Nomercy448

Not really thinking of it being "stout" or "handy", more curious as to how you arrived at a 338win mag with only an 18" tube?

Seems like you'll be giving up quite a bit of velocity and sacrificing a lot of powder to useless muzzle blast, only for the benefit of about 3oz of barrel (2" of .338" bore standard weight barrel) compared to "guide length" .338WM's - typically 20", with 23 and 24" being "standard length".

Can't capitalize on that much case capacity out of an 18" tube, even the 20" Guide Gun's in the WM have quite a bit of blast. Might as well save yourself some powder and run a smaller case, like a .338Federal (.308win based case) or a .338 A Square or even .35 Whelen (both '06 based cases). The Fed and A-square both run roughly the same max pressure as the Win Mag, but have significantly lower powder volumes. The difference being they'll have less flame out front, and about the same velocity out of an 18" tube as the WM. The Fed might run a touch slower, but I'd be surprised to see much difference in an 18" barrel without some fancy reloading footwork between the A-square and the WM in such a short tube.

I went through this same work up about 18mos ago in planning a 16" 3 cartridge switch barrel rig (22cal, 6.5mm-30cal, and 338" all from one receiver). The big 338 bore cases just have too much volume to get used up in short barrels. I know a couple guys that have 14-16" 338Edge and 338AX bolt action pistols, the flames out front are huge, and the velocities are a LONG ways behind rifle loads. Sure, it's cool, and it's straight forward, but there are more logical options. For me, it came down to a choice between a 20" barrel instead of 16" in the .338WM, or a 16" tube in 338-06. (Won't get into discussing the hurdles of magazines/feeding/boltfaces to match it all up).