338 Win Mag - How short of a barrel? Suppressed or unsuppressed?

[Daz5000]

I plan on putting my Banish 338 on my 338WM. Has anyone actually went to a 20” barrel?

 

[Choupique]

I'm getting ready to chop my .338 win down from 26" to 20"

I don't expect to see a ton of speed loss. I MIGHT chop it myself in 1" increments down to 21 and see what the speeds are for a given load and have the smitty take the last inch off and make it pretty. Seems to be a common "want" on the internet to know if their .338 win should have a moon poker or really short tube on it. It's not a not a very good long range choice to begin with and I never understood why belted mags needed 26" tubes even when they were not the really overbore long range jobs (264 and 300).

I emailed AB regarding the minimum barrel length for a .338 win mag with a raptor 6 / 8 / 10.

 

[easternoregonballistics]

I am not shooting a .338 WM, but I have a .338 Sherman Mega on a 21.5" barrel. I use a Rugged Alaskan on it. It is definitely louder than using my Nomad 30 on my 21" 300 WM, but out in the field, the noise isn't that bad at all.
Just got back from South TX where I was Nilgai hunting with it. I have Axil electronic plugs which I was wearing when I shot my bull because one of the guys in my group was shooting unsuppressed. I also shot a cow, 3 pigs and a coyote on the trip. All of those times, the entire group I was with was suppressed, so none of us had ear pro in. Not a problem at all for anyone when I touched off a shot.
The Alaskan is small, and in the suppressor game, volume is king. I am probably going to get an Omega 36 to use with this gun and then relegate the Alaskan to my 35 Rem lever gun and my 9mm AR. I may end up with the Raptor 10 instead though, if I can find one in stock.

How do you like that rifle? What velocities are you getting? I'm toying with the idea of building a 338 sherman mag

 

[Jusgunn3]

I rebarreled my .338WM to .300WM due to not needing that much gun but running a 24” without a can

 

[z987k]

How do you like that rifle? What velocities are you getting? I'm toying with the idea of building a 338 sherman mag

I did that.... it was really not worth the effort. There's plenty of 338's that are all around it in performance and have dies from everyone, don't require brass work/fireforming.