.338 R.U.M. fans

[Idaho_Elk_Huntr]

New here and had to sign up when I read this post.

Rumluver, I should have your name, just added number 23 to my Ultra mag collection. My wife is getting irratated but OH WELL!
I have that need new tubes.Just put together a SS on a Rem CDL stock and man is it a beauty

[RUMLUVER]

Idaho,

My friends call me Scooter and I'm happy to see that you jumped in on this. I too absolutely love those Ultra Mags and just as soon as I'm done with my .264 it will be my .338's turn for a little body work. I would like to here about your rifles it sounds like you have a few of them.

[Idaho_Elk_Huntr]

I have good collection. Probably averaged one a month since I started working. My wife loves guns and hunting so I dont have a problem with her. Well she get irratated when I buy to many of one gun. She says there are more out there that I dont have that I should get. I cant make here understand that I only like old Winchesters and Remington 700's and I have just about all of them.
I have 4 Pre-64 Winchesters that are chambered for the 264 mag. 3 are never fired and the other I used for deer hunting the open fields in Virginia when I lived there. I havent taken it out for elk here. I guess my 7 Ultra took its place. Both are Awsesome calibers. Everything I have shot with the 7 has piled up in its tracks.

[royinidaho]

338 Rum is 3 days from scheduled finish at the smith's. So far the schedule has slipped 2 months

I'm bettin' it slips again.

All I can do is whine.......

[royinidaho]

Slipped again. Hadn't even started it.

2 More weeks.

The work is just
1) swap 338 Win bbl for new takeoff 338RUM bbl.
2) swap Holland brake from old to new bbl.
3) smooth the rough bolt face
3) Lap the lugs
4) Intstall Tubbs recoil lug.
5) Trigger adj.

No truing of action etc.

Lets see: 10 days + 10 days + 6 wks + 2 weeks. Hmmmm that's roughly 2 months.

Gotta find a faster turn around for these peckerwood projects

[ol_spark]

Roy,
It's been a while since I've been on the forum and I see you guys have really talked up the RUM's quite a bit. Who is doing your project? Kirby?
Anyhow last deer season, we introduced a co-workers wife to the 338 Tomahawk and she whacked a deer at 791 yds off the ultimate tripod. Another one fell just a short time later at 793 yds. I attempted to do some testing a couple days in January and February but the wind was so brutal that is was senseless to even be out in it. Now that good weather is here, I may get to play a little more with those 225 SST's. I got some 250 Lapua's loaded with 100.5 gr of Retumbo and shot them at steel at 500 yds. They shot about 2" so I'm wanting to play with them a little more. I want to compare them with the 250 SMK's and run them side by side to see which is better. I don't know if I'll bother with the 225 Accubonds anymore but who knows. Tomorrow I think I'll try to find some H869 since the Easter egg hunt doesn't start until 3:00 in the afternoon. Maybe that will do something for me that the Retumbo isn't. By the way, tried 60 gr of Retumbo in that 25 06 Sendaro with 117 SST's and it shot about a close to one hole as I can measure a 100yds for 3 shots. So now I've got to run this one through the tests to see if it'll make the trip to 700yds for a ghog gun.
Do you need a little cheese to go with that whine?

[ol_spark]

I almost forgot. Not to knock the Tubbs finish system but JB Paste will do the same thing to them factory barrels. Some people could sell ice cubes to eskimos.

[royinidaho]

ol' spark,

The 338 project if being mostly done by me with a local smith doing the metal work. Doing nothing more than swapping the Win bbl for the RUM bbl and bringing the brake over. I got the RUM bbl, new unfired from Kirby for 45 bucks.

Will use it to see now much more of a cartridge the RUM is over the WinMag. The Win bbl was shooting 250 game kings and 252 Wildcats into 0.5" @ 200yds @ 2930 FPS. Cases were only a "little" sticky.

I will also use the RUM to further test the frontal ignition system in preparation for the 270 AM. The FI idea (stolen from OKH) has some good features and isn't that much work. It did give me a real feel for how much expansion the head of a case experiences when the thing goes bang. I must have been, according to the "local" smith "who knew PO Ackley" up around the high 70K low 80k pounds of pressure. Whoooo Hoooo!! It did launch little brass tubes downrange.......Once in a while......

The whole idea is to lengthen throat life but there are other benefits also.

After I get done with the RUM experiment it'll be come either a 338 Edge or Tommy. I'm figuring a Tommy as the Edge is nothing more than the 300 RUM necked up or the 375 RUM necked down. Nothing "sexy" about that.

You're bitchin' about wind!!!! Woke up to 4" of heavy wet snow this morning. How about them apples

By the way, some tests were done on the secnars and they behaved like solids. Accurate as heck but ended up bananas and penetrated some pretty serious steel that nothing else had ever touched.

[ol_spark]

Roy,
Yea, I read the post about the 250 scenars. Makes me sort of re-think about even messin' with them. Especially if the SMK's are working so far. I don't have alot of history with them yet but I guess I'll stay where I'm at and tinker with something else. Didn't get the other powder anyhow.

I got a .375 RUM take off barrel off of Kirby myself. Some day I may want to shoot a really big bear and I'll just switch the barrel on my 300 RUM and try that. If not maybe I can trade it to someone for something I'l need.

Good luck on the project.

[royinidaho]

I have that 375 H&H for them thar big bars. But I'm not going to intentionally hunt them. Odds are sooner or latter up north a few miles they may well hunt me

BTW, still snowin' here. Been goin' all day.

[Russell E. Taylor]

RUMLUVER, did you get around to doing any work with the 250-grain TSX bullets and IMR 7828?

Also, I may have missed it wading through this thread, but... what charge of IMR 7828 is working best for you with the 225-grain TSXes?

Thanks.

Russ

[RUMLUVER]

Welcome Russell,

I have not as of yet used the 250gr TSX but plan doing so in the future sorry no help there. But with the 225gr TSX have found that RL 25 gave me best results. I started with 92gr and worked up to 95gr with this load I'm getting an average 3120fps. With IMR 7828 wich I use alot of my best results were with the 225gr and 250gr Hornady Interlocks and also the 210gr TSX. With the 210TSX and 90gr of IMR7828 I shot a group that was .550 outside to outside 2 weeks ago. Those TSX bullets have proven to be very accurate. I plan using the 130gr TSX in my .264 WM when I'm done having that built. That bullet in my brother's .264 shoots dime sized groups all the time. Hope I was of some help.

[Russell E. Taylor]

Yes, your data on the 225-grain TSX helps. I just bought some of the new 250s and sure would like to use a powder that might show a lot of promise from the start. My guess would be Retumbo, but we'll see. I have a lot of different powders I can try... to include RL25.

Thanks again.

Russ

[RUMLUVER]

Russell,


I've tried Retumbo, H870, H100, and A8700 in my Ultra Mags to include the .300 and 7mm. I found that those realy slow burners came up short in velocity and in accuracy in my rifles. I found better luck with RL25, RL22, IMR7828, H4350, and H4831. Those powders worked the best in my rifles. Hope this of some assistance to you also.

[royinidaho]

Picked up the 338 RUM project last friday evening. Spent the weekend w/grandkids. Spent today fitting stock and installing the Weaver Tactical and doing a modified Tubb's Final Finish.

The barrel is a new unfired take off barrel 26" long w/Holland QD brake. Did the Tubbs recoil lug (what a monster). Smoothed up the bolt face and seated the lugs. Smith sure was slow but did a good job.

When it was fully assembled she gained 0.2 lbs for a total of 11.0. The scope weights 24 oz and I have a couple of pounds of lead melted into the butt and forearm. It feels good though.

The Tubbs process was modified as the barrel wasn't all that rough. Now its almost a good a my Lilja, but noticably not nearly as good.

Tomorrow I start the regular break in so we'll see how much fouling happens.

I'm thinking that the new Hogdon 869 powder ought to be the ticked for the 250 class bullets but I have none and there is non locally available.

I used Ramshot Magnum for the Tubbs process and used mild loads. The stuff burned like western PA coal (bug dust if ya know what I mean). Ran out of the stuff except for one good stout load to chrono tomorrow. Kind of a pressure test.

I also have an RSI pressure thinger to hook up to it. Should be interesting.