I comprimised on my varmint rig I go a 243 instead of a 223 (a h&r Ultra so it's not too heavy). I regularly get extra doe tags and my 338 I found the bullets too tough or if they did expand in a deer it was like a grenade went off. One thought was to use cast bullets, LBT has some flat tipped ranging fom 200 to 250 but when it comes to the 338 there seems to be not load data available (problably the big case is not suited to the charges required) if you can find some data using h4895 (Hodgon only list one and if memory serves it a 250 grainer) but that can be reduced up to 60% (according to their web sight) their reduced load data seems to hover arountd the 75% mark.
I'll still use my 338 when buck hunting (my current load is the 225 gr nosler partition) but for does I'll use my 243. But if you have any luck let me know
