338 vs 300 win?

Evanguy said:
Yeah it should have been a 6" gong not 3". The 3" is for shooting with support or scope.

It really doesn't cause any pain at all. A lightweight 12g recoils harder then it. I get it, you don't like recoil and can't imagine someone else not minding it or enjoying it. Just relax and shoot don't worry so much about a little thump. Just make sure you hold it properly, that was a learning curve
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Some rifles and cartridge combos just plain hurt. I have unbraked, lightweight, 300RUM, 338 RCM, and 375 Ruger. I can shoot the 300 and 375 all day. And the 300RUM is sending 225+ grain downrange with 101.0 grains of powder. So a pretty stout load. 375 is shooting 350 grain bullets at just about 2600fps. And the 338 with 265's at 2550 fps. So not crazy recoil, but quite a bit in my unbraked RUM that weights 7.5lbs..

But yet, my most unfavorite rifle, that absolutely murders a guy, is a lightweight 7mm WSM. With any load. Doesn't have nearly the same recoil, but the speed of that recoil coming at you, with the shape of the stock, crappy buttpad, just plain hurts. I can literally only shoot 5 good shots. Then my groups will start to open up. I recently swapped buttpads and it's night and day different.
 
I'm with the 338 Win Mag crowd. I don't have a 300 mag. I have done load development for a friend's 300 Weatherby and found the felt recoil worse than my 338; it was sharper. If I want thump, I go to the 338. Otherwise a 7mm Rem is my preference over the 300, although I do think the 300 hits harder than the 7mm.
 
dgradinaru said:
Back to the topic at hand. Even though today I'd lean 300 win, in 2019 I had a great season packing my 338 win mag Ruger m77 African. Shot just as well as any small bore I've owned. I recently bought 5 boxes of 230gr Norma Oryx on sale, just in case I come across another 338 that might speak to me. But for now my 8x68 shooting 224gr at 2840 fps and 200gr at 3050 fps is pretty much the same thing but with more class!

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i just got 5 boxes of the same stuff. Hard to pass up at $60/box…
 
Joel said:
And "everyone else" can neither confirm or deny, since they've never actually and will not compare. "I don't think I do" is about as close as it gets, and it is best left that way since truth might not be so fun ;)

But they do seem to have some Camp Perry and Queens Medal candidates in their midst so there is that. Missed callings, alas.
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Seems to be a bit of a double standard here. You've made a pronouncement early on about accuracy with big bores vs. smaller ones, and you concluded that pronouncement with a statement to the effect that "we all know it to be true".

I simply read that pronouncement and pointed out that we don't all know it to be true, in fact some of us feel the exact opposite is true. I explained how I compared the two types of guns/cartridges and felt that my interpretation...different than yours...was the correct one.

You're taking me to task about not having made and documented detailed comparisons, presumably including careful measurements, etc. I didn't do that, not knowing I'd be embroiled in this particular debate...and I wouldn't have done it even had I known what was coming, simply because I was shooting for me, not for an internet debate. A few decades of shooting and observing the results apparently isn't enough to "prove" my conclusions, and that's okay because I don't care about the debate, just about the shooting.

But I'm not sure why my comment and conclusion based upon my own experience bears no weight, and requires stringent evidence and testing to prove I'm right...but your original pronouncement apparently is to be taken as gospel, despite a complete lack of similar hard proof.

I give up. I've absolutely agreed that if we include speed of follow-up shots as one of the criteria, the big guns are at a serious disadvantage. I've absolutely admitted that my choice of guns and cartridges is largely based upon emotional reasons, rather than hard data. And after reading all the back-and-forth between the two sides of the debate, I haven't seen a thing that sways me from my original assertion, which was and is that for the first shot, there is no rational, quantifiable reason for a big gun to be any slower or any less accurate than a smaller one.

Enough derailing for me. The thread is supposed to be about the .300 vs. the .338, and those two are so similar that most folks probably can't even tell which of the two they are shooting without reading the cartridge case or the barrel inscription. Nope, I can't prove that, didn't do tests, won't do tests. It's just a pronouncement, er, sorry...an opinion. No more or less valid than anyone else's, and worth every penny you paid for it. :)
 
jjohnwm said:
Seems to be a bit of a double standard here. You've made a pronouncement early on about accuracy with big bores vs. smaller ones, and you concluded that pronouncement with a statement to the effect that "we all know it to be true".

I simply read that pronouncement and pointed out that we don't all know it to be true, in fact some of us feel the exact opposite is true. I explained how I compared the two types of guns/cartridges and felt that my interpretation...different than yours...was the correct one.

You're taking me to task about not having made and documented detailed comparisons, presumably including careful measurements, etc. I didn't do that, not knowing I'd be embroiled in this particular debate...and I wouldn't have done it even had I known what was coming, simply because I was shooting for me, not for an internet debate. A few decades of shooting and observing the results apparently isn't enough to "prove" my conclusions, and that's okay because I don't care about the debate, just about the shooting.

But I'm not sure why my comment and conclusion based upon my own experience bears no weight, and requires stringent evidence and testing to prove I'm right...but your original pronouncement apparently is to be taken as gospel, despite a complete lack of similar hard proof.

I give up. I've absolutely agreed that if we include speed of follow-up shots as one of the criteria, the big guns are at a serious disadvantage. I've absolutely admitted that my choice of guns and cartridges is largely based upon emotional reasons, rather than hard data. And after reading all the back-and-forth between the two sides of the debate, I haven't seen a thing that sways me from my original assertion, which was and is that for the first shot, there is no rational, quantifiable reason for a big gun to be any slower or any less accurate than a smaller one.

Enough derailing for me. The thread is supposed to be about the .300 vs. the .338, and those two are so similar that most folks probably can't even tell which of the two they are shooting without reading the cartridge case or the barrel inscription. Nope, I can't prove that, didn't do tests, won't do tests. It's just a pronouncement, er, sorry
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Last sentence in second last paragraph says it all.
 
No, there is no contradiction because knowing and feeling are not the same thing. We can feel a lot of things, it doesn't mean they are so. And deep down, we often know it. And there absolutely is a rational case to be made for the first shot with the big gun being slower and less accurate. Different grip. Different stance. Different trigger pull. Different technique in general.

Try it ;)

I'll make one last comment on it too then. Earlier you supposed a new shooter shooting a 338 Win without being told anything about it. Because the first shot is ever important.

What about if, over 5 days, you let them take a shot each day. Into a group. Keep telling them nothing. You'd have 5 first shots on paper.

Then, the next week, you let them shoot a 223 once a day, every day, to get those 5 shots into a group.

Or, say take 5 people doing one, and 5 people doing the other.

I'm willing to bet, based on just about every documented case of people shooting smaller guns better, that the differences are very apparent.

In the spirit of your last paragraph though, I agree and have already also said if someone shoots a 300 WM well enough, they'll shoot a 338 WM well enough, and the differences are rather slight.
 
Big guns are inherently more accurate than little because the last step in measuring a group is to subtract the bullet diameter, gets you closer to the center. You can’t argue with math.
I’m being facetious but fits this thread.
 
I’ve got an idea, if you have never owned loaded for and hunted with guns over say 4000 foot pounds why comment on this. I’ve shot thousands of rounds of .223 and other little guns, know how they work. Someone’s gotta keep this going!😂
 
Northern Shooter, I found to enhance accuracy I just shoot 250grn bullets in my 338wm for everything as the drops vary a fair bit as you get out further. Nice thing I have found with the bigger and about 2650fpm IIRC you can eat right up to the hole.

Lot of comment on recoil, pretty subjective and varies widely based on cartridge, shooters fit to stock and stock design. So in a general way I believe what most people are saying about recoil, I just don't think what they are saying applies to everyone - nor should it.

The nastiest kicking rifles I have shot is either my brothers beautiful old BRNO in 458wm or my 416Rigby loaded hot with 400grn Swift AFrames. I would say my Model 70 Featherweight Classic in 6.5x55 is about the softest shooting centerfire rifle I've got - you hear a noise but there is no kick.
 
Cup and core 250 grain 338s will kill anything in NA

Shooting 185's out of the 338 might make sense if it's the only gun you own I guess.

I've taken deer with 250 grain RN hornadies, and a few different 225 grain bullets.
 
Something to ponder perhaps that may or may not be relevant to this discussion …it seems to me that when an attempted assasination on presidential candidate Donald Trump happened last year, the secret service SNIPER used a .300WM to take out the perp. Seems to me that, with all that can be at stake when a sniper is called upon that accuracy, both rifle AND cartridge would Trump (no pun intended) all else.
 
My load this year for my Kimber Montana 300 WM is Reloader 17 and 168 gr, TTSX-BT @ avg. vel. 3312 fps (Garmin)... no moose or elk in Canada is going to walk away to far from that. I'll also add that contrary to Suthers (good 'nuff) 300 WM target pics, I've printed 3 shot groups with this load in the low .2's @ 100 yards. :) YMMV
 
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