Which long range .338 Bullet to use?

[Petey308]

Thanks for the information. I was one that against using target bullets for hunting. In Mexico-North there was laws on type of bullets you could use for hunting. Still is today, but different when I was a kid. I re-read the rules and they had changed them somewhere along the line.
In war you can't use soft point bullets. It's against the law.
I often wonder about it too. We used 20, & 30 mm rounds the bullet explosed on contact. So I don't really see much differents. As far as being in a war. In the field hunting animals, it's a different story.
It's and Isn't funny how we walk the line.

Yes, the laws are stupid and all we've done is find ways to circumvent the laws. For instance, I think we all know that an open tip match bullet does indeed expand and it produces significant wounding that results in a fast death. So the military calls for them, knowing that, and they basically just make a deal with the bullet manufacturers to go along with them pretending they don't expand and completely appease the law. Bergers are exactly that type of bullet and are even specifically marketed for hunting. They simply create other product lines they call "target" bullets and now magically they have bullets that are legal for military use.

It doesn't make sense to me to make a law that requires bullets used in combat to be less damaging. It would be like making laws saying we can only use bullets to hunt with that don't expand and only create minimal wounding. But, dumb laws get passed all the time.

And as a crew chief on the A-10, I'm quite familiar with 30mm HEI rounds and what they do to soft targets. You gotta have some magic Nikes to get away from that.

 

[memtb]

Petey308, I heard …though can't verify, that the thought behind the non-expanding bullet was to not kill as many troops, meaning (at least in civilized nations) you would take several people out of combat as they would try to save a wounded fellow soldier!

Again …..could be total BS! memtb

 

[Bravo 4]

The non-expanding bullet stuff is just flat out stupid. Makes as much sense as forcing adults to wear a seatbelt, but you don't have to wear a helmet on a motorcycle. If I'm shooting at you (in combat) I intend to kill you, and quickly just like when hunting game animals. Our OTM (Sierra Matchking HPBT) ammo is officially considered a "turn to fracture" bullet. The newer 5.56 and 7.62 Enhanced Performance Rounds (EPR) are very good when it comes to terminal performance. I wish I could get them as a reloading component, however some of the "technology" is secret in nature.

 

[Petey308]

Petey308, I heard …though can't verify, that the thought behind the non-expanding bullet was to not kill as many troops, meaning (at least in civilized nations) you would take several people out of combat as they would try to save a wounded fellow soldier!

Again …..could be total BS! memtb

Common rumor spread around like wildfire, but it's BS. No one is stopping the fight to risk themselves getting killed to save another until the fight is over. And no one is only trying to wound when the wounded member can still potentially fight. Really the only exception would be the rare instances when maybe a sniper is trying to draw out more individuals by wounding someone, but I assure you that sniper ultimately wants to kill them all.

Laws may get passed because after the fights and after the war is over, those not directly involved in the fighting see just how brutal war is, or they see the wounded coming in to the hospitals, and ignorantly think there's a better way to reduce the brutal-ness.

In reality, most laws and regulations get put into place by those that really have no experience and no clue how things really work. Some of them tend to be more of a hinderance, that's for sure.

On another note, the original M-16 was built with a slow twist barrel and FMJ ammo to deliberately cause the bullets to tumble. The tumbling would allow the bullets to still cause massive terminal damage. This didn't last very long though, as tracer rounds are so long they had to have a faster twist to get any sort of accuracy out of them, then the FMJs were replaced by the green tip steel core and OTM style bullets and tumbling was no longer the method they were after.

 

[Mike Matteson]

Petey308, I heard …though can't verify, that the thought behind the non-expanding bullet was to not kill as many troops, meaning (at least in civilized nations) you would take several people out of combat as they would try to save a wounded fellow soldier!

Again …..could be total BS! memtb

That's

Common rumor spread around like wildfire, but it's BS. No one is stopping the fight to risk themselves getting killed to save another until the fight is over. And no one is only trying to wound when the wounded member can still potentially fight. Really the only exception would be the rare instances when maybe a sniper is trying to draw out more individuals by wounding someone, but I assure you that sniper ultimately wants to kill them all.

Laws may get passed because after the fights and after the war is over, those not directly involved in the fighting see just how brutal war is, or they see the wounded coming in to the hospitals, and ignorantly think there's a better way to reduce the brutal-ness.

In reality, most laws and regulations get put into place by those that really have no experience and no clue how things really work. Some of them tend to be more of a hinderance, that's for sure.

On another note, the original M-16 was built with a slow twist barrel and FMJ ammo to deliberately cause the bullets to tumble. The tumbling would allow the bullets to still cause massive terminal damage. This didn't last very long though, as tracer rounds are so long they had to have a faster twist to get any sort of accuracy out of them, then the FMJs were replaced by the green tip steel core and OTM style bullets and tumbling was no longer the method they were after.

Yes the AR-15 did have slower twist rates. The tracer I used were the same length, or not much different. The 308 the same thing and the 50 there wasn't any difference in length either. In the shooting of the AR-15 I never saw a target that shown any signs of a bullet tumbling. Saw 50's & M-60 bullet tumble out of the barrel. The barrel were red hot, and in an arc. It was kind of interesting to watch those tracers flipping through the air.
the thinking. Close only counts in Horse shoes, and Hand grenades.

 

[Mike Matteson]

You forgot the Medic. That's his job to work on the wounded and get them to a safer place, if possible. If there wasn't anybody wounded, you could join in on the fight. This was in the Army, and not in the Marines. For me it help even up the score, if you want to call that way. It never did but at least it cut down on the stress. They didn't teach you how to deal with the dead and dying. The calls you had to make in the field, and being one medic or dustoff medic with a chopper full of wounded. You live with that, the rest of your life. Going over the problems that came up. Could I have done something different to have a better outcome.
One thing foresure. The next step could be your last.

 

[Petey308]

That's

Yes the AR-15 did have slower twist rates. The tracer I used were the same length, or not much different. The 308 the same thing and the 50 there wasn't any difference in length either. In the shooting of the AR-15 I never saw a target that shown any signs of a bullet tumbling. Saw 50's & M-60 bullet tumble out of the barrel. The barrel were red hot, and in an arc. It was kind of interesting to watch those tracers flipping through the air.
the thinking. Close only counts in Horse shoes, and Hand grenades.

The tumbling mostly occurred upon impact. The slow twist rate made the bullet very easily compromised. They'd be just stable enough to track pretty true in flight (to the typical ranges they were used), but rather them punch straight through, they'd immediately start tumbling on impact, as they had no terminal stability.

The 308s and 50s were different, and designed different.

 

[Petey308]

You forgot the Medic. That's his job to work on the wounded and get them to a safer place, if possible. If there wasn't anybody wounded, you could join in on the fight. This was in the Army, and not in the Marines. For me it help even up the score, if you want to call that way. It never did but at least it cut down on the stress. They didn't teach you how to deal with the dead and dying. The calls you had to make in the field, and being one medic or dustoff medic with a chopper full of wounded. You live with that, the rest of your life. Going over the problems that came up. Could I have done something different to have a better outcome.
One thing foresure. The next step could be your last.

I didn't forget. It's just not as big of a factor as it seems. Medics don't factor into the myth of bullets being designed with the intent of wounding vs killing. Yes they're there, and yes they will do what they can to tend to the wounded during the fight, but they also have to not get taken out themselves, otherwise the whole group is in big trouble, not to mention they care about preserving their own life.

 

[Mike Matteson]

I didn't forget. It's just not as big of a factor as it seems. Medics don't factor into the myth of bullets being designed with the intent of wounding vs killing. Yes they're there, and yes they will do what they can to tend to the wounded during the fight, but they also have to not get taken out themselves, otherwise the whole group is in big trouble, not to mention they care about preserving their own life.

Well I was one. I either pounded the ground or flew in the air. I never cut up a gook to see how the bullet did. I heard of one case of a bullet hit a VC leg and travel up his leg into his body. Other than that as we come across dead gook. We put more lead into them. That way we knew for sure they had gone to the promise land.

 

[memtb]

This is likely were the misconceptions originated from! memtb

https://www.weaponslaw.org/instruments/1899-hague-declaration

 

[dogz]

Time to get back on track gents...........this is about elk

 

[Petey308]

This is likely were the misconceptions originated from! memtb

https://www.weaponslaw.org/instruments/1899-hague-declaration

Yes, I'm well aware of The Hague Declaration. That would be the laws/regulations being referred to. But that's also what has been getting circumvented by simply being particular about terminology and marketing.

Time to get back on track gents...........this is about elk

Well sir, when certain bullets are brought up as recommendations for elk, and some say it's not a good choice and reference bullet manufacturers not specifically recommending them for that, and offering no true or useful reasons as to why that is, we get here. Getting into this discussion is relevant because it means we can learn about how we can still use some of those bullets with great reliability and success, and the reasons as to why are given- or at least why going against advertisement/marketing and labels in the box can still work out favorably.

We can with either choose to ignore it when these issues arise in threads like this, and people continue to remain ignorant, or we can try to turn it into a learning opportunity. Then the quest of picking a good bullet becomes more of an educated decision.

That's my perspective anyways.

 

[Mike Matteson]

Got that Right! I had been alway against target bullets for hunting bullets. It did change my mind some. Or now I have a better understanding as to why people are using those types of bullets. I won't be so quick to point a figure at them. At the same time I am not going to use them. I am 75 and still learning. Great Day!