338 Federal vs 358 Winchester

[rugatika]

I was looking at a Browning BLR and thinking of getting one in 358 winchester. Good for an Elk, moose, deer, etc or bear in the bush I would think. Then I noticed there ain't a lot of factory ammo for these.

How do these compare with the 338 federal? Any clip fed short guns available in 338 Fed.

Any other thoughts on these two 308 based cartridges? Is the 358 win gonna be around for long? The BLR is what I originally wanted to get and thought the 358 would be a good cartridge to get out to 150 or 200 yards.

Anyway, just looking for cabin fever opinions. Have at 'er.

[mark007]

i have a .338 federal in tikka t3 lite and its my second favorite rifle its a tack driver at 200 yards! my favorite rifle if you are wondering is rem 7mm mag,also t3 lite! lots of factory ammo for .338 fed just a little pricey 48.00 a box. so i neck up .308 brass and reload my own!

I have a 338 federal in a tikka T3 lite as well, and she's a shooter. Really likes the 200-210 grain stuff. And man does it kill deer!

[Dick284]

the 358Win is a reloaders proposition for sure.
With that in mind I dont think it's any more going to die than say the 284Win, 250Savage, 257 Roberts, 300Savage.

The 338 Fed is intersting, but from a handloaders perspective, I've got to wonder how long till the this bullet failed to expand occurances happen because someone put a bullet built for 338 Win Mag or higher velocities in their 338Fed.

I'm convinced that today there are more than a few loadings offered by the factory for the 338Fed, as was the case for the 358Win, back in it's infancy. Time will tell whether all those loadings will exist some 30+ years down the road, likely not, is my best guess.

So unless you've got a better crystal ball than mine, it's pretty hard to tell what will be left for factory loadings un teen years down the road for a particular cartridge.

I'd say if a new caliber interests you, you might be better served to consider reloading as an option in the not to distant future.

[Traps]

I picked up the 338 Federal in a TC encore and its been good so far. I think this round should catch on really well. It is offered in three good bullet options. Without getting to technical the .308, 30-06, 6.5X55, 7x57, and a few others are great guns for one reason, their energy intensity is in the sweet spot out to 300 yards. What I mean by energy intensity is the energy divided by the area, all these are around the same number at the muzzle. It is a way to measure how much a bullet will expend its energy to mushroom the bullet. Anyways if you do the energy density on the 338 Federal with 200 fps more than the 308 its in the same sweet spot but with 20% more area. The 7mm-08 is in the same category and this gun has been getting rave reviews for quite a while. This should be another fantastic game dropping round.