New .338 Cal. Bullets Coming

[Ian M]

Move over Matchking! (That will get some attention with this crowd).
Swift and Barnes are both planning new high BC bullets for long range hunting with the .338 boomers, plus I understand that Nosler is in production of their new Bonded Ballistic Tip.

 

[Guest]

That is good news I guess for those who like them , but for me I'll stick with what works the best for me. SMK

 

[ewallace]

I hope the now ones will be in the 270 to 300g range with BC over .8 am I dreaming

Is the Nosler a .338 and how heavy will it be

Crow Mag

 

[Guest]

To each his own.

 

[Guest]

The Sierra MK's have been of such poor quality control most of the knowledgeable shooters, the guys who really know how to handload at our club, are abandoning Sierra products in droves. Most are shooting custom bullets, or A-maxes, some are having good success with Nosler. Sierra has poor control of their ogive to base dimensions, and at least 10 percent of the bullet tips are completely screwed up. It seems to me if you like shooting more than sorting and culling bullets, common sense would dictate shooting a different brand.

Like Crow Mag I dream of heavier match bullets with aggressive ogives and polymer tips. Superhigh ballistic coefficients and properly tapered jackets is what cultural long-range shooters really need.

A buddy of mind was using his chronograph to test some new Sierra .223 bullets a few weeks ago, and his velocity is were varying over 1400 fps. We started weighing random bullets and discovered that many of the bullets in this box of 500 had no lead cores inserted in the jackets. For those of you who would like to claim that Sierra has any control much less quality control, please save your breath. Many shooters who live in Missouri have had a natural loyalty to Sierra, because they are a Missouri Company. The fact remains their products lag behind many competitors in both technology and quality assurance.

Sierra has made a strategic choice to serve the high-power community, one can only hope that someday they will see the market potential of a true long-range hunting bullet.

 

[titanium]

And he never picked this up when loading them? That is how accidents happen, not paying attention to a critical situation.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR> A buddy of mind was using his chronograph to test some new Sierra .223 bullets a few weeks ago, and his velocity is were varying over 1400 fps. We started weighing random bullets and discovered that many of the bullets in this box of 500 had no lead cores inserted in the jackets. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[ 03-10-2003: Message edited by: Steve Altstadt ]

 

[Guest]

Steve, Have you weighed every bullet you have loaded? I doubt it. This highpower shooter loads on a progressive press, not like I do. Sierra is the problem, not the hand loader in this case. In his box of 500 bullets I think we found 17 out of 500 that did not have cores. The interesting thing is that these bullets that did not have cores definitely did have polymer tips they looked exactly like the bullets that did have cores. I doubt people that load in volume for their .223's will ever be convinced of the need to weigh every bullet.

 

[titanium]

A bullet without a core is much lighter than one without. On a progressive press you still need to handle the bullet, this would be when it should be detected. I load on a Dillon 550 as well. I can pick up a 107 mixed in with my 142's after moly coating, never mind a bullet that would weigh nothing without a core. I have weighed bullets and brass but don't bother anymore. I prefer to spend my time shooting rather than the overly anal pursuit of itty bitty groups wind matters, the extra .08 moa gained is a small detriment to 1 K shooting in windy conditions. I tend to judge my success by the amount of wood and tin in the back seat on the way home from a match. Oh yeah, I had a night force scope once and it cost me a match. Never again.

 

[Sheldon]

According to Nosler's web site, the new Accubond comes in a 225 grain .338 with a BC of .588, and a .30 cal 200 grain with a BC of .550. I hope they come out with 6mm version. I have been waiting for the .338 and 6mms from swift for two years....

 

[titanium]

I have tried the nosler 200 gr bullet and based on actual drop the BC is way higher than the .414 advertised. I haven't been able to find the 225 SST bullets or any bc's on them, too bad, they look promising. Would be nice if Hornady made a 275 gr .338 AMAX......


Hey Sheldon! Looking forward to the april clinic, see you there.

 

[Boyd Heaton]

Would be nice if the made a 30cal 200gr A-Max

 

[17poundr]

Hello everybody! Christmas greetings from Finland!

I was a good shot on the rk-62 in the army, and did a bit of shooting on our (back in my national service 'tour' of 1990-91), I was let to try the then basic sniper rifle of 7.62x54mm. Now they have Lapua338 and a .50cal too...


I'm a member of Helsinki Shooting Club, but a city boy, cannot get a rifle licence unless you are a hunter (that sucks, as I would love to try 500+ meter shooting, but I gotta stick to shooting handguns in a cellar from 25 meters, beats nothing but...)

Anyway, this hasnt stopped me from dreaming from coming to the US for a 'shooting holiday', and I know I can go to the Baltic stated for a hunting holiday, but for me, it's about the accuracy, not shooting down a hansom elk (but I respect hunters, I mean the people who gut and eat the things themselves, trophy only guys are...Well, a bit out of date imho, only imho).

Anyway, I was wondering about the 338, was the lapua338 the fist pill to pack this very caliber???

I have seen more 338s come out, and that's fine, but as I see the Lapua338 is a great round, and even Finnish Elk hunters think that you cannot shoot this huge animal with a Lapua338 from too close, or it will not 'open'... Just goes through, and if it 'aint' a heart or brain shot, then it's bad... So they tend to go for a 308 as the hunting lodge guys usually take you to about 250-300 meter shooting distances if they can... But remember that if you go up into Lappland, well, up there on the opposite hill there are heards of reindeer, and it's intersting to speculate as both are on hillsides with a half mile shallow 'U' shaped contour between you, sometimes when I trekked there, I wondered (If I had that 7.62x54mm now, I wonder If I could make an accurate shot from across that mini valley)?

Anyway, who came up with the 338 first? Anybody???

And please forgive if I do not know some things about jerky chewin', wind sniffin', half mile range while standing up Coyote killing shootin', etiket!

Happy to find you lot, thanks be to google,

Yours truly:

Mr Poundr.

Helsinki,
Finland.

p.s. I'm half British, but have always lived here in my 'motherland', (only Russians are supposed to say that, but hey, they are very ok actually now that you dont have to be scared of the red's anymore).

Sorry for the babbling.

Terve! ('Ciao', in Finnish).

 

[Fiftydriver]

Titanium,

I ordered in three 500 count boxes of 300 gr SMKs last summer. Same lot number on each.

Measured all for baring surface consistancy. Sorted them in groups as follows:

"-0.003" +/-0.001"

"0.000" +/-0.001"

"+0.003" +/-0.001"

Basically, I had three lots of bullets with baring surface lengths eithin 2 thou .

Of the 1500 bullets, this was the results:

Group "0.000": 1189 bullets
Group "-0.003": 137 bullets
Group "+0.003": 91 bullets

There were 83 bullets out of these Baring surface ranges. 51 were shorter in BSL then -0.003" and 32 were longer then +0.003".

When I was sorting them for BSL, I also started weighing them. I went through the first 500 and none of them were more then 2 grains different in weight. That is not even 3/4 of a percentage point in weight variation with a 300 gr bullet and well under what I feel will effect accuracy more so them actual human error shooting the rifle.

I stopped weighing them after that first 500 bullets.

As far as the BSL comparisions, which can make a dramatic shift in vertical spread at long range, Just shy of 80% were in the zero lot of bullets. 9% were -3 thou and 6% were +3 thou.

Only 5% were out of these ranges. Personally, I think thats pretty **** impressive but I can not say on the other calibers as I have not done this type of sorting on them.

As far as bullet flaws from bullet makers,

I have seen Partitions with no front core in them, I have seen Ballistic Tips with no tips on them, I have seen Hornady and Speer bullets with the jackets upside down on the bullet forming a FMJ when it was supposed to be a SP. I have seen Sciroccos that had severaly deformed tips, Not from damage but lack of plastic when the tips were formed. I have also been able to pull the tips out of these bullets at times as well as they were loose from the factory.

Simply put, to some degree, I believe I have found at least one example of a flawed bullet from most of the major bullet makers.

I did find one batch of Sierra Blitzkings that has deformed tips as well. Was a box of 500 50 gr 224 BK bullets. Called Sierra up and they sent out a new box no questions asked, did not even want the old box back.

Point is, put out millions of bullets a year and never having any issues is hard to expect. Now no cores is a big problem but I am sure if your buddy contacted Sierra, they would get him new bullets ASAP.

From what I hear, sierra bullets are still winning more matches them any other bullet in the high power matches. I may be wrong on that being as I am a big game hunter, not a BR shooter but Sierra is still the name for most long range shooters not using custom bullets.

Kirby Allen(50)

 

[linksmechanic]

Kirby, Have you found any probs. with bergers? So far I have not. I shoot 7mm's and 30 cal's almost exclusively but just started loading 40 grain 20 cal's. I'm quite impressed by there consistency. I used to shoot only smk's but now only vld's. Just wondering what your impression as well as other's has been with the bergers.