GUN NOTES
Play No. 33
Elmer Kieth's pet caliber is as good as he said it was.
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As a young hunter and guide in the western mountains, Elmer Keith--dean of the heavy-caliber, heavy-bullet gunwriters and author of this "Gun Notes" column for many years--saw a lot of early softpoints fired at relatively high .30-06 velocities fail on elk. This colored his caliber preferences for the rest of his life.
Later in life a rivalry developed between Keith and another great gunwriter, Jack O'Connor, who championed the .270 throughout his long career. It's quite possible their war of words caused Keith to go a little overboard. One of his best-known quotes (directly from these pages) appeared when he described the .270 Winchester as a "damned adequate coyote rifle." Keith had intimate knowledge of and an innate feel for rifles, bullets and ballistics. He knew the .270 was a bit better than that and that he was certainly exaggerating a wee bit when he recommended his .33-caliber wildcats for pronghorns.
But he was not at all wrong about his beloved .33s. A .33-caliber bullet isn't needed for pronghorn, deer or sheep, but in the right case it can be pushed fast enough to have a suitably flat trajectory for such game, especially with lighter bullets. Keith, of course, preferred 250-grain slugs or, better still, heavyweight 275- and 300-grain .33s, which are rare today.
In 1945, the legendary team of Keith, Charles O'Neil and Don Hopkins developed the wildcat .333 OKH, simply a .30-06 case necked up to take .333-caliber bullets. The great .338 bullets we have today didn't exist then, but there were bullets available for the British .333 Jeffery. This provided the step-up in both bullet weight and diameter (above .30 caliber) that they wanted, but velocity was modest. A few years later they necked up the .300 H&H case to take a .333 bullet, creating the .334 OKH. The .333 OKH is about the same as the .338-06, a popular wildcat now offered by Weatherby. The .334 OKH is about the same as the .340 Wby. Mag.
In between is the .338 Win. Mag. introduced in 1958 in a version of the Winchester Model 70 called the Alaskan. Considered a heavy kicker (which it is in comparison to lighter calibers, but which it is not when compared to the faster .33s), the .338 is not particularly fast or flat-shooting, especially when compared with the 7mm and .30-caliber magnums. It took a long time to catch on among elk hunters. The .338, though not flashy in velocity, is fast enough and flat enough for most hunting, and its heavy bullets do an absolutely wonderful job on tough, heavy game. It doesn't rival world standards like the .270, 7mm Rem. Mag., .30-06 and .300 Win. Mag. in popularity, but the .338, loaded and chambered by nearly everyone, is definitely here to stay.
These days .333 bullets are exceedingly rare, but the .338 Win. Mag.--and the .338 cartridges that have followed it--have given us a tremendous selection of .338-caliber bullets.
While the .333 OKH and modern .338-06 are great cartridges, their case capacity limits velocity and utility. I find the faster .33s from .338 Win. Mag. on up much more interesting and useful. Standard loads for the .338 feature a 250-grain bullet at 2,650 fps, but it's not difficult to get handloads 100 fps faster, and Federal's High-Energy load is rated to push a 250-grain bullet at 2,800 fps. This is about where the .330 Dakota is. The .340 Wby. gains up to another 150 fps, to about 2,950, with a 250-grain bullet. Factory loads for the new .338 Ultra Mag are milder than Weatherby factory loads and are rated at 2,860 with a 250-grain bullet. But the Ultra Mag has more case capacity, so as handloading data becomes more available it will certainly meet and should slightly beat the Weatherby round.
Definitely faster are the larger-cased .33s: the .338-378 Wby. Mag., the .338 Lapua and Lazzeroni's 8.59 Titan. All are able to push a 250-grain bullet above 3,000 fps, the Titan at a whopping 3,150 fps. Velocity gets the .33s up to trajectory levels fairly similar to the magnum .30s, significantly extending their practical and effective range. Yet the heavier .33-caliber bullets yield a great deal more energy--and their larger diameter delivers a heavier blow--than is possible with lighter calibers. There is a price. The .33s kick a lot harder, especially with heavy bullets. The fastest .33s, although wonderfully powerful, effective and versatile, are too much of a good thing for many of us. Keith, by the way, was one of those unusual people who was truly impervious to recoil.
Everyone's recoil tolerance is different. The .338 Win. Mag. is a very comfortable cartridge for me to shoot, especially in a rifle of reasonable weight--maybe 81⁄2 pounds. Gun weight changes the equation; muzzlebrakes change it still more. But I know from experience I'm over my recoil limit with the fastest .33s. Without a muzzlebrake they're not fun to shoot, and I'm already deaf enough that I try avoiding rifles that absolutely must have a brake to be comfortable. As magnificent as they are, I have none of the fastest .33s in my battery.
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