Is the .338 RUM Dead?

[Phil Giordano]

The name of my ".338" is 8x68S.

It easily takes every plains game you can encounter.... and it is plain fun to shoot.

For everything bigger, you need a real DG rifle/cartridge...

And btw.... 338 RUM is dead.....

HWL

Very happy to see there are other 8x68S lovers around!
My favourite caliber by far, I have a Sauer 90 so chambered.
Let me say that in my opinion, our big 8 can do very well in North America/ Canada, maybe not for the big Costal Brown Bears - but still ok for the Interior Grizzly Bears, with adeguate bullets weight and structure, obviously.
A great caliber indeed.
And Norma and RWS have great loads.

 

[colorado]

Never personally saw the point of the 338s, I know I'm in the minority. I always figured the logical jump from a 30-06 or 300 Win Mag was to a 375 H&H or 375 Weatherby. I have a 7 1/2 lb Rem XCR II in 375 Weatherby, shoots a 300g bullet at 2800 fps. Flat as a 338 Win Mag and hits harder .. To each his own.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Never personally saw the point of the 338s, I know I'm in the minority. I always figured the logical jump from a 30-06 or 300 Win Mag was to a 375 H&H or 375 Weatherby. I have a 7 1/2 lb Rem XCR II in 375 Weatherby, shoots a 300g bullet at 2800 fps. Flat as a 338 Win Mag and hits harder .. To each his own.

@colorado
The minority has at least 2 people as I don't really see the need for a 338 either. At sane hunting ranges the properly loaded Whelen will do what the 338WM will do. If you need more you have the 358 Norma and STW. It's a pity the Norma didn't take off.

 

[TERMINATOR]

@Saul, I'm with the gotta have one crowd. Everyone has their favorites and with practice can use them to their fullest capability. I own a few oddballs, some wildcats and bean counter ne'er do wells. As far as a wood stock version of the rifle, if you can swing the funds, consider a custom build.

Or buy a rifle that uses the same size action and rebarrel to .338 RUM

 

[TERMINATOR]

Never personally saw the point of the 338s, I know I'm in the minority. I always figured the logical jump from a 30-06 or 300 Win Mag was to a 375 H&H or 375 Weatherby. I have a 7 1/2 lb Rem XCR II in 375 Weatherby, shoots a 300g bullet at 2800 fps. Flat as a 338 Win Mag and hits harder .. To each his own.

Or even a fast .35

Talk about a small fan base but a fast .35 Cal is devastating. The 350 Rem Mag is devastating but because they introduced it in those light carbine rifles (Model 600/660) the recoil was eye watering.

But build one or rebarrel a rifle of appropriate weight and it stomps animals

 

[spike.t]

@colorado
The minority has at least 2 people as I don't really see the need for a 338 either. At sane hunting ranges the properly loaded Whelen will do what the 338WM will do. If you need more you have the 358 Norma and STW. It's a pity the Norma didn't take off.

Hey fk off I am here .... .....and Bob stop going on about that thing.....9.3x62....simple....

 

[TERMINATOR]

Or even a fast .35

Talk about a small fan base but a fast .35 Cal is devastating. The 350 Rem Mag is devastating but because they introduced it in those light carbine rifles (Model 600/660) the recoil was eye watering.

But build one or rebarrel a rifle of appropriate weight and it stomps animals

And the .358 Norma mentioned above as well

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Or buy a rifle that uses the same size action and rebarrel to .338 RUM

@TERMINATOR
But it just another big 338. WHY?

 

[TERMINATOR]

@TERMINATOR
But it just another big 338. WHY?

I don’t know why the person wants a .338 RUM

I just mentioned a way to get the rifle he wants but can’t find other than do a complete custom build.

Personally I have no need for anything bigger than my .300 Wby until I get to DG so I jump from .300 to .375

I can kill anything on earth with any of the .300s that doesn’t want to eat me or stomp me to death so I got no need to fill the gap between .300 and .375

But if I was going to it would be a fast .35

 

[CoElkHunter]

Never personally saw the point of the 338s, I know I'm in the minority. I always figured the logical jump from a 30-06 or 300 Win Mag was to a 375 H&H or 375 Weatherby. I have a 7 1/2 lb Rem XCR II in 375 Weatherby, shoots a 300g bullet at 2800 fps. Flat as a 338 Win Mag and hits harder .. To each his own.

Well, I believe Elmer Keith and his cohorts were financial visionaries in the creation of the wildcat .333OKH, which ultimately morphed into the .338OKH after the Winchester .338WM came into production and .338 bullets became more readily available. They visioned someone like Townsend @Bob Nelson 35Whelen and others like him being born and ultimately owning .35 Whelens and debating and estoling the virtues of the Whelen vs. the .338s for YEARS! So, Keith and other writers could make a fortune churning out one article after another fomenting this forever debate. Look at all the print (type) here regarding this never ending debate? If I had a nickel for every thread/post JUST here on AH (mostly by Bob) on this topic, I could hunt scrub bulls in OZ every year! So, I believe this is why the .338 caliber was created, and specifically the .338 Winchester Magnum, to torment the .35 Whelen owners like Bob here and to fuel this never ending debate and make (made) Keith and other writers a lot of money. That's why I own a .338 Winchester Magnum. To torment Bob and kill a lot of elk with it.

 

[Alaska]

For those have or are contemplating a .338 RUM, my loads of choice are a 225gr Swift backed by RL25 @ 3080fps and a Barnes 250gr LRX (b.c.: .602) backed by RL19 or RL22 @ ~2930 (both give almost identical accuracy and velocity).
For some reason my rifle does not like the 250gr Swift. Wasted a lot of bullets and powder trying to that to shoot well.

Do you have that backwards Reloader 22 for 225gr and Reloader 25 for 250gr

 

[crs]

Per Red Leg, " never understood why it(.338 RUM) was alive to begin with. I haven't been able to fully grasp what problem was being corrected with the .338 win Mag. "
Agreed!
And my personal next step up from my .308 was to a real Big Bore that begins with a 4 .

And then I inherited a nice Ruger 77 .338 Win Mag and used it on PG in Africa. A nice Rifle, but would not (and will not) have bought another .3 caliber since having nice 4 caliber rifles that are all legal on all African game.

Fortunately we Gun Nuts have a plethora of great solutions from which to choose.

 

[meigsbucks]

Do you have that backwards Reloader 22 for 225gr and Reloader 25 for 250gr

No. I do get slightly higher velocity with RL25 or RL33 and the 250gr, but much larger groups.
95gr RL25 with the 225gr Swift
87gr RL19 with the 250gr Barnes LRX

 

[F. Vaccaro]

Awwww, just build a .338-06 & be done with it?

I’ll stir the pot, orrrrr you could just load the .375 down a bit?

 

[Flewis]

No. I do get slightly higher velocity with RL25 or RL33 and the 250gr, but much larger groups.
95gr RL25 with the 225gr Swift
87gr RL19 with the 250gr Barnes LRX

I have 5 different 338s starting at 338 fed and ending at 338-378. The 338 ultra is best of all.

 

[wildwilderness]

I happen to know where a 338 rum is for sale. It’s a stainless Rem 700 sporter. If anyone is interested let me know ?

I thought about it for a minute since I don’t have a 338, but I have a couple 300’s a 9,3 and a .375 so couldn’t justify it at the moment

 

[Tom Leoni]

Marketing is the only reason why any of the RUM - WSM - WSSM - or like cartridges ever existed. Mind you, my job is to market firearms so this is not intended to be a swipe, but I will posit that every useful *hunting* cartridge had already existed prior to WWII. If you dig the 338 RUM by all means knock yourself out, but I don't see it ever becoming part of my arsenal.

 

[rdog]

A Love Story...

It was September 1989, essentially 30 years ago, when I fell in love. I cannot explain why, but I was swept by an uncontrollable passion and an unshakable certainty. This was the one!
Now, almost a third of a century later, after 30 years spent together, with the benefit of experience, I know that all the promises were not fundamentally untrue, but that they were also not as life-changing as they seemed to be.
Yet, I am still in love...

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From that moment on, I HAD to have a .340 Wby. My first one was a full custom rifle I commissioned from the ground up with Griffin & Howe on a wonderfully tuned-up ZKK 602 action (the only true magnum length Mauser action available in the early 1990's), with beautiful metal work (quarter rib, integrated claw mounts, barrel band front sight, fully regulated 3 leaves rear sight, etc. etc.), French walnut, hand rubbed linseed oil finish, etc. and I took it everywhere:

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.340 Wby in Newfoundland, circa early 1990's

This rifle was destroyed in transit at the Phoenix airport. The stock could have been replaced, but the barrel was bent...

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Since then, my .340 has been a stainless Mark V that has served me well...

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I now KNOW that the .340 Wby 250 gr only flies 10% faster than the .338 Win 250 gr (2,950 fps vs. 2700 fps), which is real but hardly earth shattering;

I now KNOW that the .340 Wby 250 gr only offers an increased maximum point blank range of 23 yd compared to the .338 Win 250 gr (291 yd vs 268 yd), which is real but hardly life transforming;

I now KNOW that there is nothing the .340 Wby does that the .338 Win cannot do, even though the .340 Wby 250 gr hits 25% harder than the .338 Win 250 gr does (4,800 ft/lbs vs. 3,900 ft/lbs), which is real but many of us have become weary of "energy" alone as a predictable killer;

I now KNOW that the .340 Wby 250 gr recoils 30% more than the .338 Win 250 gr (43 ft/lbs vs. 33 ft/lbs in a 9 lbs rifle), which makes it considerably more difficult to shoot well;

But every time I grab the .340 Wby something inside me feels warm and confident and I KNOW that whatever I will point it at, will fall...

I am still in love...

PS: I had been thinking for a long time (many years actually), that I wanted to dig that iconic article from my old G&A stash, and I had even tried a few times, but unsuccessfully. I just spent 3 hours in the attic to finally unearth it, for your reading pleasure. This is a cult article for the lovers of the big .340 and to the best of my research it was not on the internet yet. I hope you enjoyed

In the mid 1970s i purchased a Weatherby mk5 340 WM shot lots of pigs some red deer & goats, on a trip hunting goats in the Flinders Rangers in South Australia i was down prone shooting at a goat across a valley on a ridge about 250 meters away i got a Weatherby eye brow ,cut me to the bone, now when i look in the mirror at 76 i still have the scar to remind me of my 340. the sharpest recoiling rifle i have ever owned.