338-06 Loaders

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Linkerman

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Good day gentlemen, I have (2) 338-06 rifles in the making. Rifle one is a SS Ruger Hawkeye Hunter 22" that started life as a 30-06 Springfield and has been sent to JES Reboring to be rebored and chambered into 338-06. Rifle two started life as a Ruger M77 MK II 270 and has been sent to ER Shaw for a 24” 338-06 barrel to be installed. I have acquired some new brass appropriately head stamped from Quality Cartridge and a new old stock box of Weatherby factory loaded 210 grain Nosler Partition bullets. I have also made up a good bit of reformed brass from some 30-06 and 270 casings (annealed) that I have so I am good to go on brass. I see that the two most common powders listed for the 338-06 with the 200/210 bullets are IMR 4320 (discontinued) and Reloader 15 (unavailable to be found). That said could those of you that load for 338-06 please share what you are loading, specifically with what powders are currently available. I will be looking to load Nosler Partition 210 grain bullets for my May 2027 first African plains game hunt. I have spent the time looking through all may manuals but was hoping to gain real world experience with what is working well for you.



Thank you!!
 
As noted 4320 is what i consider the best powder for 200 gr bullets in the 338/06- but unavailable. So my next option is 4064. It is slightly faster but it's behavior near max loads is predictable so velocities near what is reached with 4320 can be attained.
 
Varget shoots 210's in my Ruger #1 very well. Burn rate close to Rel15.
 
I have two also both Weatherby UL.

I use Varget/AR 2208 same powder & it is all you need, also RL15 but expensive & impossible to find here,

I shot most of my animals with 180-200gr , I can get well over 3000fps with 185gr Barnes (not a great killer) & GMX which are better, I understand now these are called CX bullets & haven’t used them yet.

It is a great caliber, you shouldn’t be disappointed if you use the right bullets on the right animals !!
 
I’ve been having good results with H380 and 225 gr TBBC’s
 
I am using Varget behind the CE 200 gr Maximus. SDs single digit. 2750 FPS close to the top. Starline 30 06 brass necked up. Just dropped a Moose in its tracks at 200 yds. It just collapsed with lung shot. loaned my rifle to a friend on the hunt. His shot was 125 yds quartering to him. Bullet entered the chest and exited the opposite side hind quarter. The Maximus perform as advertised.
 
I have had great luck with Vit. N160 and the 210gr Nosler Partition.

Paul
 
I load the 185 GMX and its a good projectile for tough game, works well on boars.
My one load does all is the 160gr TTSX punches well above its weight. Taken everything from foxes to buff (water).
With sambar being my main target its a great choice.
185 GMX from shoulder shot boar
WA92UZ.jpg
160gr TTSX sambar hinde
o7oLs3.jpg
another from hinde
U3BC3T.jpg
FtZyqt.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Big Game works well behind 210 TTSXs in my 338-06 and I expect CFE223 would also work very well. I’ve been using H4350 with 225 and 250gr Sppers
 
These pics are from the A-Square manual. It was in an auction locally, but I did not win it. It was grouped with several other manuals I did want, but when they went for $300 did a very hard pass. Not sure if you had seen the data or not. I took pics as I have plans to build one soon.
 

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I stumbled on my rifle as an unfinished project from local gunsmith. Didn't know what this caliber was. Had some misgivings. The gunsmith that finished it raved about the caliber. Had one of his own. Another gunsmith has one for himself and his kids! I decided to finish project as is rather than barrel up something else. No regrets. In the meantime I have found that the people that have them are very happy with the caliber. The guy starting the thread is having one built others to follow. I think I will get some proper head stamped brass in case I end up in Africa on a hunt. I have shot ground hogs foxes and white tail leading up to the Moose hunt. More of a test of the Maximus bullets to get confidence up for shooting Moose with them.
They work as advertised on everything so far.
 
Linkerman said:
Good day gentlemen, I have (2) 338-06 rifles in the making. Rifle one is a SS Ruger Hawkeye Hunter 22" that started life as a 30-06 Springfield and has been sent to JES Reboring to be rebored and chambered into 338-06. Rifle two started life as a Ruger M77 MK II 270 and has been sent to ER Shaw for a 24” 338-06 barrel to be installed. I have acquired some new brass appropriately head stamped from Quality Cartridge and a new old stock box of Weatherby factory loaded 210 grain Nosler Partition bullets. I have also made up a good bit of reformed brass from some 30-06 and 270 casings (annealed) that I have so I am good to go on brass. I see that the two most common powders listed for the 338-06 with the 200/210 bullets are IMR 4320 (discontinued) and Reloader 15 (unavailable to be found). That said could those of you that load for 338-06 please share what you are loading, specifically with what powders are currently available. I will be looking to load Nosler Partition 210 grain bullets for my May 2027 first African plains game hunt. I have spent the time looking through all may manuals but was hoping to gain real world experience with what is working well for you.



Thank you!!
Click to expand...
@Linkerman
The go to man on the 338 ought six is @Rick HOlbert
 
Linkerman said:
Good day gentlemen, I have (2) 338-06 rifles in the making. Rifle one is a SS Ruger Hawkeye Hunter 22" that started life as a 30-06 Springfield and has been sent to JES Reboring to be rebored and chambered into 338-06. Rifle two started life as a Ruger M77 MK II 270 and has been sent to ER Shaw for a 24” 338-06 barrel to be installed. I have acquired some new brass appropriately head stamped from Quality Cartridge and a new old stock box of Weatherby factory loaded 210 grain Nosler Partition bullets. I have also made up a good bit of reformed brass from some 30-06 and 270 casings (annealed) that I have so I am good to go on brass. I see that the two most common powders listed for the 338-06 with the 200/210 bullets are IMR 4320 (discontinued) and Reloader 15 (unavailable to be found). That said could those of you that load for 338-06 please share what you are loading, specifically with what powders are currently available. I will be looking to load Nosler Partition 210 grain bullets for my May 2027 first African plains game hunt. I have spent the time looking through all may manuals but was hoping to gain real world experience with what is working well for you.



Thank you!!
Click to expand...
@Linkerman
Hit the wrong button. As I was saying Rick loves his 338-06 and has developed a few good loads for it using 225 gn Woodleigh PPSP. He is getting excellent accuracy and good velocities.
Unfortunately he won't listen to reason and get a Whelen but he does like that 338 of his.
Bob
 
Thank you guys very much for the great input, much appreciated.



Next question, “fire forming” your brass. Now I 100% understand what fire forming brass is, example; firing 280 Remington ammo in your 280 Remington AI chambered rifle to fire form it into 280 Remington AI brass, I get it. However, I read a lot about guys fire forming their resized 30-06 brass that was made into 338-06 brass, loading it and “fire forming” it. Some guys talk about lightly loading rounds and others talk about some kind of loading with crème of wheat and firing it, don’t know about any of this? Not fully understanding the logic on this? I resize with RCBS full length resizing dies and trim to length as required, brass turns out and loads beautifully. But again I am a month away from having my rifles to actually chamber my rounds.
 
It is a process where you are getting shoulder in correct position when you are taking a casing and altering it in any way into another cartridge. In this case it’s just necking up 30-06 brass to 338-06. Sometimes shoulder might not be 100% to your particular chamber. Normally you could just seat your bullets just slightly into the lands so the bolt face is without a doubt on case and cannot shift forward if the shoulder of your case isn’t close enough to the shoulder in chamber ( headspace can vary). Then when firing pin hits primer case expands, shoulder is blown out to match chamber etc. going from a 30-06 to 336-06 probably isn’t a big deal doing this. But with ackley chamber or fireforming a 220 Russian into a 6ppc, it may take 2 firings to get it 100% blown out.
I would probably shoot all the rounds at least once before hunting with them. Below is why.

I have a 9.3x62 and decided I would buy some cheap hornady brass to hunt with locally on deer etc. then if I lose them who cares. Well I had a round not go off one morning shooting at a doe. I dropped firing pin 2x on same case and nothing. Chambered another round and killed the doe. Called a friend and he told me to check headspace/shoulder. I also fired the rest of the ammo and 3-5 wouldn’t fire. All of those when we checked the shoulders were set back really far, so when the firing pin hits primer primer, case just scooted forward enough and not enough tension back to set off primers. I pulled them down, new primers from same sleeve of primers, same powder right back in it, seated bullets to hit lands and they fired perfectly. Those cases had very round shoulders and after firing you could see the difference. It was apparently a known problem others had with hornady brass I just didn’t know until my buddy told me. That would have sucked if it had been a kudu, or a big buck, etc.

I hope this all makes sense, if it does not, send a PM and we can just talk on phone. Sorry for rambling.
P.S.
shoot the brass before hunting
 
Fryeguy said:
It is a process where you are getting shoulder in correct position when you are taking a casing and altering it in any way into another cartridge. In this case it’s just necking up 30-06 brass to 338-06. Sometimes shoulder might not be 100% to your particular chamber. Normally you could just seat your bullets just slightly into the lands so the bolt face is without a doubt on case and cannot shift forward if the shoulder of your case isn’t close enough to the shoulder in chamber ( headspace can vary). Then when firing pin hits primer case expands, shoulder is blown out to match chamber etc. going from a 30-06 to 336-06 probably isn’t a big deal doing this. But with ackley chamber or fireforming a 220 Russian into a 6ppc, it may take 2 firings to get it 100% blown out.
I would probably shoot all the rounds at least once before hunting with them. Below is why.

I have a 9.3x62 and decided I would buy some cheap hornady brass to hunt with locally on deer etc. then if I lose them who cares. Well I had a round not go off one morning shooting at a doe. I dropped firing pin 2x on same case and nothing. Chambered another round and killed the doe. Called a friend and he told me to check headspace/shoulder. I also fired the rest of the ammo and 3-5 wouldn’t fire. All of those when we checked the shoulders were set back really far, so when the firing pin hits primer primer, case just scooted forward enough and not enough tension back to set off primers. I pulled them down, new primers from same sleeve of primers, same powder right back in it, seated bullets to hit lands and they fired perfectly. Those cases had very round shoulders and after firing you could see the difference. It was apparently a known problem others had with hornady brass I just didn’t know until my buddy told me. That would have sucked if it had been a kudu, or a big buck, etc.

I hope this all makes sense, if it does not, send a PM and we can just talk on phone. Sorry for rambling.
P.S.
shoot the brass before hunting
Click to expand...
Not rambling… good points! Proper headspace is critical for any cartridge…. especially hunting cartridges. Either 30-06 or 35 Whelen can be re-formed to 338-06. I prefer using 30-06 which slightly thins neck. Thick necks can really cause problem in minimum neck chambers. For Africa, best to use correctly head stamped brass. Last I checked, two sources of 338-06 brass- Weatherby/Norma and Quality Cartridge. Can be hard to find, so pays to plan early for any future Africa hunt.
 
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