Thoughts on the following cartridges? 300PRC, 338WM, 35 Whelen, 416 Rigby, 458 Win

Bold to claim unanimity of any sort on CGN. But before it starts, I’m for mature dogs and unleaded, both on health and safety grounds.

Well, I grew up eating lead, red meat just doesn't taste the same without a pellet or two... and nothing makes me smile more than a new puppy after I am done shedding tears for the old duck Warrior.
 
Bold to claim unanimity of any sort on CGN. But before it starts, I’m for mature dogs and unleaded, both on health and safety grounds.

Couple mature Shepherds, trained Schutzhunds and a border collie puppy. I like the proven results of the GSDs, the little 8 month old collie is fun too with his boundless enthusiasm and energy. He tries to herd the big dogs, and not knowing any better likes to wrestle and play fight with them too. They take it rather well, until they've had enough and slam him to the ground one forepaw strike and hold him there with one paw while looking bored.
 
Dogleg didn’t you tell me you shot a small black bear with CEB bullets and you had never seen more damage?

Maybe that was a woodleigh hydro or some other Buffalo junky
 
CEBs are explosive… if pushed fast enough. They sponsored our bullets for several years for the company guns and I was very impressed long as they hit fast enough to fragment the front of the bullet into shards as designed. If they slowed down, they become solids or close to in effect.

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I doubt the results are pretty but if you want to just straight up murder something that is pissed off and coming at you it doesn’t seem like a terrible option. “Energy dump” of a partition, straight shank acting like a solid, channels of further damage. Maybe too good to be true? Probably causes more meat damage with the petals than the “lost” weight from a NP
 
OP here, thanks for the lively discussion.

I have decided to go with a 338 WM in a Sako 85 rifle. Cheers.

Excellent choice... the .338 Win Mag is a great cartridge... I would recommend the Nosler 225 Accubond PART # 54357. This bullet offers a great balance of velocity, BC and terminal performance over a wide range... it has worked very well for me.
 
Hard to argue with a .338WM, or Hoyt’s choice of projectile therefore. One thing I like about .338s is they’ll run happily from a 20-22” barrel that would be too short for a .300 in my mind.

I had a pair of Stainless M77 Mark II rifles in .338 WM, left one unmolested and repurposed the other to .358-375 Ruger by rechambering and mounting a spare .350 Rem Mag barrel... that puppy screams!
 
Dogleg didn’t you tell me you shot a small black bear with CEB bullets and you had never seen more damage?

Maybe that was a woodleigh hydro or some other Buffalo junky

I remember that. What I found was I'd never seen so much blood on the ground. I had the most spectacular blood trail of my life with the same rifle and a small whitetail. It must have been 20 feet wide on the snow. It ran anyway.

I used the Woodleigh Hydros too, along with other flat nosed solids. I'm absolutely done with solids for buffalo. Premium softs all the way. There's lots of good ones.

The reason I consider CEB Safari Raptors junk for buffalo comes down to a fatal flaw in the design and the realities of buffalo hunting. You always (should alway) start off with a clear first shot, and inevitably a follow-up. During that follow up which will be in brush you will likely have chances to end it quickly. That prick will manage to have some brush between you and him just about every time. A disturbing pattern emerged where almost none of the CEBs made it through while everything else did most of the time. Eventually I found broken petals stuck on the hides of a few and figured out what was going on. Those bullets on encountering any resistance at all would break into seven pieces before they even got there. Mind you, any bullet can deflect though they don't always. You have a chance if your bullet hasn't broken into 7 pieces first. Its like trying to shot a 22/250 through grass. The most out-spoken early promoter of the bullets (who also had a hand in designing them) would practically go hysterical if anyone offered the view that a magazine full of solids wasn't an necessity when it came down to follow ups because he knew his bullets weren't good for that. Barnes are miles ahead of the CEBs as an all round buffalo bullet in the real world, and they don't hit as hard as an A-frame, Woodleigh, Partition or any number of good premium softs.
 
Excellent choice... the .338 Win Mag is a great cartridge... I would recommend the Nosler 225 Accubond PART # 54357. This bullet offers a great balance of velocity, BC and terminal performance over a wide range... it has worked very well for me.

Hard to beat an Accubond. They act terminally like a Partition in practice, which in turn acts like what a decent cup and core does most of the time.

The Partition has been said to be the bullet that all other are judged by, but that is sort of gun writers repeating Nosler's own ads. :)

I'd submit that the bullet(s) that everything else is (are) really compared to is the standard offerings flat-base cup and cores from Winchester, Remington, Federal etal. If you want stiffer than that, softer than that, higher BC than that, or more predictable than that such things are not strangers in our land.
 
Which Sako 85 Kodiak carbine .338 WM available has 21-1/4" barrel got .375 H&H mag Kodiak. https://www.sako.fi/rifles/sako-85/85-kodiak

Fine rifles here's my .375 H&H Sako 85 video -

The Kodiak is the model I had in mind, love the looks of it. I was considering one in .375H&H but I already picked up a CZ550 in that so I wanted to try something a little different.
 
At this venture Buffalo hunting might as well be unicorn hunting for me. I was more curious about the CEB performance on bears, elk and moose to be honest
 
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