Rocky Marciano was the only heavyweight champion to retire undefeated. He fought forty-nine men and licked them all, knocking out forty-three. He was not stylish or scientific. But the Rock had heart, and he threw about the hardest punch of anyone who has stepped into the squared circle. His trainer, Charlie Goldman, called it The Old Suzy-Q.

There is a cartridge that I have come to call The Old Suzy-Q, because what you shoot with it goes down and stays down. For pulverizing efficiency, it knows no betters and few equals. It is, friends and fellow fight fans, the .338 Winchester Magnum.

There is nothing new about .33-caliber cartridges. The .33 Winchester, a rimmed round, was introduced in 1902, predating the .338 by fifty-six years. The .333 Rimless Nitro Express was offered to the public by the British gunmaking firm of Jeffery in 1911, and became highly popular in Africa. Wildcatters in America had taken note of the .33-caliber bullet as far back as the 1940's, and the most notable of these homemade cartridges was the .333 OKH, a .30/06 case necked up to take .333-diameter bullets.

The OKH in .333 OKH stood for the load's designers, Charles O'Neil, Don Hopkins, and Elmer Keith. Keith adopted the cartridge as a form of religion since it perfectly embodied what he considered to be the proper characteristics of a big-game load--a long, heavy bullet traveling at moderate velocity.

In 1958, Winchester made Ol' Elmer and a lot of other people happy by introducing the .338. It differed from its predecessors in two respects: first, it used .338-diameter bullets rather than .333. Second, it pushed the slugs at considerably higher velocity. The .33 OKH and the .333 Jeffery used bullets of 250 grain (there were other weights involved, but this was the basic one) at about 2500 fps. The .338, which was a .458 Winchester Magnum case necked down, held enough powder to move a 250-grain bullet at 2700 fps, which gave the slug just about the same trajectory as a 180-grain .30/06 bullet. Since the .338 case was the same length as a .30/06, it would work through any standard-length magnum action.

At the time it was introduced, the .338 was also offered with a 200-grain bullet at 3000 fps and a 300-grainer at 2450. Not too long ago after the cartridge made its debut, Winchester also introduced a rifle to go along with it, and called the New Model 70 the Alaskan, giving hunters a fair idea of what the round was intended for: to wit, big heavy, critters, or big, heavy, dangerous critters.

People used it on big, heavy, and dangerous critters, both here and in Africa, and they found that it would handle such beasts with dispatch. They also found that it would put down, in exemplary fashion much smaller, lighter game, and do it at amazing distances. When he used the 250-grain bullet, the .338 was the near equal of the much larger .375 H&H, and when stoked with 200-grain slugs, it would far outreach the .375.

There was one catch to all this--the .338 kicked. Conventional wisdom has it that a shooter of average skill can tolerate recoil of a gun in the .30/06 to 7mm magnum class, but if it's more powerful than that, kick becomes a problem. The .338, in a conventional rifle, goes far beyond that level. Recoil varies with rifle and bullet weight, but on the average, a .30/06 will have about 15 foot-pounds of recoil, and a .338, 30 foot-pounds of recoil, which is enough to give most people pause. During the pause, they're likely to trade the brute in for something smaller.

In 1962, Roy Weatherby went Winchester one better with the .340 Weatherby, which was the .375 H&H case necked down to .338 and given the Weatherby radius shoulder. Since it was longer than the .338, and held more powder, the .340 gave considerably higher velocities--a 200-grain bullet at 3200 fps and a 250-grain at 2850. It also kicked a lot harder.

The .340 is a ferociously effective cartridge up close, and as a long-range slayer of large creatures, it has no peer. It does have some drawbacks, though. First, of course, is recoil. Second, it must have at least a 24-inch barrel in which to burn its heavy powder charges (the factory uses a 26-incher as standard), and third, it must utilize a full-length magnum action rather than the standard-length action that the .338 takes.

There is one other thing I've noticed about the .340. I've owned five rifles in this caliber, and while they all would shoot 250-grain bullets with excellent accuracy, the best I could ever get with 200-grainers was 2 to 3 inches. This, of course, is fine for hunting, but if you crave dime-sized groups, you will not be happy.

Although the .340 has its share of fanatic followers, I have come to prefer the .338. It will do 90 percent of what the bigger round will do, kick less, and can be chambered in a smaller, lighter gun, which is important as I grow older and heavier. In fact, the .338 can achieve just about maximum velocity with a 22-inch barrel, the only one of the belted magnums that can, as far as I've seen.

My experience with the .338 is what a statistician would call skewed. I've owned a number of rifles in this caliber, and shot lots of different bullets through them, but almost all of my actual hunting has been with the 250-grain Nosler, and a little bit with the 210-grain Nosler.

I've hunted with the .338 a fair amount in the U.S., and done a lot of hunting with it in Africa, and I have a pretty fair idea of its capabilities. (However, as with any discussion of cartridges, you must always insert the phrase "most of the time" into what I'm saying. When readers write and say things like "Didn't you know that lung-shot deer always go down in their tracks?" I assume the letter is from a person who has not hunted deer all that much. Anything can happen, friends, and it usually does.)

Because of the great advances in rifle technology, the .338 is a far more viable cartridge now than it was thirty years ago. Prior to the development of synthetic stocks and modern muzzle brakes, you had two choices if you wanted a .338: You could have a light (8 pound) rifle that was portable and would knock you out from underneath your hat, or you could have a 10-pound rifle that did not kick much but would induce tachycardia (which is radically speeded-up heart beat, and that's $75; pay the receptionist, please) if you carried it more than 50 yards.

A good example of what is possible in light weight/low recoil is Duncan Barnes' .338, which was put together by David Gentry. It utilizes a Remington 700 action, a Kevlar stock, and a 22-inch stainless-steel barrel by Mark Chandler. It is a light/medium weight barrel, and what really takes the sting out of the rifle is Dave Gentry's recoil brake, which threads onto the muzzle and adds another 2 inches to the rifle.

Muzzle brakes are very simple. The modern ones all consist of a steel cylinder with ports bored through it that divert the powder gas to the side or the rear, or both. The brakes are astoundingly effective. Barnes' rifle kicks like a standard-weight .270, which to say hardly at all. The draw back to the devices is the noise they create, since the muzzle blast is coming back at you instead of away from you.

Since I have lost a lot of my hearing, and am acutely sensitive to loud noises, I cannot tolerate muzzle brakes. (On the other hand, my left shoulder was declared legally dead on August 6, 1973, so recoil doesn't bother me much.) However, muzzle brakes are very popular, and I am in a very small minority in that respect.

So what do you do with your .338? Why, bless me, you hunt anything you want with it--except small critters. I know at least one person who uses it as an antelope gun, because a 210-grain bullet at 3000 fps shoots very flat, and gets blown around comparatively little. However, I've found that on creatures of less than 200 pounds, such as antelope, small deer, impala, etc., the .338 destroys too much meat. A big, fast-moving bullet is highly destructive, which makes it effective on large animals, but wasteful on small ones. This applies to the 250-grain bullet as well as the 200 and the 210.

It is on bigger beasts that this cartridge really shines. It differs from lesser calibers such as the 7 mm and .300 magnums in that it seems to be more consistently effective in putting critters down right now, even the big, tough ones. I've found, both here and in Africa, that with smaller cartridges, you would shoot a critter perfectly and it would run off as though mildly annoyed and completely unhurt, and I'd find it piled up 50 yards away or half a mile away. This seems to happen most often with the .300 magnums; nine times out of ten you'll shoot perfectly, but the creature will run for half a day.

Not with the .338. What I have aimed it at has gone down. The longest any animal has run after being hit with it was 100 yards, and that was a kudu that I shot too far back. A zebra, which I hit less than perfectly, ran 25 yards. Everything else never moved out of its tracks.

There is a catch to all of this. You must use a premium bullet. One of the characteristics of the .338 is the tremendous straight-line penetration it gives. The 250-grain slug will break any bone it hits in any sized beast, and keep right on going, but only if it' a good bullet. In terms of brand names, this means the Nosler Partition, the Speer Grand Slam, the Hornady, the Trophy Bonded, and the Barnes slugs, all 250-grain bullets. With them, you can attempt shots that you cannot shoot from bad angles and still drive through several feet of muscle and bone to reach what Ol' Elmer called the boiler room.

There is a corollary to this: I have found with the .338 and the .340 Weatherby that even a bad shot will pretty well anchor an animal. Before you send me letters of outrage, hold off and listen. I am perfectly well aware that power cannot be substituted for proper bullet placement, but on at least half a dozen occasions I've seen thee big bullets stop large, tough animals with hits that would have caused the beasts to run had they been hit by lesser cartridges.

But again, I'm talking about good bullets. If you use second-rate projectiles, all bets are off. About twelve years ago, I was hunting elk in New Mexico with Bob Brister, and we came across a hunter who told us the following tale: Just half an hour earlier, he had shot at a huge bull elk nearly 400 yards away with a .338 and 200-grain bullets. The guide spotted the shot, and there was no doubt that the elk was hit. The hunter fired steadily as the elk walked away, crossed a meadow and lost himself in the timber. He burned up twenty-five rounds--all the cartridges he had--in his futile effort to drop the bull.

Hunter and guide waited a half hour, and tracked the elk, but the blood trail petered out and they never found the animal. The guide swore that the elk was a shoo-in for Boone and Crockett, and the hunter offered a $500 reward for anyone who found the bull, regardless of its condition. It was never found. Now, any time I become over-confident, I recall that deafened, heartsick hunter.

If you are a handloader, you'll find the .338 a simple proposition to stoke. The best powder, I've found, is IMR 4350. With it, you can get just about the maximum velocity possible in even a 22-inch barrel. You can go to a slower powder, such as IMR 4831, and get good results, and Bob Bell, a gun writer of note and .338 fanatic, tells me that he gets very impressive velocity with Hodgdon 4831 in hefty doses.

The .340 Weatherby does best with slow powders, and the leader of the pack is Hodgdon 4831. The standard Weatherby barrel for this round is 26 inches long, which is very long as barrels go these days. It does however give you the maximum amount of velocity, which is why you buy a Weatherby in the first place.

I have always found a 26-inch barrel to be cumbersome, and have had all my .340 barrels chopped to 24 inches, thereby losing probably 100 fps in muzzle velocity. This has never bothered me, because I makes not an iota of difference, from what I've been able to tell, whether your bullet is going 2750 or 2850 fps. However, Norm Nelson and his son Peter, both crazed elk hunters, say there is nothing to touch a 26-inch barreled .340 for lurking at the edge of a forest in Idaho or Washington and shooting across an endless clear-cut. I have found the Nelsons to be an odd bunch, but they have a distressing way of being right.

The Nelsons shoot at 400 yards and more, which is for very experienced riflemen only, which they are. If you limit yourself to less extreme ranges, you'll find that the .338, with a 250-grain bullet moving along at 2650 fps (which is about the average, all things considered) does plenty well out at 300 plus, and this should take in just about all of anyone's big-game shooting. With your rifle zeroed in 3 inches high at 100 yards, you'll find your bullet dropping about 6 inches below where you're holding at 300. On the large beasts which are the legitimate territory of the .338, this is not much at all. I've never made a 300-yard shot with this cartridge, but I've made a number that were close to it, and have never worried about bullet drop.

Just as fight fans come to see knockout artists, a lot of riflemen seem drawn to the .338. The folks at RCBS, for example, keep a list of the cartridges for which they sell the most reloading dies, and that list runs into the hundreds. The .338 is right in the middle of the top thirty, just behind the .222 in fourteenth spot, and ahead of the .25/06, which is in sixteenth. In its thirty plus years of existence, the .338, and its cousin the .340, have made a lot of converts, who have found that when you throw The Old Suzy-Q, whatever is on the receiving end gets counted for.