Well I THOUGHT it worked OK

I built my rifle from a 30-06 to a 338 wm a year or so ago, and had never fired it before, until today. The hunt I built it for fell through (long story) and I had honestly inserted and tested the magazine to cycle the empty cases and loaded ammo in it. Not sure what changed, but took it out with the son this morning and the rounds wouldn't stay in the magazine. Just popped right out.

This is the old style drop box magazine, by the way.

I took the mag out and filled it with '06 rounds and they worked perfectly, sooooo.

Looking at Midway, the follower for 300wm (should be the same thing) is on out of stock, back order OK.

Anyone know where else I can get one? Also do I need to change the magazine too? I hope not as they are expensive, $50+.

By the way, we only fired a handful of rounds through it, but I was pleasantly surprised with the recoil. Nowhere near what I have heard about this caliber. I was shooting handloads of 70gr of H4350 pushing a 200gr soft point. Recoil was stout, but no worse than my 2,000fps, 300gr loads for the Marlin 45-70.

Not sure if a full charge load with a 250gr bullet would be a whole lot worse though.

Well, I got to spend some time on the 338 today, and after ordering, and receiving a magnum magazine well, and follower, I installed them. The magnum follower is slightly narrower at the rear, but the magazine well, I received was so tight it wouldn't even let the rounds slide through ???. Back to square one, soooooo....I took apart the old drop box magazine and after studying the new vs old for a few minutes, I started tweaking the old one. After about 7 or 8 tries, it now works slicker then snot.

The main issue was. the first round fed fine, but after ejecting that one, and pushing the bolt forward to chamber number 2, the second round jumped completely out of the magazine. So, it took a lot of tweaking of the magazine lips, but after much study, I figured out that the lips needed to be MUCH closer together, AND the rear actually needed to be slightly wider than the front. This is to accommodate the belt on the case.

End result, it loads and feeds perfectly now.

Glad you got it worked out. What kind of accuracy are you getting?

Congratulations on solving the problem

Gacop,
I just shot off a few rounds into a stump in my backyard (I live on acerage, WAAY out in the country). I hadn't fired it at all before that and one of my sons was home so that was as good a time as any. We also shot of the 45-70, the .357, the 9mm etc. Next week on Mon or Tues I will go to the range and give a report from that. Hopefully it will be a good one. I have 2 different bullets, one a 200gr soft point (don't recall brand at this time) and the other is a 210gr TSX.

It's a bit overpowered for local deer, but I am thinking I might try to get used to it as my primary rifle. My reasoning is I eventually want to use it for elk or any other large critter I can become fortunate enough to draw tags for. That way I can be totally used to the ballistics of that rifle/cartridge.

I also plan on continue on load development for my 308 and 243, for just in case the need for a lighter caliber rises.