338 Edge is a Wildcat rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

 cartridge

Cartridge (firearms)

A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...

 based on the .300 Remington Ultra Magnum

.300 Remington Ultra Magnum

The .300 Remington Ultra Magnum, also known as the .300 Ultra Mag or .300 RUM is a 7.62 mm caliber rifle cartridge , 7.62x72mm, or .30 caliber rifle cartridge introduced by Remington Arms in 1999. The .300 Remington Ultra Magnum is one of the largest commercially available .30 caliber magnums...

 round necked up to accept 0.338" diameter bullets. It is gaining popularity as a long-range cartridge due to the wide availability of 0.338" projectiles with favorable ballistics

Ballistics

Ballistics is the science of mechanics that deals with the flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.A ballistic body is a body which is...

. For instance, the 300 gr Sierra Match King has a ballistic coefficient of 0.765 and is a popular choice for 338 Edge shooters.

Design

The 338 Edge is similar in ballistics to the .338 Lapua Magnum, but can be chambered in a regular magnum action

Firearm action

In firearms terminology, an action is the physical mechanism that manipulates cartridges and/or seals the breech. The term is also used to describe the method in which cartridges are loaded, locked, and extracted from the mechanism. Actions are generally categorized by the type of mechanism used...

 without modification, making it an attractive cartridge for shooters looking for the high performance of .338 Lapua Magnum without requiring a special or custom action.

The name "338 Edge" was coined by Shawn Carlock during his work with the wildcat in 2001 in order to distinguish the cartridge from the (then new) slightly shorter 338 Remington Ultra Magnum.

Velocities in the 338 Edge are high, and the recoil

Recoil

Recoil is the backward momentum of a gun when it is discharged. In technical terms, the recoil caused by the gun exactly balances the forward momentum of the projectile and exhaust gasses, according to Newton's third law...

 can be substantial enough to make a rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

 painful to shoot without a recoil reducing device such as a muzzle brake

Muzzle brake

Muzzle brakes and recoil compensators are devices that are fitted to the muzzle of a firearm or cannon to redirect propellant gases with the effect of countering both recoil of the gun and unwanted rising of the barrel during rapid fire...

 or suppressor. Recoil is approximately twice as in the popular .30-06 cartridge in a given weight rifle.

External links

• Encyclopedia of firearms and ammo of the XX and XXI centuries.