.308 Best Rounds

[albritt]

Hornady .308 ELD-M is plenty accurate enough. 5 shot group @ 100yds REMAGE with Criterion 4 groove match light varmint contour barrel.View attachment 234639

18" barrel

 

[Revolting Peasant]

On duty I carried Federal 168 gr match BTHP .308 Win.
We learned in our rifles that Federal 165 grain BTSP Gamekings shot a repeatable 1 MOA high from zero FGMM 168's with a better terminal performance and supposed to perform better shooting through glass.
Been carrying these two rounds for years. 165 gr Gamekings are maybe a little soft for really big game but work well on Texas deer, exotics, and hogs. Pass through on most of our whitetails and hogs.
Tried some 168 gr Amax handloads lately on a couple of big boars. No pass through on shoulder /shield hits with both shoulders broken. DRT but I require complete pass through to make me happy. Like blood trails. My two cents.

 

[bengineer]

Ive used the 165 Hornady BTSP for years in 308s. Since 1986 to be exact. Ive killed dozens of deer, pronghorn and elk, one bear and tons of rabbits and other small stuff. It will exit a broadside elk at 400. I found one under hide in a forker mulie having texas heart shot it at 90 yards; thats the only one ive recovered from game.
Ive used a half dozen other bullets in 308 on medium/big game and cant say any are better than that interlock bt bullet. It is soft, but it only goes 2800 or less from most any 308, so a hard or premium bullet is unnecessary. It is soft but doesnt make a huge mushroom so it penetrates pretty deeply. And it sheds some weight so as to dump energy and make emphatic kills on deer sized game. It hits coyotes hard. It pops marmots and rock chucks. Ditto prairie dogs and jack rabbits. It has proven accurate in every 308 i have used it in. And lethal on all game ive shot with it, out to 400 yards.
I cant not speak up when i see a post like this. Give the Hornady 165 BTSP a try. If youre afraid of the core shedding BT, try the flat base sibling.

 

[700Sendero]

Maybe you should rethink your shot placement (or if someone else is shooting their placement) if you need a Drahthaar to find the deer/animal and they are still alive. I know bullet performance has a lot to do with ethically killing an animal, but shot placement is more important. BT bullets performance has a lot to do with type/make/composition of BT, velocity of the bullet (on impact), and the animal's hide thickness.

I totally agree. The BT I was referring to was ballistic tips, not boat tails. Shoulda made that more clear. I never had a problem with the NBTs in my RUM. Just didn't want to start having any. I think a 180 NBT would be fine at the slow 308win velocities. And also, It sucks not ever knowing where exactly people hit the deer that they shoot, as it's almost always a "perfect" shot. (And a comical number of "biggest deer I ever seen," if it's not recovered ) Anyways, I'm gonna try some 181 hammers out of my other RUM next year to see how they do.

 

[mfk]

Like many have said, whitetail is not particularly hard to kill. I use 178 eld-x for my savage 308. Pretty accurate in my gun. A friend of mine loved the 150 and 165 grain nosler Ballistic Tips, so I bought some boxes of those (still have them but probably won't use them), but I switched over to the 178 grain eld-x which is probably too heavy for your tikka barrel.

 

[NorCalRiceGuy]

Is anything legal in Calif? You can't even go out for dinner, let alone shoot an animal. Or am I being silly?

Nope. You're spot on these days.

 

[NorCalRiceGuy]

I totally agree. The BT I was referring to was ballistic tips, not boat tails. Shoulda made that more clear. I never had a problem with the NBTs in my RUM. Just didn't want to start having any. I think a 180 NBT would be fine at the slow 308win velocities. And also, It sucks not ever knowing where exactly people hit the deer that they shoot, as it's almost always a "perfect" shot. (And a comical number of "biggest deer I ever seen," if it's not recovered ) Anyways, I'm gonna try some 181 hammers out of my other RUM next year to see how they do.

I think you will really like the Hammers. Steve and Brian provide great customer service, too. Call them for a recommendation for bullet and powder selection for your RUM. It will save you a lot of time in load development.

 

[blueprairiedog]

Hornady white tail 150 my wife bought me 2 box's when the sales guy said this is all we have I won a browning ab3 hunter 308 12 twist zeroed it with the wife's ammo and it was almost 3 shots one hole at 100 on the first hunt I shot a nice 8 point and he dropped on his but and fell over next hunt I shot a small buck that dogs ran across a cutdown about 125 yards and it looked like he ran into a wall.i am not changing anything until I see this combination fail .

 

[NorCalRiceGuy]

Hornady white tail 150 my wife bought me 2 box's when the sales guy said this is all we have I won a browning ab3 hunter 308 12 twist zeroed it with the wife's ammo and it was almost 3 shots one hole at 100 on the first hunt I shot a nice 8 point and he dropped on his but and fell over next hunt I shot a small buck that dogs ran across a cutdown about 125 yards and it looked like he ran into a wall.i am not changing anything until I see this combination fail .

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

 

[Ward Thurman]

I grew up in SoCal. It was great then. You couldn't pay me enough to stay there now. Gruesome Newsome is all that needs to be said. We used to go dove hunting in Blythe every year. Great times. But a long time ago.

There's still a lot of hunting down there. It's a PIA to do some times. But that is getting true all over the country nowadays. At one time I believe the second largest living bull elk was there on the Tejon Ranch. Plenty of areas down there and in Oregon that want to separate from it too. So Cal used to be the firearms mecca believe it or

 

[xsn10s]

I grew up in SoCal. It was great then. You couldn't pay me enough to stay there now. Gruesome Newsome is all that needs to be said. We used to go dove hunting in Blythe every year. Great times. But a long time ago.

I wouldn't live there either especially now. I left there in 2004. Wish I did it much sooner.

 

[Paladin300]

168 AMax

I will second the 168 AMAX. Both my son and I shoot them in our 308's. They shoot sub moa out of both guns and are devastating on deer. We hand load them but have found that Hornady black and tap both shoot well out of our guns. 168 amax @ 2700 factory. With hand loads we can push it closer to 2850 but the best accuracy for us is in the 2700 to 2750 range.

 

[Wv shooter]

I remember the first time I had any experience with the great 308 win it was 1973 zeroing local deer rifles in I got to shoot the model 788 Remington it was a huge surprise when I shot 3 150gr Remington Cor-loks in same hole with 3x9x40 Tasco scope I knew then that it was a super good cartridge been in love with this cartridge sence that day it ain't nothing fancy or sexy it just works

 

[Mike Matteson]

I have used 165 ballistic tips for year @ 3300fps. They have work well.