ORIGINAL: ipscshooter
Federal's site lists ONE 180 gr. load with your ballistics, and 4 or 5 180 gr. loads with "standard" ballistics. I'm not sure it's appropriate to describe the standard rounds as "crappy", they're just standard. Not light magnums or whatever... And, if you're allowed to compare your super duper load, I suspect it then becomes appropriate to see what a handloader could do to max-out a .338 Federal load and compare that. I chose to compare a standard .308 load to a standard .338 load.
In all my comparisons, I use the best load for both cartridges...period. If someone wants to use the sub-optimal cartridge in their gun fine but I don't see the point of comparing any loads but the best for both cartridges.