The Norma case is nice, but it's nothing more than a shortened and improved 338 Lapua. Even the improved Lapua leaves a lot unused potential. My 375 BME (improved 404 case) can match anything that the improved Lapua case will do. I'm looking at the 450 Dakota and Excalibur cases to work off of on the Savage action. If I'm going to make something over the top and excessive, why not go all out!
I've gone that route too. I have one 338/408 Improved rifle done and I just sent off the parts to have a specialty pistol made in 338/408 as well. Here's the rifle and the pile of parts for the pistol.
The problem with the really big stuff like the CheyTac is that you end up with a big, heavy gun that's beyond what the average guy wants to deal with. I like to come up with ideas that can be done for a reasonable price on readily available actions. The 338/408 rifle cost about $3000 to build after carefully shopping around for components. The pistol will be closer to $4000 when it's done. Those are both without optics. We all know how affordable it can be to build off of a Savage with just a simple barrel swap. The goal is just to come up with something to bridge the gap between the RUM/Lapua based rounds and the CheyTac case, but at a reasonable cost.
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