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Old May 7, 2013, 09:16 PM   #12
taylorce1
Senior Member
 
Join Date: November 18, 2005
Location: On the Santa Fe Trail
Posts: 8,209
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stukaman
Tell me about this .338-06
What would you like to know? The whole rifle took a little over three years to come together. I started with the stock, I found the Edge for $450 on another forum that I frequent as well. I had a push feed M70 that I was going to use for the build but the more I thought about it I decided I didn't want to cut any corners on the build.

So the next three years I bought a few M70 classics to build on but in the back of my mind I had always wanted a stainless steel rifle, especially after hunting Alaska a couple of times. I wanted to stick with a .338-06 as my love affair with this cartridge started in 1997 when I bought my first reloading kit. The Speer manual that is included with the RCBS reloading kits resided close at hand for many years. I put together the pieces of a custom rifle off of scrounged parts to build a .338-06 in 2004, and when I took it to a gunsmith to have it built he offered the 1903-A3 pictured above for $600 cash.

Actually back then I didn't know exactly the type of rifle I liked. I was going to build it as well off of a sporterized 1903 rifle I had bought for $125. I had an old Bishop stock that I found for another $50, and a Douglas barrel that was around a #4 or 5 contour that I picked up for another $150. After talking with the smith I found out quickly that his .338-06 would be a much cheaper proposition.

I don't regret buying that rifle it defiantly was a better decision in the scheme of things over building that custom. It is a little heavy weighing in at 9 lbs 14 oz all up to carry all day hunting elk. It launches the 200 grain Hornady SP with about a grain to spare from max load of RL15 from the Hornady manual at 2880 fps. I've taken it elk hunting twice but never came across a legal elk to shoot with it, but I've taken one pronghorn doe with it at 200 yards a few years back to blood it and it has pretty much been a safe queen ever since going to the range a couple times a year and then back into the dark recesses of the gun safe.

Fast forward several years later and the desire to build the custom .338-06 is back again. This time I have a better idea of what I want a hunting rifle to be like. I wanted it lighter weight but not so light that it wouldn't be fun to shoot. So I collect all the parts I needed to build another rifle, ordered the barrel to be dropped shipped to my gunsmith of choice and took him the rest of my parts. About four months after I dropped everything off I get the call that the rifle is ready to be picked, unfortunately that was a few weeks ago and I was just able to pick it up yesterday.

Realistically the .338-06 doesn't do anything a lot better than a .30-06. However, it is cool to talk to people about it as they look at you kind of weird. It is amazing how many people have never heard of this cartridge, of course they are the people who don't reload as well. I've put together a pretty good battery of SS and synthetic hunting rifles for hard use.

Left to right-Win M70 EW .270 Win, Win M70 FWT .30-06 McMillan Hunters Edge (ADL style), and Win M70 .338-06 McMillan Hunters Edge stock.



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Last edited by taylorce1; May 8, 2013 at 03:39 PM.
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