.338 Win Mag vs .45-70

[Camp Cook]

Not only did he miss that he has obviously has not tested true wide meplat bullets.

It is one thing to test a round nose flat point and an altogether different thing to test a wide meplat hard cast.

The two cannot be compared.

There has been years of study/tests/animals killed with wide meplat bullets they kill far better than you could ever believe...

CC

 

[Takujualuk]

Line up 5x 5gallon pails full of water and shoot them at 20' with your 338 and then a 4570 heavy hard cast. I bet you will be surprised which pail catches the bullets. The first 5gallon pail will likely shred the fast moving 338 cal bullets and greatly slow penetration. The 458cal keeps on trucking. Ps. Wear a raincoat you will get wet. A big bear (grizzly) has massive chest muscle that you must punch thru to reach the vitals. The impact force of high velocity bullets at such close range will cause shallow wide flesh wounds as the bullet crumbles and fails to penetrate. It may turn the animal or stop a charge. It may not. A heavy hard cast bullet starts slow and doesn't loose a lot of velocity on impact. Its slower speed actually allows the momentum of the bullet to be carried further thru the animal. My 300wm with 180 NP 2990fps stops after about 15" of water. My 405gr factory loaded at 1400fps made it thru 34". The nosler kept the shank but it was mangled. The 405gr round nose mushroomed perfectly. I believe a hardcast bullet would penetrate a lot more meaning it will ALWAYs make it to the vitals no matter the angle

I am fully aware of how crazy the hard cast bullets penetrate. I have shot my 450 through 30" of wet newsprint followed by about 16" of knotty spruce.
Nothing else quite like it. I have also shot 250 Noslers from a 358 Norma through moose several times. I guarantee that the Nosler will make a much wider wound. On the milk jugs the Nosler at 2800fps will also need a rain jacket and a wet suit. How much penetration is enough? On NA game the Nosler is more than enough and gives way better wound channels. The X bullet goes deeper and not as wide. Hardcast.... Very-very deep and not so wide. No free lunch...I bet you'd get faster kills 95% of the time with a speedy and weighty Nosler. I've tried them both....

 

[bigborefan]

One point in favor of the Marlin GG is that you can quickly reload through the gate with a live one in the chamber after you've fired a round or 2.

I've carried a Marlin a great deal in bear hunting, and in follow up in tight quarters it's FAR superior to ANY bolt gun. And, I used a lot of very powerful bolt guns too -- like 300 Win Mags, 300 WBYs, .338 Win Mags, 340 WBY, 9.3 X 62, 375 H&H... and my favorite bolt gun for bear is a .458 Win Mag. But at close to short range, a lever 45-70 WILL do anything a .458 WM can do. Believe me. AND it DOES matter what bullet you use. I used one of Ben Hunchak's 465-grainer "hardcast" with a flat tip at 1900 fps on a trophy quality bl. bear from a NEF single shot at 70 yards... a frontal chest hit... the bear was flattened in it's tracks! No other load has done better in bear hunting.

Bob

www.bigbores.ca

 

[Demonical]

Recoil is unimportant in a hunting situation or a reactionary, save-your-ass-from-a-pointblank-grizzly, type deal.

My all-time favorite cartridge in grizzly country, is the .338WM.

My go to rifle, is a M-700 .338WM, that I had re-stocked in a Wildcat Composites stock, with a 1.5-6x Bausch & Lomb Balvar scope. The rifle is light, scope is appropriate for application. It's the ideal moose-grizzly rifle in my opinion. Normal bullet is a .225gr Nosler Partition at ~2800fps MV.
I've probably shot more big game with that rifle & cartridge then any other, that I own.

Back to the recoil thing.

The one constant experience I've had over the years, is after I've shot a big game animal, I don't really remember having felt recoil, or even the issue of the sound. I've shot game with everything from a .270Win up to .416RM, and the results are the same. I don't notice the recoil at all.

And I bet the vast majority here will say the same.

But if you are truly one of those people that walk around worrying about the recoil of the rifle that you're carrying, then it's definitely time to get a smaller cartridge. You've got to carry something you're comfortable with... whatever that is.


It's getting around to my favorite hunt of the year; black bear.

I shot this little fellow in 2010. The rifle is a ZKK-602 rebored and reamed out to .416RM (from .375H&H), with a Leopold VariXIII 1.5-6x scope. McMillan stock.