anybody hunt with a .338-06?

B

Boston T. Party

Inactive
I'm very enamored with this caliber, on paper at least.

Yeah, a commonly available .338 Win Mag is more realistic,
but caliber fetishes are somewhat unreasonable by nature.

That aside, does anybody handload and hunt with a .338-06?

Boston
 
Well Hawg,I built one of those too,and it is something! 200 gr Accubonds @2900!
But to our OP,Not yet!!I too,stare at the numbers!!That 225 gr partition at about 2700 seems great and .308 BDC scopes would be very close.
The one other insane thing I wonder about,for no good reason,I have 4 mauser actions.A 1927 Polish small ring long action 98,a 1909 Argentine 98 large ring,and 2 Mexican 98 small ring short actions.The .338-06 would be a little scrunched up in the 57mm mauser length,but,by gollythe 8x57 has a little longer case body,shorter neck than the 7x57 or the 06.How about necking up the 8x57 to .338,and maybe even Ackley Improve it.Modify a .338-06 reamer for a shorter neck then use Roy Dunlap's trick,short chamber it to .338-57AI,and grind the bottom off 338-06 dies.(The old .30 Dunlap trick).
That would fit nice in a Yugo or Brazilian action.

If I wa starting with a true 30-06 length action,yeah,.338-06!!
 
Yes, I have a 1903 Springfield in .338-06 and there is a good reason to be enamored by that cartridge. I haven't taken anything large with it but I'm pushing a 200 grain Hornady SP bullet at 2880 fps. I could probably reach over 2900 fps with this bullet but it is so accurate where it is at I'm leaving it. Most of my hand loads are 150 fps or less behind the .338 Win Mag velocities. This so far is the only bullet I've ever tried, I do have bullets up to 250 grains on my bench, and I have data to them to almost 2700 fps.

I've owned this rifle for four years now and all I've taken with it is a pronghorn doe at 200 yards. It seems that I've been drawing ML tags with more regularity for deer and elk, which puts a damper on what I can hunt with my rifles. I bought this rifle with dreams of elk and moose in my head, and have yet to use it on either.

Like I said it is on a 1903 action and the only thing I would change on this rifle is the barrel. It is 24" fluted barrel and it makes the rifle a little heavy as it is a magnum contour. I topped it off with a Leupold VXIII 2.5-8X36 standard duplex scope which compliments the rifle caliber perfectly. This rifle is perfectly capable of taking game beyond 300 yards as long as the person pulling the trigger has the skills.

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No, but the only thing stoppin' me is finding one. I'd settle on the Federal if I came across one. Those are two nice efficient rounds that would do well in a carbine length rifle.
 
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