.338 win mag for deer

Jordan Smith said:
So.....you figure your .338 would have destroyed the heart even more? Animals drop and die from vital organs and bone structure being destroyed, not by foot pounds of energy. It looks to me like the 7-08 did its job with aplomb. Even a .50 BMG wouldn't have killed that deer any faster unless it managed to mangle the heart and vitals even more than what you see in the pic.

A neck shot is an iffy proposition. If the major circulatory system or spine aren't hit, a shot in the neck will not cause immediate death.
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Think borscht...When you square the heart. Nothing that size remains.

Oddly enough its super easy on the meat....Much more so than a 30-06.

In my experience most deer lung shot with a 338Win bounce 10-20 yards then tip over...I would hardly call the deer kills the 338Win makes spectacular...Just not enough there to cause violent expansion with those (made for huge game) bullets. Shoot a moose and it is a very different story.

I shot a 60 pound Island deer with my 340Wby with a hyper velocity 160X.... It made it 60 yards with nothing inside (just had to trim the wind pipe).

Not normal, but it can happen.
 
X-fan said:
Think borscht...When you square the heart. Nothing that size remains.
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I know what you mean, but it all just depends on the bullet. If you use a FMJ from the .338 you're just going to get a heart with a hole in it. If you use a Berger VLD, the heart will be pulverized whether hit by the .338 or the 7mm-08.
 
o 0 O x ...... any one catch the drift ? A HOLE IS A HOLE.

apples with apples now. i can throw a baseball at you or a tennis ball. which hurts more.
to the person blastiing a deer with the 7 mm thru the shoulders that is the snow ball effect. splat BAD BULLET CHOOSING. and placement.
last time i checked there is not to much meat in the ribs.
people get angry when i shot deer with a 264 vmax 95 ohhh much to small and explosive. my deer fall nicely and seems to have no lungs and expands very nice after striking the deer. i lose 4 strips of jerky ... darn it . barnes banded solids head shots will do the trick.
338 win mag is just fine
 
Didn't we cover the on game performance for bullets and shot placements???

Choose the rifle and caliber that YOU shoot the best with. More times than not it is a standard SA caliber that folks do the best with, for many , many reasons, not just recoil.

In the Nosler reloading manual the author states how he fired 5 or 6 shots from a .300WM into a moose until it fell. Turns out the bullet construction was to fragile for the velocity it impacted the animal, fragmented with little penetration. In that case a slower bullet or stronger bullet would have done better. Had nothing to do with caliber.

Whatever you can hit a loonie with at 100 yards, you use that!Whether it be a .243 or a .50BMG.

A miss is a miss with any cartridge and saying that you need something big to make sure you down and animal without having to track it is an excuse for poor marksmanship and I will state that to anyone who blames the cartridge for being inadequate on deer sized game.
 
Kelly Timoffee said:
A miss is a miss with any cartridge and saying that you need something big to make sure you down and animal without having to track it is an excuse for poor marksmanship and I will state that to anyone who blames the cartridge for being inadequate on deer sized game.
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So you've never bobbled a shot?
 
Think you are missing the subject of that comment.
No matter if you miss or not, You cannot blame cartridge size if you are unable to recovery the animal.

If you say you have to put your faith in a large bore, highly powerful chambering and NOT your ability to take a clean humane shot you either need to spend more time on the range or sell the rifles. To me of course at a discounted price.

And if you want my personal response to the bobbled shot. I have left my tag unfilled many times, I could have taken high risk hail Mary shots , but I chose not to. I prefer Subway over tracking an animal into the evening for hours on end. If I know I can't hit it in the engine room, I don't shoot. Haven't lost a deer of my own yet.

We are gettin off topic here!!


X-fan said:
So you've never bobbled a shot?
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freezer filler said:
i've seen a deer that had been shot with a 7mm remington mag at over 300yds, both front shoulders were entirely destroyed... not even a slice of jerky could be salvalged. This to me anyways means that this caliber is overkill and i would lean towards something that might have left some meat behind but still got the job done.
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Bet the deer dropped like a stone though. Anything directly through the shoulders is going to loose some meat, but who cares. Rather loose some meat than than long track through bush and swamps.
Geoff
 
I don't know about you guys. this fall I was hunting with a new partner who was using a 300wsm. we both shot a nice buck. His went 50 yards and dropped dead. when we field dressed the deer the heart was shredded. I shot mine in the lungs and it dropped where I shot. meat damage was almost nil. I was using a 7mm mauser. He thought I was kidding!!!
 
Why is there always the implication that people with smaller calibers can shoot them while people with heavier recoiling rifles can't? I don't see that, good shots tend to be enthusiasts, and enthusiasts are always looking for more. More accuracy, more speed, more power, more guns, more anything to feed the interest.
The guys that show up at the range a week before hunting season and can't shoot are more likely to be shooting smaller standard cartridges than magnums. (Nobody seems to notice the guys that show up a week before the season and can shoot, the exist too.) The guys that are there all the time are likely to be shooting the bigger, faster and oddball rounds. At least that what it looks like from here. There's a lot of .243 flinchers out there too.
 
I think there are a lot of guys who only show up at the range a week before going hunting that are shooting 7mm Rem Mags, or 300 Win Mags, and recently 300WSM's. LOTS of them. And they usually [not always] can't shoot them very well at all.
Lots of enthusiasts stand by their favorite 30-06 or .270.
From what I've seen, the guys that only shoot October 25 for a Nov 1st hunt are shooting a magnum.
The enthusiasts are all over the map. I haven't shot very many deer with a magnum round. In fact, only 4 deer with a magnum, and other deer in my life have been shot with a standard cartrdige.
The cartridges I've killed deer with are:
.243
250-3000
25-06
6.5x55
6.5-06
.270
.280
7 Rem Mag
7mm WSM
.308
30-06

Not many magnums in there, but I still think I qualify as an enthusiast. :)
 
On the other hand, a guy at work was asking me about what kind of rifle to get, as he was getting interested in going with some friends to hunt whitetail in the foothills.
I was trying to talk him into getting a .270. That's a great deer gun, and I've killed lots of deer with it.
He answer was that he didn't want to have the wussiest gun in his camp.
He ended up buying a 7 Rem Mag. He shoots it once before going hunting. That's it. I think that's pretty common.
 
Huntin' Gun said:
I think there are a lot of guys who only show up at the range a week before going hunting that are shooting 7mm Rem Mags, or 300 Win Mags, and recently 300WSM's. LOTS of them. And they usually [not always] can't shoot them very well at all.
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I watched a guy at the range this fall bang away with a brand new Stevens 200 in 7Mag topped with a huge varmint type, cheap Tasco scope. He was getting 2" (2" low) groups at 25yds while his wife/gf watched and called it good for deer hunting. :eek:

I think he was scared stiff of that rifle and the groups showed it.
 
I see more once-a-year shooters around here with 7mm/.300/.338 Mags than anything else. The guys shooting .243, .25-06, etc are typically more the enthusiast type.

I myself don't have a problem shooting the big Mag's, it's just more blast, powder, and fuss than I care to deal with for something that can be killed quite neatly with a .243 or .25-06. The little guns are more fun to practice with in any sort of volume, too, so that's what I use for deer. Elk and moose- I'll use my .280 or 7RM (my BIG boomers :D ).
 
That is an interesting observation to say the least.
So becaue I am an enthusiast you say I need a larger gun??How is it that guys that are at the range lots are using the biggest calibers? I am not tryin to be a pest here but that is like saying all women drive red cars.

The only thing I strive for is smaller groups.If my velocty drops, so be it.A 6mm bullet @2600ft/sec in the heart stops deer, an 8mm @3200ft/sec in the guts won't.
Bigger and faster doesn't make your shooting skills improve. It just costs more. Like i have said before a miss is a miss. If you use a pointy stick or an M1 tank.

Maybe we need to take this discussion to the rifle range with some $100.00 bills posted down range, first miss gives up his $100.00 :p My "small" caliber works quite well in my hands!

To many assumptions being made here.

Shoot whatever you can shoot well, that is the bottom line!!!

Dogleg said:
Why is there always the implication that people with smaller calibers can shoot them while people with heavier recoiling rifles can't? I don't see that, good shots tend to be enthusiasts, and enthusiasts are always looking for more. More accuracy, more speed, more power, more guns, more anything to feed the interest.
The guys that show up at the range a week before hunting season and can't shoot are more likely to be shooting smaller standard cartridges than magnums. (Nobody seems to notice the guys that show up a week before the season and can shoot, the exist too.) The guys that are there all the time are likely to be shooting the bigger, faster and oddball rounds. At least that what it looks like from here. There's a lot of .243 flinchers out there too.
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