Quote:
Originally Posted by cabmando
I asked my friend and he said it was "keyholing" at longer ranges where his 308 didn't have the same tendency. Maybe he needs to refine the load. We're talking about taking his 308, 30-06 and 7mm Mag out along with my nephew's .338 Lapua and having some fun. I love shooting the .338 my nephew has. Has less recoil than my 12 gauge with a 3" slug. It probably has less "kick" than my 450. I shot it freehand from a tree stand bracing myself for the kick that never came.
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That makes sense, the keyholing issue. Some really good hunting bullets will do that at longer ranges - they have pretty low ballistic coefficients, with nose shapes designed more for expansion than aerodynamics. They shed velocity quicker than dedicated match bullets.
.338's of any persuasion, Winchester, Lapua, Weatherby, Remington - they all have their own version - always struck me as kind of oddballs. It was Elmer Keith's favorite western big game caliber, so one would think I would be all over it. His experiments with the .333 OKH (O'Neil, Keith, Haskins) based on the .30-'06 case, then the .334 OKH based on the .300 H&H mag case eventually led to the .338 Winchester Magnum. Probably the penultimate elk and brown bear cartridge. Wildly popular, and for good reason. But I've never owned one. Probably never will.
I think Keith himself more or less summed up my feelings toward the .338 - he said it was about 80% as effective as the venerable old .375 H&H magnum in the field. He meant that as high praise. I took it as meaning I really needed a .375 H&H magnum. I now own three rifles so chambered, and have hunted far and wide for thirty years with rifles so chambered. Boy do those things ever hit the big critters
hard.