338 win mag, 300 win mag, or 300 weatherby mag?

[banjo318]

I know most people say "1500 ft lbs of energy minimum for elk". But to be honest, I know of many people that take elk with cartridges such as the .243 winchester. With todays bullets, that new minimum should be about 1000 ft lbs for an elk. Im actually thinking strongly about the 7mm stw. It provides 1250 ft lbs of energy at 1000 yards with a 168 grain berger. One of the children of the gunwerks guys down in wyoming shot an elk at like 1200 yards with a 168 grain berger sitting in a 7mm rem mag case. And that elk simply walked like 40 yards and dropped. The stw has quite a bit more punch than the rem mag.

 

[D.Camilleri]

We all like to put numbers towards what kills game the cleanest, but it is harder than that. Clean kills boil down to terminal performance of the bullet and bullet placement. My dad is the first person I know that bought a 338 win mag. He bought it in 1958 when they first came out in a Winchester Model 70. Why did he buy it? Because the hunting season before he had shot a huge muley in Idaho, hit right behind the shoulder with a 180 grain bullet from a 30-06 and the deer ran off. He accidently found it the next day. The hit was text book perfect, but yet the deer went far enough and didn't exibit any traits of being hit. The following year my uncle had his model 70 30-06 rechambered to 30-338. Both hunters and their guns took many an animal without the same issues, but during those years, bullets also changed. The nosler partition was born and other bullets got better.

That brings us up to today, we have different bullets with several different ways to kill animals. We have the Bergers that blow up inside the animal and dump tremendous trama on the animal if the bullet works as designed and then we have other premium bullets that stay together and retain a lot of weight to penetrate deep.

So, what makes a really good long range big game killer? Enough velocity to make the bullet work as designed and accurate shot placement. With that being said, many deer have fallen to a 22 lr with a well placed shot, but not at distance. For the same token, a bad hit with a marginal cartridge can end up in a lost animal. And while that is bad in and of itself, just imagine a lost elk that was a elk of a lifetime being lost due to a sub par hit and not being able to get a follow up shot.

For me, I want as much horsepower as I can get to get the job done. 30 cals are good, but I believe the 338's are a bit better especially with heavier bullets as long as the bullet works as designed. I have witnessed many hits on elk with 30 cal and 7mm and 338's and they all kill, but the 338's seem to do the job just a bit better. I know, dead is dead, but sometimes DRT is much better that running off 100 yards into the bottom of a hell hole.

The 300 grain Berger shot from a 338 at 2800 fps will have over 2400 ft pounds of energy left at 1000 yards and the results of the hit on an elk are impressive. I killed my first elk with a Berger last year and I have to say I have never seen an elk die that quickly without even completing a step at 550 yards and this is the 3rd bull I have taken in this canyon over 550. One was killed with 225 accubonds and the other with 250 gr partitions. The Berger upped the ante.

 

[bigngreen]

The 7 STW should do better than that, my 270 WSM hits a 1000 yards with 1450 ft lbs at 6000ft elevation.

 

[wileycooley]

I have no experience with berger hunting bullets. please help me. would you say they there performance on game was most like a nosler ballistic tip, a scirocco, a nosler partition, or an a-frame? the berger hunting bullets were not available when i put my 338 RUM together.

 

[Lee Woiteshek]

I used to own the 7 Rem Mag, and two MK V 300 Weatherby's. I have to say the hardest I have ever been scoped was a prone shot from an unbraked 300 Weatherby. I currently shoot a braked .338 Win Mag, and practice to 600 yards as that's as far as I think my 225 grain TTSX will work. 1000 yards is a long way. In the mountains, with the usual 10-15 mph cross wind and the adrenalin of the hunt and/or the lack of O2 at altitude, coupled with the lack of a concrete bench and bags, well, 600 is probably 200 yards further than I should take a shot. Your results may vary.

 

[Larry Holland]

Yes, 1000 yards is a long/long way ; yet when you have watched 5,000 to10,000(7.62X51) & a Gov.30.06 before that you are correct a long way. I personally like the .338 Lapua ( new ball game in town) with a Night Force or (my choice Schmit-Bender) scope.
The .300 Win. Mag. with your scope Doped properly will work great--Wish I had mine back.
Practice--Practice--Practice--I used to hear daily & learn your formulas where they are 100%+ without just thinnking/thinking; because 1000 yards! Wind direction change--what kind of shape are you in-- things will change waiting five hours for a shot in prone position. Mentally you must believe you can make the shot!!!!***!
I believe you have the deteramation---now--Practice--Practice--Practice!! By the way I load Berger bullets!

 

[1Coyote]

banjo318;
Having read all the posts up to this point I will put my "2-cents" in.
There are a lot of calibers that will work at the ranges you are wanting to shoot at.
I would advise you to "Do Your Homework"! Study, read, research, and gather as much information as you can on the subject of your project.
Things to consider and not all are listed:
What is your budget?
Does recoil beyond a certain level bother you? NO SHAME if you have a recoil limit as everyone has a limit, some more than others! But this is a personal choice.
Do you reload? If so, can you afford to "Feed" your cartridge? Bullets for your project can run from 50 cents to over $2.00 per round and you already know what powder costs nowadays. Same for brass. As just one example, brass for the .338 Lapua runs around $2.70 to $3.00 per Round! While the .338 RUM brass goes for around a dollar to $1.07 per round. The .338 WinMag, you mentioned earlier, runs around .70/70 cents per round.
By the way, I have a .338 WinMag that I have used for years {{ it shoots 1/2", or better, when I do my part}} and it's the first rifle I grab when heading out the door and not knowing exactly what I might be shooting! I also have a .375RUM that I am "tuning" but that is beside the point.
Also, consider the cost of maintenance of your rifle too. Solvent, Patches, ect, all add up right along with your costs per bullet, brass, and powder.
To make a long story short, the final decision is YOURS, and YOURS alone! Choose a cartridge/bullet combination that will satisfy YOU and YOUR specific needs and budget.
The only way to keep your shooting skills sharp is to practice and practice OFTEN! Be sure to get a logbook and keep it for your longrange rifle alone. I have a couple different rifles I shoot at long range and I keep a separate notebook for each rifle! You will want to have room to enter range/hunting conditions such as weather, sun, wind, altitude, ect, along with your load workup, "Formula" that you use such as what brand of brass, bullet, powder, and lot numbers of each, along with how often you clean your rifle, what you use to clean it, along with your round count for the day to be added to your total round count on that barrel, ect.
These are just a few recommendations and are not all inclusive! While advice from friends, relatives, fellow shooters, can help, in the end it is YOU that will be shooting that rifle and if YOU are NOT 100% happy with your choices your not going to want to practice, keep up your logbook, or reload like you should which, in the end, will make the "Game" that your shooting at Pay The Price! Try NOT to take a shot at game that you are not 100% sure of putting down quickly with the proper bullet and bullet placement! I did this once, years ago, and it still haunts me today and always makes me do one more check of myself before sending that bullet out the barrel!
Just remember, in the end, it's YOUR CHOICE ALL THE WAY!!
Oh!, and please note that my CAPITALS are NOT SHOUTING, but only to press my point a bit.
One last thing, if you don't have a good logbook, or don't like the one you have, you might go look up "Impact Data Books"
< Impact Data Books, Inc. - Modular, Premade, Custom Data/Log Books! >
and look over Tony's products. He is a former Marine Scout/Sniper that has a good product that I personally use. Tony also gets his orders out in a very expedient manner too! }:-D
I hope this helps you get started. I don't post very much as real life is usually in the way too much and I rarely get involved in "which caliber/what scope, ect, type conversations as everyone has an opinion and someone else's opinion may or may not work for YOU.
Take Care, Stay Safe;
Coyote
[[[[[End of Msg}}}}}

 

[Larry Holland]

Thank you, we have the same song book!
BYE!

 

[Bart B]

Try NOT to take a shot at game that you are not 100% sure of putting down quickly with the proper bullet and bullet placement!

In watching the very best long range competitors firing their first shot from their 28 and 30 caliber magnums at a 1000-yard target, maybe one in 20 puts his first shot inside the target's inner 10-inch scoring ring they're aiming at. That's on a known range having fired a match there earlier in the day so a good zero's at hand and only the atmospheric conditions have changed.

Afield with a hunting rifle, my guess is less than 1 in 50 would do that well with their first shot at game that far away.

 

[Larry Holland]

Bart,
You are very likely on target; due very few can ky. Windage a 1000 yards without equipment. The cold barrel shot then multiples most times have different points of impact.
Have you noticed clean barrels & oil in them;usually more than needed will affect you. Try shooting dirty sometime at a known distance & see the results---The Marine Corp is known for clean rifles;yet will not clean unless necessary if in a fire fight.
Good Luck!

 

[Bart B]

The cold barrel shot then multiples most times have different points of impact.

Have you noticed clean barrels & oil in them;usually more than needed will affect you. Try shooting dirty sometime at a known distance & see the results---The Marine Corp is known for clean rifles;yet will not clean unless necessary if in a fire fight.
Good Luck!

With a good barrel well fitted to a proper bedded action, I've not seen significant difference beween cold, clean barrels' first shot; even up to 1000 yards, and those fired thereafter. At most, a 1/4 MOA error in elevation. Windage errors are mostly caused by bad corrections for drift.

But letting a round cook in a hot chamber will make it go high from leaving faster. One should fire a chambered round within 20 seconds else the hotter powder puts the bullet out faster. Point of impact with my 30 caliber rifles climed about 1/4 MOA per 25 to 35 seconds of time the round rested in the chamber.

Same for dirty barrels except the first two shots typically have a bit slower muzzle velocity, but no more than 1/4 MOA below group center of the remaining shots in a 5-, 10- or 20-shot string.

 

[banjo318]

We all like to put numbers towards what kills game the cleanest, but it is harder than that. Clean kills boil down to terminal performance of the bullet and bullet placement. My dad is the first person I know that bought a 338 win mag. He bought it in 1958 when they first came out in a Winchester Model 70. Why did he buy it? Because the hunting season before he had shot a huge muley in Idaho, hit right behind the shoulder with a 180 grain bullet from a 30-06 and the deer ran off. He accidently found it the next day. The hit was text book perfect, but yet the deer went far enough and didn't exibit any traits of being hit. The following year my uncle had his model 70 30-06 rechambered to 30-338. Both hunters and their guns took many an animal without the same issues, but during those years, bullets also changed. The nosler partition was born and other bullets got better.

That brings us up to today, we have different bullets with several different ways to kill animals. We have the Bergers that blow up inside the animal and dump tremendous trama on the animal if the bullet works as designed and then we have other premium bullets that stay together and retain a lot of weight to penetrate deep.

So, what makes a really good long range big game killer? Enough velocity to make the bullet work as designed and accurate shot placement. With that being said, many deer have fallen to a 22 lr with a well placed shot, but not at distance. For the same token, a bad hit with a marginal cartridge can end up in a lost animal. And while that is bad in and of itself, just imagine a lost elk that was a elk of a lifetime being lost due to a sub par hit and not being able to get a follow up shot.

For me, I want as much horsepower as I can get to get the job done. 30 cals are good, but I believe the 338's are a bit better especially with heavier bullets as long as the bullet works as designed. I have witnessed many hits on elk with 30 cal and 7mm and 338's and they all kill, but the 338's seem to do the job just a bit better. I know, dead is dead, but sometimes DRT is much better that running off 100 yards into the bottom of a hell hole.

The 300 grain Berger shot from a 338 at 2800 fps will have over 2400 ft pounds of energy left at 1000 yards and the results of the hit on an elk are impressive. I killed my first elk with a Berger last year and I have to say I have never seen an elk die that quickly without even completing a step at 550 yards and this is the 3rd bull I have taken in this canyon over 550. One was killed with 225 accubonds and the other with 250 gr partitions. The Berger upped the ante.

Im not going to put myself through the recoil of the 338 ultra magnum. Im gonna stick with the win mag.

 

[X-man]

First off...Whoever said the 300 Win is not accurate needs his head examined.
Jezuz really?

Go here.
World Open Relay Results
Then search the heavy class.

Search for the top winners and scores...What do you see BESIDE the 300Winchester,308 Baer, and 300 Ackley BELTED magnums?? Yes the 6mmbr, 6.5-285 are superbly accurate target rounds, but you can't shoot elk at 1000 with them so they are useless for this application.
These are the best 1000 yard benchrest shooters on the planet and if some of them (to include Bruce Baer) choose belted magnums it is good enough to hunt with.

I recently entered a challenge that asked for 5-5 shot groups at 300 yards that were under 0.5MOA. It took 3 tries, but my 300Win made the cut. Of all the loud mouth idiots talking about 1/4 MOA rifles they owned none (ZERO) could produce that sort of accuracy. Of the many that tried the competition only 8 of us made it...Lots of target rounds failed too.

Recoil is not an issue if you put a brake on the rifle.
I vote for the 338 Edge or 338 Lapua.
If you want a 30 Cal my vote is for the 300Win or 300Wby improved (308 Baer).

 

[Bart B]

Thanks for posting a link to those World Open Relay Results.

I checked the cartridges used in the top 50 places of heavy gun group agg's. A rimless bottleneck round had about twice as many places as any belted round. Which is why I suggested the .300 WSM or similar large-capacity rimless cases.

Would be interesting to find out how those shooting belted cases resized them. Neck only, partial neck, full length with standard or bushing dies with or without expander balls. Decades ago, when 30 caliber belted magnums were "the" cartridge to use in 1000-yard prone matches, top competitors learned that new cases gave excellent accuracy. But any full length sizing of fired belted cases with a standard die did not get rid of the ridge right in front of the belt caused by the case body expanding at that point at peak pressure when the case head was hard against the bolt face. That ridge interferred with repeatable positioning of the back end of the case in the chamber. Even if fired belted cases were full length sized such that they headspaced on their shoulders, that ridge still caused accuracy problems. Standard dies do not size that ridge down; they stop about .010" or thereabouts in front of the belt.

A solution was to cut the top and bottom of a standard full length sizing die off making it a "body" die. It was set in the press to resize a full length sized fired case all the way, totally, to the belt swaging that ridge back down to body diameters; the case diameter at that point was virtually the same as new cases. Such resized fired belted cases shot just as accurate as new ones. Virtually the matches won and records set were done with such cases. Nowadays, a collet die's availible to do the same thing: Innovative Technologies - Reloading Equipment.

After good quality 26 caliber bullets became available, the milder recoiling 6.5x.284 round became the favorite even though better BC bullets were available in 30 caliber. They still are today for shoulder fired rifles.

There really are belted 30 caliber magnums that'll shoot 1/4 MOA. . .at short range. Once in a while. And it's a popular thing to only tell others the smallest groups your hardware shoots. And benchresters seldom, if ever, published outside their range scoreboard the sizes of all groups/scores fired for each competitor. So we don't know exactly how big the largest groups/scores are. Even those 1000-yard single 5-shot groups are probably the smallest one ever fired by that rifle; all the others are larger. The group agg score numbers in the World Open Relay Results are typically about 2/3rds the size of the largest group in the series. And that agg record's probably the smallest one that rifle ever shot. Which means only 10 competitors kept all their record group shots under 10 inches. And if we superimposed each single group atop each other, the all-group composite would be larger; much larger.

All of which to me means, if your hardware shoots under 1 MOA all the time at 1000 yards, then you've got something special. And your best chance of doing it is to use rimless cases or a second body die on your belted ones.