Took my 338 Allen Mag out a couple weekends ago. The 338 Allen Mag is a wildcat I designed off the 408 CT case, necked down to 338 and shoulder blown out. I get an honest 3500 fps with a 300 gr SMK.



I will admit it took four shots to hit the chuck. First one was about 2 feet low, next three including the last that ended the hunt would have landed easily on the shoulders of a whitetail buck, not that I would ever shoot at one that far but consistancy even impressed me.

I built the rifle using a 2"x10" BAT receiver, 1.750" diameter straight cylinder Lilja Stainless Steel 1-10 twist barrel and a McMillan 50LBR stock. I had all the metal teflon coated Black by Shawn Carlock of Defensive Edge in Idaho and engraved with the nickname "Black Sunshine".

The scope used on the shot if you can believe it was a 3.5-15x 50mm Nightforce NXS. That scope has since been replaced by a 9-36x 56mm IOR Tactical.

Kirby Allen(50)

Well since the chuck is not blown to hell and back... I figure it must have been the concussion of the shot that killed him....

The rig is not my cup of tea, but you are definitely "Born Again Hard Core" as the D.I. said in Full Metal Jacket...

I bow to the superior varmint hunter...

Have fun with that Rig there Fifty!

Cheers
seafire

Kirby....You are the man. Congratulations on a fine effort.

Nice rifle, does it even move with recoil?

quote:

Originally posted by Fiftydriver:
Took my 338 Allen Mag out a couple weekends ago. The 338 Allen Mag is a wildcat I designed off the 408 CT case, necked down to 338 and shoulder blown out. I get an honest 3500 fps with a 300 gr SMK.

Wow! I am totally impressed.Talk about a step beyond. A couple questions; What is a 408CT, and do you use either 5010 or 5020 powder?

What a well thought out project. roger

408 Chey Tac

It's a sub .50 monstrosity built to kill Fundamendalist terrorist at 2000 yards.

Navy and Marines don't use it but I know that at least one or two Canadian Special Forces snipers has one in one of Praire Rifles sniper guns.

Not sure how many Loonies have been dispatched with it.

Kirby, as I have said before in a different time & place, absolutely fantastic shot & congrats on building a remarkable rifle! with any rifle, conditions & optics, this is an amazing feat, but I see you will now have optics that are more of a match for the horsepower/accuracy of the weapon. I am interested to see what happens now!!!

Kirby:

That load must be awesome in the wind. I sent you a PM.

My mate and I would LOVE to get one of those guns but you can't get .408 cheytac brass in Oz..........................a person on this forum I think had tried and no one would send it to him.

Where are dies etc. available from ??

With a bullet that big, you don't have to actually hit the varmint, just suck the wind out of his lungs as the bullet passes under his nose, thus no mutilation!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is that as far as that gun will shoot? Just kidding. Well done. Keep us posted on future long shots.

Yup, another over achiever.

Damn nice rig and shooting. The stuff dreams are made of.

Bartsche,

The 408 CT was designed to offer better ballistc performance then the 50BMG but in a much lighter package rifle.

I took that case, necked it down and sharpened the shoulder angle a bit. I use any of the following powders to reach 3400-3500 fps with the 300 gr SMK, US869, WC872, H-50BMG or my current powder of choice Vhita Vouri 20N29.

I am working on my lightweight version as we speak of this same chambering, a 15 lb design instead of my 60 lb "Black Sunshine" pictured above!!


Rod Smith,
Yes the IOR will help ALOT!!! Thanks for the kind words.



PC,
I have Hornady working on the dies right now. In fact they should be here in a week or so. I currently am using a set of Redding Comp dies that were originally 338 Lapua that I rechambered to my 338 AM. Not much steel left in those sliding sleeves but enough to work very well. Just need a FL die now though.

Thornell,

Depending on your elevation, the 338 AM will stay supersonic from 2700 yards to well past 3000 yards in higher elevations. As long as the bullet stays supersonic, I have found it to be capable of sun moa accuate. When the 300 gr SMK drops out of super sonic velocity consistancy goes to hell!!

Basically, the 338 AM give you another 800-1000 yards more range staying supersonic then would say a 338-378 Wby with the same bullet at top velocities.

Kirby Allen(50)

O My Heck!! Amazing shot. More amazing is that it only took 4 shots.

More stupid questions from a .223 Savage shooter:
Do you have to taper your bases so you don't run out of adjustment? How much taper?
How big does the rat look in the scope, especially with a 15X scope that you had on it? That rat was 1.35 miles away!
What type of table/rest/etc. did you use?
You mention that it was a chuck. Is that a rock chuck instead of a P-dog? The country looks like it could hold both.

I'll be sticking with my elcheapo Savage and like Seafire bow to the superior rat whacker...just curious on the rest.

Thanks for sharing.

Mt Al,

I have a 40 moa rail base on the rifle made by BAT for that speicific receiver. That combined with the +100 moa that the Nightforce NXS scope has is more then enough for taking this rifle out to 3000 yards.

The IOR 9-36 only has 65 moa of vertical adjustment but using the MP-8 reticle it should also reach to 3000 yards if zeroed properly to use the entire vertical stadias reference lines as hold points.

How big does a rat look at that range on 15x. Well lets just say that I could see the chuck only because it was sitting on a white rock. When there was a black dot on the rock I knew the chuck was there. When there was no black dot, no chuck. That said, a yote size target would have been pretty easy to target at that range even with the 15x scope. The Nightforce is a hell of a piece of art!!

I have built a shooting platform over the back of my S-10 4x4. Its my go anywhere little war wagon. Park her anywhere you want and you have a shooting rest. Only thing that will rock it is a wind over about 15 mph and then we usually do not shoot extreme range.

Yes, it was a rock chuck, young one, not mature. The mature chucks in out area will weigh in the 10-12 lb range. This one was around 4 lbs at the most. We do not have any P-dogs in this area, all the ranchers poisoned them out many years ago, to bad!!

Good Shooting, How is live down in Bozeman, went to school there.

Kirby Allen(50)

Fifty,

Boz-Angeles is growing too fast. Crazy amount of people moving here building houses as quick as they can. My gopher shooting places are being found out and forget about hunting local ranches. Hard to complain, though. Billings (home town) is much slower/nicer than Bozo.

I went to the NightForce factory a few months ago. Absolutely, without a doubt the finest high quality factory I've ever been in. The tolerances, testing and assembly procedures were way beyond what one would think necessary. The passion of the employees for precision was also amazing. The owner doesn't really care what it costs to make a precision scope, he'll do whatever it takes to make sure each one is as close to perfect as possible. The many testimonials from deployed soldiers was proof of quality also. I've never looked through one because I think it would cost me about $1,500 that I don't have, but they must be nice.

Thanks again for sharing, awesome shot.

Anyone else having trouble posting???

When I try to post a new post it sends me to some search engine instead of the post board.

Just wondering??

Kirby Allen(50)

Fiftydriver: Congratulations to you for the amazing long shot on the Varmint! And congratulations on the beautiful and sophisticated Rifle!
Again good for you!
I have never had the desire to go the ultra-long range route for my Varminting kicks but I sure have to admire your feat - as I know how hard it is to hit the modest sized Varmints at 500 to 600 yards!
Now as to the 408 Chey Tac cartrdige and your wildcat version of it!
I do have a little inside info on a company here in Montana that builds 408 Chey Tac's for the military and I have seen some of their set-ups.
Including the computer and the info that goes along with each Rifle and the sniper teams that use them.
It was discussed here a year or so ago about the need to figure in the rotation of the earth when shooting these ultra-long range Rifles when they are shot in a north to south or south to north direction!
Apparently the huge 408 Chey Tac bullet flies for so long that the earth moves "under it" while its flying! A direct north to south or south to north shot at 2,000 yards gives the intended target the chance to move (rotate) about 11" (at the 45th parrallel - halfway between the equator and the north pole!)! At the equator the intended target moves more and near the north pole next to nothing. The computer that goes along with these Rifles takes into consideration the direction of the bullets flight, elevation, atmospheric conditions and other obvious trajectory factors and comes up with an exact P.O.I. or click adjustment for the shooting team!
Yes Riflery has now reached a whole different (higher) level of sophistication as witnessed by you and your Rifle and the military's uses!
Keep enjoying your Rifle and good luck with the "lightweight" project. And watch out for those north to south and south to north shots - you may inexplicably hit several inches to one side or the other!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

quote:

Originally posted by PC:
My mate and I would LOVE to get one of those guns but you can't get .408 cheytac brass in Oz..........................a person on this forum I think had tried and no one would send it to him.

Where are dies etc. available from ??

PC, I managaed to get all the componenets to build the ammo,and dies are freely avaialble for the 408ct from ch4d! and i have about 60 rounds made up. 400gr with 125gr adi2225.
Now i'm still waiting on Ross Spagrud from Prarie gun works (now PGWDTI) to get around to finishing the rifle. i ordered and (silly me) paid full up front almost 2 years ago, but is too busy with his MRSWS contract with the canadian military, and tells of other plans he has with other military agencise, which i have no right mentioning, so out of respect i wont, however he's too busy to build my 408.
he's thrown in some extras as a "sorry to stuff you around", but it still makes a quiet day at the range without a rifle to use....

anyone have any suggestions on how to speed up the process?


cheers!

excellent .....Kirby, thats super shooting my friend,congrats all around, jjmp

Awsome!! Mind boggling! We are in the presence of greatness.

Absolutley incredible! Congratulations mate!