Just got the barrel in for a short-ish barreled rifle optimized for shooting at around 300 yards. Chambered in .338 Federal, with a 16.5" barrel, it’ll sling 185gr TTSX at around 2500 fps (we’re gaining about 200fps over a similarly sized gun in .308 shooting the same weight projectile at the expense of more drag on the bullet).
I may eventually get another similar barrel chambered in .338 RCM for even more short range power if I can find the brass and dies for it.
Nice!
I always thought the 338 Federal was a cool round. Even purchased one for a while but never could find ammo for it especially back in the ammo crunch of 2020, 2021 and later. So I ended up selling it.
Wish it could have hung on and taken off like many of the other newer rounds these days.
Looks awesome. What are you hoping to do with this build?
Hunting and target shooting out to 3-400 yards. I concluded a while back that something optimized to shoot a larger bullet at acceptable speeds would be ideal for the ranges that people actually hunt at (I’ll use your videos about shooting out to 600yd as evidence here). This thing has a lot of things going for it:
The last point is that its a blast to shoot in addition to being practical, so I can actually go shoot steel and stuff for fun and get better at shooting a hunting gun in the process instead of taking it out once or twice a year.
Here’s some of the first groups out of the rifle at 50 yds because the whole damn range was flooded today:
And ballistics out to 500 (verified that this was achievable via chrono today):
Do you know the minimum needed impact velocity for that bullet? Most TTSX’s require 2000 feet per second and you’re dropping below that around 250 to 275 yards. But every bullet is a little different than they make. They’re pretty good about answering that question if you contact them.
1400 FPS I believe, I will email them to verify.
Bear in mind that the lighter .338’s are designed for things like 8.6blk.
Barnes got back to me - 1800fps for 160gr and 185gr .338 ttsx projectiles; this does match my intended use case for <400 yds, though I might take a look at some accubonds later.
Also had a fun time shooting at soda cans at 300yds this week with it.
I was somewhat concerned that that would be the case. However glad you checked it out as it’s free to talk to them.
Joseph Von B just did an episode of the backcountry hunting podcast specifically talking about all copper bullets. He says he won’t accept anything less than 2,000 ft per second at impact , no matter what the company says.
Accubonds are great bullets. Also check out the long range version as it opens up at slower velocities. Depending upon what size / toughness of game you are shooting at, also consider Bergers. Terminal Ascent would also be awesome but I don’t know that they make it in 338, and even if they did, they are extremely hard to come by in general.
Glad you had fun with the soda cans! I need to do more of that myself. I spend way too much time at the range with load development, accuracy testing where I have to concentrate so darn hard. Around Thanksgiving a friend of mine and I went out with some 22s and just plinked at steel and soda cans and man that was relaxing!
