New guy .338 lapua

[mike diesel]

Hey everyone, new guy here, and i apologize in advance as this may be a lengthy post.

Bought a savage 110ba .338 lapua the other day on an impulse buy because it was on sale and i wanted something nice and powerful...for whatever reason. Not too familiar with savage arms and i probably jumped the gun (pun intended) buying this 338 lapua. Purchased brand new from scheels a few days ago. Just have a few questions for the experts.

I got all excited to shot this thing then realized ammo is about 5 bucks a shot for this baby so i went ape crap crazy buying everything i needed to reload this stuff and loaded my first 20 rounds last night. Heres the details...

brand new hornady brass
hodgdon retumbo powder (loaded 91,93,95 gr rounds)
federal 215m primers
hordany 250gr bthp bullets
and of course all the dies to go with it...

was at scheels and saw they had 100 round packs on genuine lapua brass for $289...then saw next to it they had brand new hornady brass on sale for $2 a pop $40 per 20 round box...so of course i impulse bought all 180 rounds of the hornady brass that they had. Needless to say i did some research when i got home and saw basically to only use genuine lapua brass. Seems hornady had a "bad batch" of brass sometime mid 2012 or so and now im all scared to use this stuff because people also seem to say its soft brass and sticks the bolt all the time in the savage. Have yet to shoot the gun. I always thought hornady was good stuff but now am hearing to steer clear of there .338 brass. Have they done any quality revisions lately on there brass that may ease my mind or am i screwed?

next question.

Not a beginner to guns by any mean but definitely a beginner to big bore stuff. Seeing how much this thing costs to operate and get all set up to shoot has me slightly scared (havent even bought a scope yet). Almost wishing i would have just gone with my original plans of the .300wsm. And quite honestly am considering selling this lapua before i send any rounds through it. Kind of also heard the 110BA is a "beginner" gun with not too much quality to it. I hear it shoots pretty good tho.

Are thise statements true and should I actually consider selling it and stepping down to something alot more "appropriate" like the 300wsm or similar?

I dont intent to take the lapua out every time i go shooting...just a once in a while gun and an "oh crap better get the lapau out" gun..i want to love this gun so please help me decide. I could easily make a profit selling this gun also, so there is something else to think about.

[nso123]

You are talking apples and oranges. Do you want to shoot 1500+ yards? If so, keep the .338 and shoot it. If you won't ever be shooting that far, a WSM should get you to around 1200 yards. Keep in mind that WSM brass is not always the easiest to find. A .338 is not a budget rifle to shoot by any stretch, but it is kind of like needing a wrench and only having a hammer, if you need to shoot ultra long, you want the .338.

[mike diesel]

Well I have no real need to shoot long range at all. I just wanted something massive so I got the lapua. Pretty sure I will keep it as its pretty cool and none of my friends have one. Once I get over this initial "setup" cost I will be fine I think.

Who knows tho, I listed it for sale on some local classifieds. If it sells then cool, if not then that's fine too.

[Apache]

Just a friendly reminder.......there's no buying or selling allowed on this forum outside of the classified section.

This thread could easily go in that direction and get deleted with infractions being issued.

[mike diesel]

I had no intentions of selling anything on this forum period. Hence why I listed it on my local classifieds...

[brtelec]

You have already jumped in pretty deep with the things you have purchased. I would get a decent scope and start playing with it. I love my 338 LM. Hornady brass works just fine, I have never had a problem with it and I am definitely loading at the top of the recommended data.