Since most of my hunting is in very dense brush and most of the time within 50 yards, I wanted to see if my .338 Federal would shoot some sort of slow, heavy, flat nosed bullets. Since Hornady Discontinued their F.N. .338 bullets, i ordered some 235 grain, cast, .339 diameter, gas checked bullets from Beartooth Bullets.
With A5744 powder, these shot in the same POI at 50 and 100 yards as the jacketed 200 grain bullets, and they grouped inside 1.5" at 75 yards. I did not experiment much, did not try multiple loads and seating depths, etc. Clearly, this could work. Velocity was about (i am guessing) 1800 fps. However, the cartridges loaded with cast flat nosed bullets did not feed from the magazine. They stuck on the way up the feeding ramp. End of experiment.
I am left with 85 good quality .339 - 235 grain bullets for which i have no use. I will probably load them and shoot them (single hand fed) for practice.
