My buddy has loaded a bunch of 338's with Barnes 160 grain X bullets with 76 grains of Varget. I told him I thought they were way to hot, but that is why I am asking you guys. What's a safe max load with Varget and 160 Barnes bullets. I don't have anything in my manuals and I can't find much on the net. Thanks for any help. BA

Steve's reloading pages shows a much lower max charge for Varget with 160 gr bullets in a .338 Win Mag than that:

http://stevespages.com/338_2_160.html

I've always found Steve to run HOT! I sure would NOT pull the trigger on the load that your buddy built.

Barnes #3 manual lists max of 70.5grains of varget with 160 xfb. If he had been using barnes XLC's and started with max from a heavier bullet, that could account for a mistaken assumption of charge weight. For example, the 210gr XLC uses a max for varget of 69.0, but the uncoated is max 62.5. The starting to max range is about 5-6 gr, so if he extrapolated with XLC data it might explain the charge weight.

MFH

Thanks guys, that's what I was thinking.

I worked up to a max of 71.0gn AR2208 (same as Varget) for 3317fps with the 160 gn Barnes X bullet, and I expect that the 160gn TTSX will be similar. 76gn in my rifle would give a lot of case head expansion and possibly a blown primer. I went up to 72.5gn of AR2208 for 3388fps but it resulted on 0.001" case head expansion, and I didn't go any further. Every rifle is different though!