[Skunkabilly]

Hi,

What's the difference between:
7mm Ultra Mag and .300 Win MAG...are they the same?
And .338 Lapua Mag and .338 Win Mag, are they the same? What the heck, so many different ones! Mind boggling! Augh!!

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Jeff More
Irvine, PRC
All your AR-15 are belong to us!

 

[Car Knocker]

Nope. Different.

 

[mikr]

Very different. Now off to start a thread about .357's....

 

[BillD]

To start with a 7MM anything is about .270 caliber. Not a .30 caliber which is what a .300 Mag anything is.

If you have to ask, for God's sake, shoot these guns if you are thinking about buying. These are hard recoiling cartridges especially the Lapau.

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"Even the most normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats"
Mencken

 

[Jim Watson]

Uh, Bill, you are confusing poor Jeff. A .270 is .277", a 7mm is .284" (groove-bullet diameters.)

Your second comment is right on. Magazine articles are a poor way to select guns.

 

[jpwright]

While there is nothing wrong with enthusiasm for an activity, I think honest observers would say that enthusiasm for shooting, not need, is the reason we have so many calibers that are so nearly alike in performance. (I'm not throwing stones. I have three rifles that offer all-but-identical performance. I have them because I'm enthusiastic about guns, not because I need the minuscule differences in them.)

I believe I could handle all my rifle chores - real and dreamed - with four calibers: .22-250, .308, .338 Winchester Magnum, and .458 Winchester Magnum.

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If God didn't want us to own guns, why did He make the 1911?

 

[Skunkabilly]

Hi y'all.

I'm mostly a handgun and shotgun guy...I know jack about rifles (except they go boom and make holes in things far away).

EVENTUALLY I'd like to get a bolt gun, but that'll be a while from now. But if they ever ban 'sniper rifles' (i.e. black hunting rifles) then I'll be forced to buy one early.

Because I'm a shooter and not a collector (my friend at work buys so many guns, he doens't have money to shoot them) I rather pick one or two good ones and stay there instead of collecting a whole set.

My goal would be long range medula ablongada shooting, just for fun. The Blaser LRS2 looks really bitchin' (I like stock guns out of the box, dont' care for fixin' them up like I would with a Rem 700) but it only comes in 3 calibers: .308 (which is the only caliber I really heard of besides .223, 5.45 and 7.62x39), .300 Win Mag and .338 Lapua Mag. Not many accessories for .338 so I assume it's an oddball round.

If anyone would care to tell me, what are the applications for these three rounds? I'm not trying to start a flame war between rounds, I just want to know the difference because I really don't trust magazine articles.

 

[Jim Watson]

I am not an expert on long range rifles and calibers. I did not know Blaser made a target/sniper rifle on the 93 straight pull action until last week. I will ask our resident magazine writer, TV consultant, Jane's contributor, etc. how it did. My favorite rounds are .30-'06 with the old 300 meter International load, which is no more powerful than a .30-30 but very accurate and comfortable to shoot; and the .223 in auto or bolt action.

The .308 has the advantage of common ball, hunting, and match ammo, plus loading components and data for accurate shooting, with moderate recoil. The .300 Win Mag is more powerful which only matters to a target shooter at say 1000 yards. More expense, more recoil, harder to get as good accuracy - but not impossible. Nice thing about the Blaser is the interchangeable barrels and boltfaces. That was how I learned about the LRS2, the writer was coming into the gun shop to pick up the extra barrel and scope mount. The .338 Lapua is way bigger, more powerful, more expensive, and a harder kicker. Useful for extreme long range target shooting and sniping. See the writeup at http://www.snipercentral.com/338.htm
The main use for increased power in a hunting rifle is to kill bigger game.
The main use for increased power in a target or sniper rifle is to keep the bullet at supersonic velocity longer so it will be more accurate at long range. Crossing the sound barrier disturbs bullet flight, increases the effect of wind, and hurts accuracy. So you want the bullet supersonic at the target. Or subsonic all the way, like .22 lr match ammo.

 

[jpwright]

Applications? Hmmmmm Sounds like a fun topic to think about.

I would say the .308 is one of the great all-around light/medium game rounds, perfect for deer, antelope, black bear, wild pig, and so on up to elk-sized critters. It would be a little more than you would need for large varmints like coyotes, but it is an accurate long-range round.

The .300 Winchester Magnum, when it first came out, was used in Africa for buffalo as well as large antelope. People may still be shooting buffalo with it. In the US, it was and is used for bison, moose, grizzly/brown bears, polar bears, and elk. I would shoot a cape buffalo or gaur with a .300 Win Magnum if that's what I had, but I would probably prefer something bigger. Some shooters use it on deer, too, because it is a superb long-range round, and you can pop a mule deer with it at a very long range, if you are given to that sort of thing.

The .338 Lupua is more gun than you need for elk, but it's a fine gun for moose, the big bears, bison, big wild cattle like cape buffalo and gaur, big African antelope, etc.

That was fun.

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If God didn't want us to own guns, why did He make the 1911?

[This message has been edited by jpwright (edited 11-08-2001).]