Need some help with 338/375 Enabelr

Zane777

Zane777

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Hi everyone,

I am looking to get into 2 mile plus shooting. With the new gun law, we don’t have many choices now in Canada. The 338/375 Enabelr would be the best choice for me since I want to run it in Cadex platform with ability to magazine feed with 300 gr Atip or 390 gr Atip.

I could not find much information about this cartridge online. I would like to get some help from the folks who have run this cartridges. I heard some rumours about case separation in first one or two shots. Have anyone experienced such problem?
 
I'm a couple of months into a 338 EnABELR.

I had a 375 CT Cadex Shadow, and had it rebarrelled to 338E. I went with a 32" KS Arms barrel, EM Precision did the work, and it shoots very well. It is the Shadow action, so 4.5" mag well, and feeds even from the CT mags I have on hand. With short 300gr bullets, the CT shoulder fold is fine, and they stay off the front of the mag under recoil.

X-Reload got me the brass and dies (It took a while, you'll need to be patient). Dies are larger than the standard 7/8" so make sure your press can handle that.

I haven't been able to safely get the velocities you see around the web. Brass life at 3175 fps with 300gr bullets was...short but certainly not explosive, case heads just expanded to where they couldn't be resized, and I backed it down to 3050. It was odd as the primers were coming out nicely rounded, and primary extraction was trivially light.

I *thought* I was being fairly moderate based on QL, and should have capped out at 65kPsi or so. I am using jacketed bullets (Scenars and OTMs) so used a shot start of 3636. Fiddling with the QL model matches my velocities with a shot start of 10k (what I'd normally use for bullets on the lands). Odd as I don't think I am at jam, but it matches the velocity data I have in hand nicely, and would indicate 71kPsi at the top end. I'll experiment with a bit shorter seating when ranges reopen.

I need to find a powder slower than RL50/H50BMG/20n29...I am getting 3050 with ~90% case fill so 375 fps faster than my 338 Lapua with my 'light' loads.

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Really appreciate to your help! Your rifle looks sharp!

I am going to build 375 Enabelr first with Stiller action and Cadex chassis. And I plan to shoot 350 SMK first and move to 390 ATip when it is available.

I ordered the last set of die from Whidden. I called AB for 338 E dies, with no luck. Seemed like they no longer support for Enabelr.

3050fps was very low for 338 E compared to most of reports I have heard of. 3300 FPS with 300gr Berger is the speed I am after with 338 E. lol. I believe the very first version reamer from Manson was too big and that caused some problems for both 338 and 375 E. It was too big for Peterson brass and will kill the brass very fast. You may want to double check the reamer spec that you used. That could be the problem for not reaching to ideal speed.

QL could be wrong lol. They is very few data related to Enabelr cartridges. Looking forward to your seating depth test.

Again thank you so much for the help.
 
(This thread sparked a few offline conversations one of which encouraged me to come back and summarize here apologies for the minor hijack)

I find cartridge designers and online reloaders are often...optimistic...about safely attainable velocities.

Reloaders: (see a big case and stuff it full) :d
QuickLoad: Umm Guys...that looks like it is going to exceed pressure limits :confused:
Brass: <shouting> I AM SHOWING SIGNS OF EXTREME PRESSURE :eek:
Reloaders: My brass is not happy: There must be something wrong with my chamber. :p

I saw that post about the reamers on the Hide, but I know the smith purchased a new reamer for this build, so I’m confident that this is not what I am seeing.

Consider how massively overbore the 338E is: Dividing case capacity by bore area we see the
338E is 1727 grH20/in2.
33XC is 1549 gr/in2
375E is 1403gr/in2
50 BMG 1480gr/in2

For reference a 7mm STW is 1473 gr/in2, and a 284 Win 1041 gr/in2.

So unless a notably slower powder comes on the market I am really not expecting to meaningfully exceed 33XC performance despite an extra 15gr H20 of case capacity.

Let me be clear: I am well pleased with this performance! This just means that I am pressure-bound and not case-volume-bound, and the level of performance is still insane. I’m pulling 30% less wind than my 284/180 with this setup, and I am getting that with much less recoil than this same rifle in 375CT. It is so much easier to drive!

To the OP: I think the 375 enABELR is a more balanced cartridge, and you’ll be very happy with it. Current powders will support it better. Check out the Cutting Edge line of bullets: I had great success with 377MTACs in a 10 twist, but in faster twists look at the 400 Lazer.
 
Hey there, I don't know if I can help or not, but I do have a 375 EnabELR and it shoots. I don't know what type of bullet you are trying to use but I used 379gr Berger solid and 130gr of VVN570. I got a 40-inch barrel from KS arms and it's able to push that 379gr pill at 3150ft/s. The twist of the barrel is determined by what kinds of bullets you are planning to use. In this case, I think using monolithic is better for you. Brass life is non-existent at that point but I'm only chasing performance.
 
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