338 Winchester Magnum: Best Elk Cartridge?

hi everyone ron spohmer reporting and glad to be reporting because i almost bought the farm today i was out logging and a giant limb came down and poked me in the arm no it's getting hot out there so we broke off from the hard work and the la bloody work and we're gonna do some fun stuff indoors with the cartridge of the week 338 winchester magnum a lot of folks have been asking about this one and a couple of our patrons really wanted to know everything and anything about it because they are planning to get one and go hunting this fall for elk great elk cartridge we're gonna learn all about it on this episode of ron's bowmer outdoors stay tuned before we dive into the 338 i want to put in a plug for patreon patreon members really help us with this channel uh they support us and we really appreciate it if you are interested in helping us out and keeping the lights on as i always say just go to patreon.com and look for ron spummer outdoors and you can join us as a supporting member and we really appreciate it now the 338 winchester is obviously a 33 caliber cartridge and it popped up way back in 1958 and a lot of people will say well i'll bet you they took that 300 winchester magnum and necked it up to make the 338 but take a careful look here not only is the 338 shorter but it's older this thing came out of the big boy right there 458 winchester magnum that was the first of the belted magnums from winchester and came out in 1956. in 58 they came out with that 338 winchester magnum and either late 58 or early 59 264 winchester magnum that port 300 didn't come along until 1963. and that's the most popular one now but that's the way it went down so they started of course with the uh 375 h that's the cartridge that they used for all of these belted magnums i think most of us know that by now so that thing got modified into all sorts of great cartridges and the one we're going to talk about today is really one of the most popular elk hunting cartridges in the country not too powerful not too weak it's just a great middle of the road perfect for an elk sized animal cartridge justifiably so but when you compare it with a 300 winchester magnum you get some surprises we're going to be doing that with some ballistic charts here as we go along but i want to do a little bit more history on the 33s because they're sort of confusing in fact they're real confusing and a lot of people get them confused with eight millimeters and there are some confusion right there the eight millimeter mauser started off throwing a 0.318 inch diameter bullet and then they later changed it to shoot a 0.323 inch diameter bullet but that's still not a 33. so another one that came along shortly after that was well i've got a list of them here and it's amazing how many are on this list we'll put this chart up for you guys to take a closer look at it but there are a bunch of 33s that i didn't even think about you just don't think there are that many 33 calibers around so the 33 winchester came out in 1902 and that was a real 33.338 the same diameter as on the 33h today but then jeffrey came out with one in 1908 it was a 333 inch diameter bullet so we're looking at 318 323 333 338 and a lot of people confuse them all as being 33 calibers so you really have to study this stuff and know what you're getting into especially with that eight millimeter mauser that one's really an oddball and speaking of oddballs 325 winchester short magnum you know that's again a 32.323 and a lot of people get that confused with the real three three eights so we are going to stick with the modern three three eights and that means they're going to be shooting a 0.338 inch diameter bullet out of a 33 inch diameter bore and there's the middle of the road right there a lot of us think that is a big powerful cartridge and it is but there's your 338 lapua magnum it kind of dwarfs that one and that's why i say the 338 is kind of a good right in the middle for 33s you take the 338 federal which is the 308 winchester necked up to 33. a lot smaller but it's a good option for shooting a larger diameter bullet for making a big hole which a lot of hunters like without the recoil of the 338 and especially without the recoil of that 338 liverpool magnum and then there's the 338 remington ultra magnum 338 378 weatherby i mean you look at that list again let's put that back up on the screen for him to see look at all those big powerful things that have come out and the 33 nozzlers out recently just in 2017 that one popped up there are some big hard kicking 33s out there and that is why i think the 338 winchester is right in the wheelhouse for somebody who wants a bigger magnum 338 but doesn't want the brutal recoil so let's get this guy off the table and get down to brass tacks with a good old 338 winchester magnum and seriously we're talking old it's a pretty good performer these days it always has been but a lot of people think it's it's a fairly new cartridge but 1958. that's getting out there guys that's almost as old as me so what can we say about its energy and its velocity and all the rest of it well the reason i brought up that 300 is because those two are actually pretty close in performance so here are some of the things we want to consider on our next chart the 338 win compared to some of these others and we're going to start off with the 3 the 30 odd 6 because that's always a good cartridge for us to look at when we compare relative sizes when you look at the thirty at six we all know what that looks like and pretty much what it feels like how it recoils what it can do and look at how much smaller it is than that 338 win mag so the numbers on your chart and i'm using some bullets that perform optimally so we're looking at some pretty high ballistics coefficients that means the bullet is going to retain more energy as it travels downrange that means it'll drop less it will deflect less in the wind has more punch when it gets there what's not to like as long as that bullet is built for good terminal performance i like high bc's so with the 30 odd 6 we're going to use 178 grain bullet drive at 2800 feet per second our bc is right up there in the mid-fives and it's going to have some recoil of 24.6 foot-pounds and again most of us know that now these are all in eight pound rifles and when you look down those numbers you're going to sort of gas because oh my gosh the 338 wind mag with a 250 grain bullet is kicking 43.7 foot-pounds of energy on his shoulder compared to 24.6 out of the 30 odd six that makes most of us afraid of the 338 but compare that to the 338 lapua 56 foot pounds you would have to be some kind of an idiot to hunt with an eight-pound rifle chambered for a 338 limpua but you know maybe you like paint i don't know but obviously what i'm saying about the rifles is with the 338 you're probably going to want a heavier rifle now i hunted with one in africa several years ago and i had just a great hunt in the kalahari desert teak forest i didn't even know there was a teak forest in the kalahari desert but there is beautiful area i was hunting with uh imanhof safaris werner von sidlitz great guide uh just always have fun hunting with werner and we were looking for eland and kudu and and gemsbok and all the good stuff now i was hunting with my good friend ken jorgensen he was uh with ruger at the time so he brought the ruger rifles over and he was cheating using a 375 ruger i had the 338 which i thought was plenty big enough ken got himself a really old mourned down elon bull with that 375 but i had no trouble getting mine with the 338 and in fact this is a kind of cool story we were tracking with one of those bushmen sand trackers who are absolutely phenomenal trackers you just cannot believe what these guys can see in the sand you see a dent in the sand and they not they know what the animal is what sexy animal is what year was born and what his name is it's incredible so i was following and tiptoeing along looking for a herd of eland and we were getting fairly close to him spotted them i think there were like eight bulls in the bunch so we were picking them picking them out and werner was trying to find the biggest one and say as he was doing it here comes an incredible gems buck from off to the left with these flaring long horns that just about knocked me over and i said hey burger look at that we ought to take this he goes no no we got these big healing we're going to take the heal so back to the healing we go and this kim's buck is walking right toward us and they look at him again it's inside of 80 yards and closing hey burger look at the size of this guest book yeah don't worry about it we got disney it was about 30 40 yards away and i finally said i think this thing is supposed to be shocked he took a look and said yeah you better shoot it so he shot the gems buck and the elan jumped and looked around like they often do not knowing what the noise was he picked out the biggest one and i shot it within a minute i had a double with that 338 so it was a great hunt i picked up an impala at the same time three one shot kills with the 338 winchester magnum how can you complain about that now let's look at some more of these ballistics i just had to tell that story the reason i brought that 300 win mag up is because i have always thought i'm not messing around with the 338 because the 300 win mag does such a good job of matching the ballistics almost all of them let's look at that 300 win mag with a 200 210 grain bullet got a real high bc on this one 616 and we're going to compare it to a 225 grain bullet in the wind mag the 338 and that one has a good bc at five five zero but not quite as good but look at the uh the launch speeds 2 87 feet per second for the 300 and 282 so almost identical velocities and i took this information again out of the nozzle hand loading menu so it might be a little bit fast for some people uh you just never know you can't take all these numbers as gospel your rifle is going to be a little bit different but for comparisons we're going to use their data because they recorded it so i'm zeroing now for an eight inch target which means when i aim dead center target i'm never going to fly more than four inches high that means i can zero somewhere around three inches high at 100 yards and then i'm gonna stay under the top of that eight inch target so the bullet might go up to about four inches at 150 to 175 yards then it starts to drop and once it drops at 300 yards or 320 yards out of that circle that's my maximum point blank range so with the 300 win mag at 100 yards you look at that one in the 338 and they're just about the same but you've got a little more energy into 338 and i think that's why a lot of people like that 338 but let's watch what happens to the energy down range at 200 yards your energy is getting closer 3176 for the 300 3252 we're closing the gap go out to 300 yards 28.61 for the 328.66 for the 338 we are almost tied at 300 yards so look at the drops it's actually dropping the same so there's no advantage one of the other why not take advantage of that energy and the less deflection in the wind because of the higher bc so now we have to go out farther bc really starts to add up after 300 yards so let's go up to 400 13 inches of drop on both of them but we've got two inches less wind deflection out of the 300 and the energy is actually higher now 2572 to 2516. so i don't know guys they're awfully close they really are but a lot of people like the idea of the larger diameter bullet so if you think going from a 0.308 bullet to a 0.338 bullet is going to give you an advantage with a bigger hole that's the one you'd want to go with even though it's a little bit shorter has a little bit less powder capacity it's more than adequate um as proven by thousands and thousands of elk cutters every year and plenty of folks in africa and it's real popular up in alaska for bear guides or just anyone who's hunting and wants some protection from bears you know it's not the 375 but it's not a full-length magnum action required so it's real popular but then you want to go with your 250 grain bullets and you can't even load 300 grain bullets in it they're getting fairly slow but they're going to have plenty of punch and because of the high sds on that bullet the sectional density it's going to really penetrate well that's the advantage of a big heavy bullet like that on that 338 so yeah if you want to stop a bear or any other big animal that's charging that bigger bullet in the 338 is going to do it for you so you look at the 338 and the bottom line there where i put the 250 grain bullet on it that's usually the heaviest that most people like to use pretty good bc at 575 but we're not too concerned about bc at this point we're looking to stop trouble so the energy it puts out is what we're shopping for 3818 at 100 yards you know you're getting some oomph put on that animal and it keeps 2640 way out at 400. i don't think you're going to be taking too many 400 yard shots it's that close range stuff you want to deal with so look up for yourself some ballistic charts and just check out what that 300 will do for you i'm sure that thing's putting out probably 4 000 foot pounds of energy at the muzzle maybe a little more than that definitely something you want for dangerous gaming bears but still you've got a pretty good flat trajectory you know if you can match that 338 trajectory to that 300 win bag that's an just a famous long-range flat shooting hard hitting cartridge and the 338 is just running neck and neck with it you just get a bigger bullet it's just amazing how many 33s are out there i didn't know there were that many and i wonder if they're all that popular how many of you guys are actually shooting at 338 of any kind and why do you like it more than the 300 what advantage do you honestly think it has because i'm just not seeing a heck of a lot of it unless you go to those really big ones and put the 300 grain bullets on and go for that long range shooting stuff so if you get a chance write in send us some comments let us know what you value in that 338 win mag or any other 338 magnum meantime this is ronce boomer got to go tend to my wounds get back out in the brush and uh we'll see you next week with another video on a cartridge or a rifle or something to do with the great outdoors and hunting with firearms because that's what i enjoy ron spumber signing off thanks guys hunt honest and shoot straight [Music] you

Channel: Ron Spomer Outdoors

Views: 180,793

Keywords: outdoors, ron spomer outdoors, ron spomer, hunting, firearms, guns, shooting sports, rifles, big game hunting, hunting gear, hunting gear review, rifle review, gun review, 338 win mag, big game, elk rifle, 338 winchester magnum, elk hunting, elk cartridge

Id: haS8myf8NNY

Length: 16min 45sec (1005 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021