
execute a heart shot at long range. No one can dope the wind
perfect everytime.

I think Kirby said it best.

"...I shoot big cartridges, not because I am ego bound, not because they are needed to kill big game when well placed shots are made, but when an error is made, they will get you out of trouble more often then a lesser round."

--Kirby Allen

 

[Broz]

Overbore magnums are, IMO, not for hunting. .338 Lapua is just too much gun to hunt ANYTHING in N or S America. Unless you're hunting in Africa, you don't need something over .30 caliber.

So please tell me exactly how many elk and how many moose you have killed?

And to be clear, I am not saying they can't be taken with a smaller caliber, but I have personally seen the difference in these kills many times. So I would like to hear where you draw this knowledge you have obtained?

Further more, I find it interesting how "if the 7 STW is the perfect long range round", why haven't I ever encountered at least one out here in the west where elk and long range are both common? Coincidence? ? I really like a good 7mm, that is, within their limits. But I see far more hunters out here opting to go to a 338 than put down their 300 for a 7. Are they all wrong? It seems many times all this 7mm internet hype comes from people that really do not actually shoot big game that far away. Many have never even elk hunted but still seem to know what we should use.

Jeff