Blogmocracy in Action!
Guest post by: Iron Fist

.338 Lapua Magnum

The other day I was asked a question about the Remington 700 rifle, a top-quality hunting and sniper rifle (depending on the configuration) available in a variety of calibers. What I did not know at the time is that Remington is no making this rifle in .338 Lapua Magnum, a new high-powered round currently making inroads in the police and military sniper community as well as long rang civilian hunters and target shooters. Many people are not familiar with the .338 LM. First a brief history of the round, courtesy of Wikipedia:

From its American origins, the current .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge was developed as a joint venture between the rifle building company Accuracy International and the Finnish ammunition manufacturer Lapua (including personal communication with Malcom Cooper, the now-deceased founder of Accuracy International). In some contrast to this, Lapua states on its website that it developed the cartridge and mentions Mr. Cooper’s Accuracy International as a cooperation partner.[8] Since Mr. Cooper can not comment on this matter it can not be resolved.

Lapua opted to elaborately redesign the .338/416 cartridge. In the new case design, particular attention was directed toward thickening and metallurgically strengthening the case’s web and sidewall immediately forward of the web. In modern solid head cases, the hardness of the brass is the major factor that determines a case’s pressure limit before undergoing plastic deformation. Lapua tackled this problem by creating a hardness distribution ranging from the head and web (hard) to the mouth (soft) as well as a strengthened (thicker) case web and sidewall immediately forward of the web. This resulted in a very pressure resistant case, allowing it to operate at high pressure and come within 15 m/s (50 ft/s) of the original velocity goal. Lapua also designed a 16.2-gram (250 gr) .338 calibre Lock Base B408 full metal jacket bullet, modeled after its .30 calibre Lock Base bullet configuration. The result was the .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge which was registered with C.I.P. (Commission Internationale Permanente pour l’Epreuve des Armes à Feu Portatives) in 1989. With the procurement by the Dutch Army, the cartridge became NATO codified.

The .338 Lapua Magnum is considered an ideal military long-range anti-personnel cartridge by long-range sniping specialists like John D. Taylor and Dean Michaelis. It fills the gap between weapons chambered for standard military rounds such as the 7.62x51mm NATO and large, weighty rifles firing the .50 BMG cartridge. It also offers a tolerable amount of barrel wear, which is important to military snipers who tend to fire thousands of rounds in practice every year to acquire and maintain expert long-range marksmanship.[9] Like every other big cartridge the .338 Lapua Magnum presents a stout recoil. An appropriate fitting stock and an effective muzzle brake will help to reduce recoil induced problems, enabling the operator to fire more rounds before getting too uncomfortable to shoot accurately anymore. Good factory loads, multiple projectile weights and factory special application ammunition are all available.[10][11]

Due to its growing civilian popularity, several high quality tactical and match (semi) custom bolt actions designed for the .338 Lapua Magnum are becoming available. These (semi) custom bolt actions are used with other high grade rifle and sighting components to build custom sporting and target rifles.

Which brings us back to the Remington 700 chambered in this round. The Remington 700 is one of the rifle actions against which even custom weapons are measured (and often based on). The MSRP for the weapon is $1360, making this the least expensive weapon in this chambering that I have seen. There is a snag: I can’t find the weapon on Remington’s site, so I am uncertain of the current manufacturing status of the weapon. I’d say it would be one to buy if you came across it at a gun show, or on Gunbroker.

There are, of course, other rifles available in this caliber. The next most affordable is the Armalite AR-30 in .338 LM.

This is an attractive looking sniper/target rifle. It is of good quality and very accurate. With a MSRP of $1882 it is a reasonably priced weapon.

The esteemable Barrett Corporation also produces a top end weapon in this caliber. The 98 Bravo is a futuristic looking polymer and steel weapon with adjustable, well, everything. This is one hot rifle, but it is pricey. The MSRP is $4495. You are paying for what you get, but you are getting what you pay for.