I remember (about a year before my first trip to SA for a Safari )in 1975, I had to have a "medium magnum" . I got a Ruger M77 from 1974 production in .338 Win Mag .I put the brand new Vari-X 3-9 Leupold on it , fiberglass bedded the action and tuned that good early Ruger trigger to a 3 pound Icicle. I was gonna knock off them 600 yard elk in Oregon that I kept hearing about from my friends who lived there. I only went for a few weeks at a time during hunting season. I got my freezer Elk regularly but these guys always had the gigantic spread 500 pound Bull trophies and I wanted in. They shot .300 Weatherby Magnums and used 180 grain Weatherby (Norma) factory loads with the big German Weatherby Imperial 2,5-10x scopes.
Having corresponded with Elmer Keith since I was no ore than a boy I thought the .338 Win Mag would certainly be what I wanted. You know the .338 only got one semi bragging bull in 6 years of use, and those 275 Grain torpedo loads I swore by kicked the living snot out of me so I sold the beast. Of course I did not learn my lesson and when an early A- SQUARE .358 Norma came my way with it's giant proportions and tales of 250 grain boat tails centerpunching elk at 700 yards everytime made me buy it in 1988 along with the 100 free factory unprimed cases and a set of dies. I put a big old 4-12 Varible on it , A Colorado Redfield Accutrac as I remember and it failed and was replaced by the 3-9 Leupold from the previously sold .338 Ruger M-77.
I shot the A-Square in Oregon on various Elk and the longest , and best , shot was 313 yards on a good 6x6 in 1996.The other dozen elk were shot at 75-200 yards!
That 11 pound .358 Norma rig is deadly enough I guess with 250 grain boattails at 2800 fps+ , but it got heavy to walk hunt for me in the last 10 years.
I shot elk most years since then with first a .375 H&H which according to others and my shoulder was a bit too much even with 260 grain accubonds, and then a 30-06 Mannlicher Schonauer with premium 180 grain bullets which worked even better IMHO on the average 100 yard or so shot that the magnums!
Nowadays I am back to the medium .35 with the 600 Carbine pictured above. Last year the 4x4 was drilled thru the shoulders with a 200 grain Coreloktd factory 1900+ Fps load out of the 18" barrel at 146 lazered yards. It blasted a 3/4" hole thru both sides and hit high shoulder bone before exiting as I was prone and shooting slightly up hill. There was about 4" of pulped red bloody area of the shoulder instead of the 6" of the 30-06 in the same shot ,the high velocity Medium magnums usually waste the whole shoulder with blood shot or pulped damage .The stag really went down fast with the .35 Remington, just as fast as similar shots with all my 30 previous years of the fall elk hunts.
But you will have to learn your self.
30-06 Mannlicher Schoenauer with Kaps 4x scope, this sucker was my late uncles gun and with 180 grain Nosler Partitions is death on all game in North America.
The Thundering .358 Norma , think I will sell it
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