Newbie Reloading .308 Win Input and advice appreciated

I'm relatively new to reloading. I have reloaded somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 rounds for my .308 I'm going to attach a few pictures of some load testing I did yesterday. If you guys can give me a little insight as to what could be the reasoning for the way my groups ended up I'd appreciate it.

My rifle is a Remington 700 AAC-SD in .308. It has a Bell and Carlson Medalist Varmint/Tactical stock. The action screws have been torqued to spec. Timney 510 trigger left at factory setting. The rings are Seekins Precision also torqued to spec. Leupold Mark 4 M1-10x, duplex reticle with a Wheeler anti cant bubble level. All of my shots were taken off of Caldwell bags. I waited several minutes between groups to let the barrel cool.

The brass I used was Hornady Match brass. I full length sized the brass after the first firing. I have neck sized the last 2 firings. The brass was trimmed to 2.005, primer pockets cleaned, flash holes deburred, necks chamferred and deburred.

I used Varget powder for all my loads. Everything being measured twice with 2 sets of scales to verify the powder charge.

This was the first time I had reloaded any of the Noslers. The 168 gr Nosler Ballistic Tips were loaded with 44, 44.5, and 45 grains of powder. With a coal of 2.81. The 1st and last group I know I pulled off on 1 of the shots.

The 165 gr Hornady SST's were loaded with 45 grains of powder. I had previously started with the minimum charge listed and found that 45 grains with coal of 2.8 was the best grouping at that given range session. I seated the bullet a little longer to see if I could shrink the group size. Which it did do, minutely.

The Sierra Gamekings were loaded with 45 grains of powder as well. I had also previously did some load workup as I did with the SST's starting at the minimum charge and ending up at 45 grains. These were seated at a coal of 2.8. I zeroed my scope after testing all of the previous rounds and ended up with 2 shots in a 1" bull at 100 yards with the Gamekings.

I wasn't able to chrono the SST or Noslers, but I was getting 2660 out of the Gamekings with a variation of 15 FPS. I never had any signs of pressure with any of the three different loads. No sticky bolt, flat or cratered primers, or ejector marks. Should I try a higher or lower powder charge, or go to a .2 increment in the charges instead of .5, play with the seating depth, or all of the above? Any info you guys have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Brandon

If you're dead set on those bullets, then I would adjust your seating depth. The easiest thing to do is get the Hornady OAL tool and the modified .308 case to find your lands. There's other ways to do it, but I've found that to be the quickest, easiest, and most consistent way for me. Some factory rifles have really long throats, so you might not be able to touch the lands without the bullet falling out of the case or not being supported enough by the neck when loaded. I would just seat them as long as you can while still fitting in the magazine and having at least half, preferably more, of the bearing surface of the bullet seated in the neck.

I do my load work up and focus on loads with similar velocities and/or low extreme spreads. But you can work up and down in .2 or .3 increments until you hit pressure or find the best shooting load. The bullets you're using are capable of good accuracy, but a match style or match/hunting bullet will deliver better results in most cases.

I did recently buy the overall length gauge, modified case, comparator, and insert. I'll do some checking tonight and see what I can get for coal to the lands. I'd prefer to stick to hunting type bullets since that's what I will be mainly using them for. I understand I'm probably not going to get 1/4 or 1/2 moa out of these rounds, but I know I can achieve better than I have now. I have shot Hornady factory 168 gr BTHP's at 100 yards and made a ragged hold more than once, so I know the rifle is capable of better than I'm currently getting. Thanks Jud96 for the reply, I appreciate it.

brandonc46 said:

I did recently buy the overall length gauge, modified case, comparator, and insert. I'll do some checking tonight and see what I can get for coal to the lands. I'd prefer to stick to hunting type bullets since that's what I will be mainly using them for. I understand I'm probably not going to get 1/4 or 1/2 moa out of these rounds, but I know I can achieve better than I have now. I have shot Hornady factory 168 gr BTHP's at 100 yards and made a ragged hold more than once, so I know the rifle is capable of better than I'm currently getting. Thanks Jud96 for the reply, I appreciate it.

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I would be happy with anything around MOA with that rifle. All of those bullets are great choices and will deliver that type of accuracy.

Jud96 said:

I would be happy with anything around MOA with that rifle. All of those bullets are great choices and will deliver that type of accuracy.

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I'd be tickled with 1 moa at 100 as well. I only shoot whitetails out to 300. That's on the extreme side. They sure won't know the difference at that range. Sometimes I have a bad case of ocd and expect perfection.

brandonc46 said:

I'd be tickled with 1 moa at 100 as well. I only shoot whitetails out to 300. That's on the extreme side. They sure won't know the difference at that range. Sometimes I have a bad case of ocd and expect perfection.

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Yeah I can 100% relate with being OCD and expecting perfection. The body line is most factory rifles will do MOA. Some will do a lot better. It's hit and miss with any factory rifle. Your groups aren't terrible now. With some fine tuning they'll tighten up.

Jud96 said:

Yeah I can 100% relate with being OCD and expecting perfection. The body line is most factory rifles will do MOA. Some will do a lot better. It's hit and miss with any factory rifle. Your groups aren't terrible now. With some fine tuning they'll tighten up.

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I can agree with all those statements 100%. I was looking for somebody with more experience than me, to reassure me that there was room for improvement and how I could go about getting it.

brandonc46 said:

I can agree with all those statements 100%. I was looking for somebody with more experience than me, to reassure me that there was room for improvement and how I could go about getting it.

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You have a good powder that is known to be a top performer in .308 and works great. If you can't find accuracy by moving up and down a little, I would start at like 42.0 and work up in .3 grain charges. I know you said you already started low and worked up in .5gr charges but it doesn't hurt to start with a clean slate sometimes. I've tried a lot of different approaches to load development and often times would hit a brick wall and not know where to go. We've all been there. You're off to a good start though.

Jud96 said:

You have a good powder that is known to be a top performer in .308 and works great. If you can't find accuracy by moving up and down a little, I would start at like 42.0 and work up in .3 grain charges. I know you said you already started low and worked up in .5gr charges but it doesn't hurt to start with a clean slate sometimes. I've tried a lot of different approaches to load development and often times would hit a brick wall and not know where to go. We've all been there. You're off to a good start though.

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Thanks for all the info Jud96. I've I don't get anywhere with changing the coal I'll start over at the bottom and work up again.

Although many favor Varget in their 308 win I prefer RL 15 and TAC. I've also had good luck with IMR 4064. And with some rifles H4895 gave me the best results. Generally speaking I also favor Fed 210M or regular Fed 210 primers. Varget is an excellent powder for the 308 win but I'd try some other powders.

xsn10s said:

Although many favor Varget in their 308 win I prefer RL 15 and TAC. I've also had good luck with IMR 4064. And with some rifles H4895 gave me the best results. Generally speaking I also favor Fed 210M or regular Fed 210 primers. Varget is an excellent powder for the 308 win but I'd try some other powders.

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I'll look into trying something different powder wise. I'll be out of Varget by the time I reload again with a different coal.

I love to shoot off of bags. But one thing to be aware of are the sling studs while shooting off of bags. Try to make sure they are not getting hit during recoil as that can affect your groups.

xsn10s said:

I love to shoot off of bags. But one thing to be aware of are the sling studs while shooting off of bags. Try to make sure they are not getting hit during recoil as that can affect your groups.

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I'll keep that in mind!

xsn10s said:

Although many favor Varget in their 308 win I prefer RL 15 and TAC. I've also had good luck with IMR 4064. And with some rifles H4895 gave me the best results. Generally speaking I also favor Fed 210M or regular Fed 210 primers. Varget is an excellent powder for the 308 win but I'd try some other powders.

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I have worked up many 308 loads in the past. I hit the best results with 42.0 grains of IMR 4064 under the 165 gran Speer B.T.S.P. and the same load for the Hornady 168 grain B.T.H.P. bullets. I have used this load in 6 different 308 rifles and get under 1 M.O.A. out of all of them. IMR 4064 works well in a number of other calibers also.