Thank you all for your educated opinions on this topic. I have some experience with Savage and Remington rifles. I have a first year 1958 Savage 110 in .270 with a 4 digit serial #, I have a Savage 220F as well as a Savage Mark 2 TR as well so I am familiar with the platform and think Savage makes amazingly accurate rifles for the amount of money they ask for them. My Remington 700 CDL is in .270 Winchester as well and shoots as well as a sporter weight barreled hunting rifle has any right to. For me, the Savage 110 BA only makes sense in 338 Lapua. I love the high weight which tames the high recoil levels of this round and the farthest I walk with my hunting rifles is 100 yards across a field to my box stand which is setup exactly like a bench rest so portability is not going to be an issue in my case. I like the high wow/fun factor of the round in comparison to .308 and even .300 Win Mag. However, the comments from E. Shell makes it seem that ballistically there is little difference between 300 Win Mag and 338 Lapua until 1,000 yards. I'm not sure I'm willing to pay the huge ammo price difference for what amounts to the shits and giggles of shooting the larger round. I know I don't want a .308 but the Savage 110 BA in .300 Win Mag is kinda like buying a Chevy Camaro 6 cylinder, I feel like eventually I'm gonna wish I bought the V8! I want to make my shot at 500 count and if I can't place a round into 4 " at 500 yards EVERY time I pull the trigger with the utmost confidence, then I don't want to even try. A whitetail deer has a vital zone of around 8". If I can make 4" hits at 500 yards, then that's twice as accurate than I need to be. I want that margin of error to consider myself an ethical hunter which every hunter should strive to be. The last thing I want to do is wound a deer and see it limp off into the woods never to be seen again. The question I have is about hunting bullets. From what I've read about A-max bullets, they are not designed for deer hunting and neither are Sierra Matchking. So that takes two of the desired high BC bulets away but it does leave Berger VLD and Ballistic Tips as 2 possible options. I don't know, I'm torn, I started this after 3 years of getting tired of watching my buddy pull out of his gun case a Hart Long Range Hunter custom rifle in either 7mm STW or .300 RUM and shoot impossibly small groups out to 300 yards..That led me to do things halfway, only getting the required optics and an accuracy package and not go full custom...Of course, that has led me to have inconsistent results out to 300 yards and now I'm ready to take it to the next step. I know it is not my shooting because we have the same exact mounts and the same exact scope setups on our rifles..(Hart rings/mounts and Leupold vx3 8.5-25x50mm) and when I have shot his rifles I shoot just as well as he does. My budget for the rifle is 2K and I am going to sell my scope and get a higher magnification Nightforce...Thoughts????