longarm338
Member
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2015
- Messages
- 16
Hello everyone. I just finished up putting together my first dedicated long range build. After careful consideration, I came up with a bunch of criteria that it would have to fit in. It would have to be powerful enough to hunt with out to a minimum of 1000 yards, fit in a standard Remington 700 action, and be able to magazine feed with the latest in monolithic VLD solids seated to the lands.
With all that in mind I settled on using a short action case in a long action. That would allow for magazine feeding of soild copper VLD projectiles. What I wasn't sure of was if a short action case would have enough boiler room to launch a 250 gr projectile with sufficient velocity to expand at 1000 yards. I selected on a 338-300 WSM and Cutting Edge's 250 gr LAZER single feed projectile. Quickload showed i should be able to push them to the low 2700 fps range. It expands down to 1500 fps and with a g1 bc of .67 should expand out to over 1000 yards.
So I got down to ordering parts. I ordered a Shilen 27 inch #6 contour select match barrel with a 1-9 twist ratchet rifling and topped it off with a Lil Bastard muzzle break. For the action I chose a Stiller Precision Predator long action. For the bottom metal decided to run Wyatt's extended detachable box mag for a 300 win mag. That allows for magazine feeding with even the longest vld projectiles. For the stock I selected a Bell and Carlson's M40 Varmint Tactical Stock with an aluminum bedding block. Being this is a long range rig and will most likely be shot prone, the angled forearm allows for minute elevation adjustments simply by sliding the rifle forward or rearward on the bag. The trigger is a timney flat trigger and for optics its wearing a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 scope. Total package weight comes in right at about 12 lbs.
Even before I got all the parts in I ordered a set of reloading dies from Redding. Case forming is easy. Simply take 325 WSM brass and run it through the FL die and you're done. I did make one modification to the throat of the barrel though. Taking a que from Roy Weatherby, I decided to lengthen the throat to allow for more velocity and less pressure. However I didn't want to make the throat so long that accuracy suffers. I measured the bearing surface of the 250 gr LAZER projectile and cut the throat just a hair shorter so the bullet is never unsupported by either the case neck or the rifling but it should allow for more speed. Once everything was together it came time to start working up a load for it.
So far I have only tried 2 powders. One being Reloader 17 and the other being H4350. RL 17 seems to be coming out on top so far with better accuracy and much tighter velocity spread. I started at 56 grains and gradually worked up. The longer throat definitely helped velocity and keep the pressures down without sacrificing accuracy. At 64 grains I started to notice my extreme spreads increased slightly so I called that max. 64 gr of RL17 with the 250 gr LAZER projectile 15 thousandths off the lands netted a whopping average of 2827 fps with an extreme spread of 16 fps. Brass looks perfectly normal with no pressure signs at all. Accuracy is absolutely stellar shooting 3/4 inch and under groups at 200 yards. Recoil is less than my 6.5x55 with full power loads. The Lil Bastard break does a great job of taming down the recoil. You can shoot this gun all day long with no discomfort whatsoever.
All in all I couldn't be more pleased with how this project turned out. As you can see, when you do not limit the case by trying to stuff a nearly 2 inch long bullet down inside it to try to get it to fit in a short action, there is no reason why you cannot match and exceed 338 win mag ballistics. It is nipping at the heals of the 338 lapua burning significantly less powder, fits in a standard sized action, and magazine feeds with vld bullets. Something the bigger 338's cannot do. With a muzzle velocity of nearly 2830 fps, it has an effective hunting range of over 1100 yards with the 250 gr LAZER projectile and for paper punching, it doesn't go subsonic till the 1 mile mark and CE's 252 gr MTH bullet doesn't go subsonic till nearly 2000 yards! All in all it looks like I have a real winner on my hands here. I hope to put it to good use on elk in the next couple of years.
With all that in mind I settled on using a short action case in a long action. That would allow for magazine feeding of soild copper VLD projectiles. What I wasn't sure of was if a short action case would have enough boiler room to launch a 250 gr projectile with sufficient velocity to expand at 1000 yards. I selected on a 338-300 WSM and Cutting Edge's 250 gr LAZER single feed projectile. Quickload showed i should be able to push them to the low 2700 fps range. It expands down to 1500 fps and with a g1 bc of .67 should expand out to over 1000 yards.
So I got down to ordering parts. I ordered a Shilen 27 inch #6 contour select match barrel with a 1-9 twist ratchet rifling and topped it off with a Lil Bastard muzzle break. For the action I chose a Stiller Precision Predator long action. For the bottom metal decided to run Wyatt's extended detachable box mag for a 300 win mag. That allows for magazine feeding with even the longest vld projectiles. For the stock I selected a Bell and Carlson's M40 Varmint Tactical Stock with an aluminum bedding block. Being this is a long range rig and will most likely be shot prone, the angled forearm allows for minute elevation adjustments simply by sliding the rifle forward or rearward on the bag. The trigger is a timney flat trigger and for optics its wearing a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 scope. Total package weight comes in right at about 12 lbs.
Even before I got all the parts in I ordered a set of reloading dies from Redding. Case forming is easy. Simply take 325 WSM brass and run it through the FL die and you're done. I did make one modification to the throat of the barrel though. Taking a que from Roy Weatherby, I decided to lengthen the throat to allow for more velocity and less pressure. However I didn't want to make the throat so long that accuracy suffers. I measured the bearing surface of the 250 gr LAZER projectile and cut the throat just a hair shorter so the bullet is never unsupported by either the case neck or the rifling but it should allow for more speed. Once everything was together it came time to start working up a load for it.
So far I have only tried 2 powders. One being Reloader 17 and the other being H4350. RL 17 seems to be coming out on top so far with better accuracy and much tighter velocity spread. I started at 56 grains and gradually worked up. The longer throat definitely helped velocity and keep the pressures down without sacrificing accuracy. At 64 grains I started to notice my extreme spreads increased slightly so I called that max. 64 gr of RL17 with the 250 gr LAZER projectile 15 thousandths off the lands netted a whopping average of 2827 fps with an extreme spread of 16 fps. Brass looks perfectly normal with no pressure signs at all. Accuracy is absolutely stellar shooting 3/4 inch and under groups at 200 yards. Recoil is less than my 6.5x55 with full power loads. The Lil Bastard break does a great job of taming down the recoil. You can shoot this gun all day long with no discomfort whatsoever.
All in all I couldn't be more pleased with how this project turned out. As you can see, when you do not limit the case by trying to stuff a nearly 2 inch long bullet down inside it to try to get it to fit in a short action, there is no reason why you cannot match and exceed 338 win mag ballistics. It is nipping at the heals of the 338 lapua burning significantly less powder, fits in a standard sized action, and magazine feeds with vld bullets. Something the bigger 338's cannot do. With a muzzle velocity of nearly 2830 fps, it has an effective hunting range of over 1100 yards with the 250 gr LAZER projectile and for paper punching, it doesn't go subsonic till the 1 mile mark and CE's 252 gr MTH bullet doesn't go subsonic till nearly 2000 yards! All in all it looks like I have a real winner on my hands here. I hope to put it to good use on elk in the next couple of years.
