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My 4X4 .338 Win Mag

The only other thing I can fathom is that the 1:9 twist requires a bigger bullet. I don't know much about such things, but I figured 225 grain was a middle ground for .338. Maybe I'll try a 250 grain flat base. I just can't believe I'm getting the same exact groups glass bedded as I was before.
 
I think you may be onto something.

Just did a little bit of reading and from the info I'm seeing out there the 1:9 twist barrels tend to like the heavier bullets, 250gr and above...
 
See, but now I'm confused. On Mossberg's website it now says they're using 1:10 twist on .338 win mag. I'm almost positive it was 1:9 before, but I'm not sure how to find that out.

My situation with this rifle sucks in more ways than one. I need my own reloading equipment, so I would have it readily available to me and I wouldn't have to drive to my friends place, which is 30 minutes from my parents house, which is 1.5 hours from my current location. I would like to try the 250 grain bullets and several other ideas I have, but it's just so damn inconvenient for me to do anything. Getting my own stuff would require space to put it and also it would be nice if I was able to live in one place for more than a 3 month period. Having that stuff would just mean more stuff to move every 3 months... I'm so tired of this crap. Oh well, that's life.
 
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Well lets talk about the right target first: same load just seated in deeper. It obviously wasn't right, so quit after 3 shots.

Left Target: one grain over the maximum listed in the manual.
So because I've been so busy with work and moving from one place to another and all that bs I wasn't actually present for any of this. I'm miles away working every damn day. But that's not the point, my buddy shot the gun because he was board, it was a hot day. Normally we don't shoot on hot days, because the barrel takes longer to cool and if it doesn't cool that can skew the results and it's just another variable. Disregard the flyer in the white strip which was shot #3. The shots in the column are just inside an inch and all rose is succession. He says he waited inbetween shots but the barrel never got cool enough for his liking. He attributes the column to the barrel being too hot. I agree with his assumption, but the only way to know for sure is to shoot it again on a cool day. It does look promising though.
 
So while I didn't get a deer this year during rifle season, I was able to spend some time in the field with my rifle. I know .338 is overkill for white tail, but I wanted to familiarize myself with the rifle and scope. First, I love looking through the scope! I can see detail in things much farther away, which bodes well for counting points on antlers, which would've been fantastic if I had seen a deer with antlers.

The second point I'd like to discuss is the muzzle brake. Basically, I hate it and it needs to come off. It makes the rifle way to long to carry around, and I keep bashing it off of stuff. The holes in it get all clogged up with snow, and I feel that it is a safety hazard or at the very least it'll screw with my point of impact. Also, and I know this is a minute point, but it'll make the gun slightly lighter with it off. It will also allow the gun to fit in my gun case better.

My plan is to shoot a 5 round group with the brake off sometime soon. The accuracy has also been about the same or worse as that last group I posted. I read an article recently that stated muzzle brakes break scopes. I also would like to shoot a 5 shot group with a proven scope and no brake to see if maybe my scope won't hold a zero anymore due to shooting with the brake on the rifle.

Article about muzzle brakes:
http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/ ... s-and-cons
 
Somehow, your buddy got it to group quite well (despite the vertical string, which I also suspect was due to the heat). To me that says you're either doing something wrong OR maybe just not quite as right as him. You mentioned a .243. Do you own any rifles which kick more than that? It's a lot easier for me to get a light kicking rifle to group well than a heavier thumper. Maybe you use a light grip. A lot of people say that's the way to go... and it often does work well for either small caliber or very heavy target type guns. But I've found with hunting weight rifles in 308 or above, a firm (but not white-knuckle choking the heck out of it) grip with about 5-10lbs of rearward pressure into the shoulder is the way to go. If you've got a 30 lb bench rifle in 6mmBR or something like that, it's completely different. And a .243 in hunting weight rifle kinda falls toward that category.
 
Also, for the caliber debate, I think bullet selection is more important that caliber. Well, most important of all is getting the bullet to hit an important organ (brain, heart, lungs, spine/neck). For elk at reasonable range, I'd be happy with a 7mm-08. Same for deer. Also fine for coyote. I think it's the new 30-06. The '06 was once the 'do-it-all' cartridge. It still is, but with modern bullets (bonded core, partition, solid copper) the 7mm can easily fill the roles of the old cup and core 30 cal bullets... and more. If I knew years ago what I know now, and if I didn't field slaughter buffalo each year with my father, I'd have two rifles for everything in the lower 48. A 22 lr (or 223 if in the more open plains or for small feral pigs) and a 7mm-08. From squirrel to elk and moose, that would cover everything and do it all with mild recoil too.
 
Thanks for the replys Richard. The biggest caliber I've shot other than this rifle is 30-06, I've also shot an 8mm mouser. The best groups I've ever achieved were with the rem 700 30-06. I also shoot my 12 gauge with 3.5 mags quite often for ducks and turkeys so I'm no stranger to recoil. I don't think the .338 kiks any worse than a 30-06 and definitely less than a 3.5 inch turkey load.
 
I see the target shot by your friend and the one by you are different. Yours is H4831sc and his were Reloder 19 powder. And the bullets were different. My .338 4x4 shoots about 3-4" groups with the two loads with H4831 that I've tried, with either 225 gr Winchester power point bullets (flat base, spire point) or with Accubond 225 grainers. With Reloder 17, I get about 1" groups with either bullet, although the accubonds have a point of impact almost 4" higher at 100yds! That's quite a bit from just a bullet change. Brass is the same and for both I was using 68gr of RL-17. Try some loadings similar to what your friend used to shoot that decent group. That combo may have been very close to an ideal one for your rifle.

BTW, my .458wm (mauser) shoots much different POI with light 325 grain 'plinker' loads than the hot 500 grain ones. I learned this after I sighted in with the 325 and then went for a brain shot on a big buff bull and it completely missed him... twice. I went to my backup 30-06 to put him down and it took a finishing shot to complete the deal, as is expected with a big bull. The 458 doesn't need a finishing shot if it gets in or close to the brain, but it's a bit punishing to shoot off the bipod for more than a few rounds.
 
One other little side note. Cheek pressure can make quite a difference too. If the butt of the stock moves a hundredth of an inch while recoiling, before the bullet leaves the barrel, that's about an inch and a half at 100 yds. A 338wm in a hunting weight (light) rifle will probably recoil around 3/8 or 7/16" during the time the bullet is fired and when it leaves the barrel. A couple weeks ago I actually tested different cheek pressures against the stock while shooting my remington 783 in 30-06 at 115yds. Very light cheek contact put the bullet almost two inches right of the bull, somewhat heavy (how most people with well adjusted cheek rests shoot) put the shots an inch and a half to the left of the bull. Moderately light, but not very light pressure put them right in the bull area. I also get better groups with the top of the recoil pad in my shoulder compared to the middle of it centered in my shoulder (shooting prone off bipod). I've ordered a Boyd's thumbhole stock for my 338 4x4 and with the higher butt in relation to the barrel, I think it'll help me get more consistent groups with it.
 
It's been well over a year now since I've touched this rifle. Since now I've got my own reloading equipment I'm hoping to get back into it. I removed the muzzle brake today so that's step one. As soon as I get my reloading bench set up I'm going to try some of my ideas. I'd like to try some different amounts of reloader 19. I'd also like to see if Remington primers yeld some better results. If none of that works I want to try some imr 4831 as my hornady book says that powder worked well also. In an ideal world just the removal of the muzzle brake would fix the whole issue.
 
I just returned from my first range trip shooting my own ammo. This was also my first time shooting the .338 without the muzzle brake.

The first load I shot (the last 5 from my friend who was loading for me) was a load I have shot before, and it has performed the best so far. I wanted to see how the muzzle brake affected things. It seems that it didn't affect the accuracy at all, but moved the poi down 3-4 inches. The second load I shot was my ammo 225 grain hornady interlocks, 70.9 grains of RE-19 and a Winchester primer. It performed quite horribly. Next I moved to 65.1 grains of IMR 4831 which shot quite well, however at this point my shoulder was starting to hurt. I was happy though because this was the best accuracy I've seen out of this rifle. I then moved to the next set I had loaded up with 67.4 grains IMR 4831. I put the 3 Hornady Interlocks right next to each other and called it a day. My next trip to the range I will move the scope and shoot a group with the same load to make sure it's still grouping good. I also want to try some Harnady SST bullets as I have them on hand and I want to see if the gun will stabilize a boat tail. I'm all in all satisfied with this result though, and will probably be purchasing another 4x4 in the coming months.

 
I really like the look of a wood stock. Every one of my rifles has a synthetic stock and I am really starting to miss wood. I might have to get a replacement stock for my .300 Win Mag.
 
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