Improving the 308 Win performance
- Thread starter nralifer
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No flames will come from me. While there seems to be a propensity of stating that one's favorite cannon is better at this and at that, I will just simply say, "They all will work if the bullet is placed in the right spot." Doesn't matter whether a .22 size hole punctures the heart or lungs, or a 45 caliber bullet does. The animal is going to go down. Where the extra velocity and energy come into play is when the bullet isn't quite where it's supposed to be and the impact and shock does the job that the misplaced bullet could not do.
You could not find a bigger 308 fan. I don't even know how many 308's I own. Reload and shoot hundreds/thousands of rounds a year for them.
Killed many animals with them.
That being said, if I am hunting elk in an area where the majority of shots are at or over 500 yards I take one of my 300 short mags.
You can kill an animal further with it, but why.
Killed many animals with them.
That being said, if I am hunting elk in an area where the majority of shots are at or over 500 yards I take one of my 300 short mags.
You can kill an animal further with it, but why.
Stevenstl86
Well-Known Member
I had GAP build me a 24" hospitaller in .308 10 years ago. Shot 168's-175's one hole. Took it out to 850 yards on steel. After 850yrds good luck with any breeze. My buddy's 260 was banging narrow plates at 1100 yards. He was also a full 12 moa less than me. Needless to say I sold that rifle a year later.
I still have a love for .308's and have a 419 custom in 22" and my own 16" I put together. Realistically it a good 500 yard max hunting round and I like to have the lightest set ups possible. Anything passed that is a big 30 cal. 300wm/ 30 Sherman/ 338 edge
I haven't slung Berger 155 bullets far enough to see a huge difference yet but I would like to see someone make a sleeker, light bullet for the 30 cal.
I still have a love for .308's and have a 419 custom in 22" and my own 16" I put together. Realistically it a good 500 yard max hunting round and I like to have the lightest set ups possible. Anything passed that is a big 30 cal. 300wm/ 30 Sherman/ 338 edge
I haven't slung Berger 155 bullets far enough to see a huge difference yet but I would like to see someone make a sleeker, light bullet for the 30 cal.
It's all about the right tool for the job.
I love asking my friends who shoot underpowered cartridges at long ranges on game how quickly the animal died or how many animals they have shot and lost, or similar questions. They stop bragging about their long shots on game with inadequate loads very quickly. You never hear about that when people are talking about these kinds of things.
Varmint Hunter
Well-Known Member
It sounds like the people who visit Las Vegas. You never really hear them talk about their losses. It's only the occasional winnings that get talked about all the time. LOL
VLD Pilot
Well-Known Member
But yet we all know the reality
Wachsmann
Well-Known Member
For me I go to the woods with all the same tools I practice shooting with. I look at it as a system. The gun is just one piece of the system. And yes sometime it hard to get a deer to stand there for a decent amount of time to get distance, wind, angle of incline/decline, pressure, and everything that you need to take in to account to make a long range shot. And then like everyone has pointed out the animal can move but bullets get there in usually less than 1 second. There is one item I left out and that is a good scope. I mean a repeatable scope that can dial up and down and not loose where its at or not have to do some type of 2 step to get it right. One post last month or now 2 months ago was how a Leopold was not dialing correctly. It was something of a 2 or 3 step to get it to work. That doesn't fly when tiring to kill something at a long range. Mine are a middle of the line optic but the Vortex VIPER HSLR has worked every time for me on my RUM. I also run a old Zeiss conquest 4.5x14 on my wifes 243 but its been on a couple of guns now. It also works flawlessly. A cheap scope with lots of feature but not very good glass is the ARKEN SH4. Dials great, has zero stop, high mag like 24x and a great reticle but glass is sub par. It still holds zero and dials up and down without error. I wish they had better glass. If so better glass, they could increase the price tag and I think people would still buy them, but they have a pretty good market anyway. Lets see scope, load development, wind, pressure, angle of incline, shooting direction, anything else. Practice, practice, practice. There is one other thing and I seen this on most if not all factory barrels in my experience. A completely clean barrel does not shoot into the same group as a fouled barrel. So you have to figure out this one. You either go to the woods with a fouled barrel and you have to know how much fouling to have a consistent cold bore shot or you do it with a clean barrel but its the same thing. You need to know where that cold bore shot is going. This is why I refer to it as a system. For me what I have found that works the best is I clean my gun and then shoot about 5 to 6 shots through and use a brush or bore snake and run it through a couple of time. Using a brush, its a plastic one, and no cleaner on it just dry. Cleans out some of the carbon but still leaves it in a condition that will shoot into the same group as my usual strings do when shooting. This type of testing and shooting, and practice is not cheap anymore and I probably over the last 15years could of paid for a few custom rifles (barrels) by now in just components alone but that's no fun. Then after all this you need to know or have a ideal of where you cutoff point is, for as velocity and energy for which bullet your shooting. How does it expand at low velocity. This was the whole key to using match bullets like the amax long ago. At high velocity they generally did not penetrate and as some would say blew up before getting into the vitals. At low velocity there was not enough energy/velocity for then to blow up so they penetrated and gradually mushroomed up like a normal hunting bullet would at 3 or 400 yards. Berger's kind of do the same but they react better at closer ranges as for penetration. But thats the ideal behind long range shooting. You have to be able to know, have good components, (scope, load,) and practice to do this. Its not just going out and I hit a few steal targets 3 time out of 20 at longer ranges its being able to do it like almost all the time. I remember the first time I took my wife out with her 243. I told her we would be shooting out to 600yrds and I needed her to practice at that range for the area we was hunting. She had not made one hit and told me it could not be done. Then I told her to look at a specific rock up on the hill side that I had painted up with the spotter. It was 1012 yards away. Ear muffs on I unpacked my 300RUM. Got her behind me some on the scope and took a cold bore shot. She freaked out and was completely in aw of how I did that. I was about 4 inches from where I was aiming at. I packed it back up and put that gun back in the truck. Then started working on her shooting, holding the gun correctly, cheek placement, which this was her original issue. I had to ad a cheek riser cause she was to low in the scope with the rail and mounts. Once she had full site and this was set up right she was making hits at 600yrds. She took her deer that year at 298 yards and had complete confidence she was able to make the shot. Her buck is now the biggest mount in the house. Long story short its not just going out and tiring to shoot an animal at some distance its a lot that goes into that one shot. More money than I care to admit. Maybe I just need to buy one of those gun works rifle systems and call it done. Actually I plan on having my 2 Remington's trued and have custom barrels installed some day. That will help the cold bore shot a lot. I have 2 identical Senderos just in different calibers. I also intend to buy me one more at some point but I have generally seen that the Senderos shoot pretty well starting off with just factory ammo not to mention I like the looks of these also. I wont talk about the weight causes its heavy. But this Is how I do things.
nralifer
Well-Known Member
Did some testing today using Lab Radar, 308Win SRP lapua brass, 26" 1:10 Savage factory barrel, Stevens long action, CCI450 primers, 175 gr BD2 bullet. Testing temp 40F. Used 3 powders, LVR, SPR, and SB6.5. The first 2 powders have not reached max yet. The SB6.5 reaching max load capacity of 54.5 gr but not pressure yet. COAL was 2.960" with SB6.5 which will fit in Savage and ARC short action and feeds well from both. Since have not topped out on the first 2 powders I'll show the results with SB6.5. Max speed 2893, average 2886 low 2879 fps. No pressure signs or primer flattening seen. Some cratering in all shots but I see that in brass shot with lower speed loads when shot in Savage actions. These speeds beat those published for the 30'06 in 2011 Hodgdon Annual Manual and equal those published in 2022 manual. See pics below. The left pic is from the 2022 manual. The right one is from the 2011 manual. Seems like they upgraded the 30'06 speeds for the same weight bullet. Have more to go with Leverevolution (LVR) since can still get more powder in the case. Nevertheless SB6.5 can be used in the 308Win to propel heavier bullets in longer barrel at speed's equivalent to the 30'06 at a COL that can be used in 3" actions.
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Wachsmann
Well-Known Member
No advocating for anybody but here is some 2900+FPS 308 load data. Its also a 24 inch barrel, I guess you did say a 175 now that I read you post. But anyways now that you posted what you are using....thank you for your results and we probably all stand corrected; its going to give me something to try since I have all those powders also but i never seen Hodgens list data for them. I know you can use any powder, its just what make it go boom, and I often wonder if RL26 would work pushing a really heavy bullet. It does amazing thing in my RUM with heavies. Way over the published data. Its been like 150fps faster than published.
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2900 is possible with a 150 gr pill. But not using a 175gr pill as the OP suggested.
47.2 gr PP2KMR in Lapua SRP/CCI450 and Berger 180 EH will do sub 1/2 MOA (usually 1/4 or 1/3 for 5 at 100 ) and 2765 from my 24", and 2688 from my 20" Proof barreled bolt guns. These are standard mag length. I have taken the speeds up beyond 2800, but the accuracy goes away. LVR is an ace in the hole for speed and accuracy, too.
nralifer
Well-Known Member
I realize that with LVR, SPR and SB6.5 there are no published data in the 308 Win but there is data for the LVR in the 338 Federal. I happened to try it because I was getting a lot of fouling with CFE223 which burns slightly faster so I figured I could use the same powder charges safely, which turned out to be true. It burned a lot cleaner and out of a 20" barrel using our 150 gr BD bullet I got 1/2 MOA accuracy and close to 2950 fps. That has become my favorite hunting load and equaled the listed 3006 data. Now I'm trying ways to improve the 308Win further with other high energy ball powders for which there are no published data in the 308. I've had to do that a lot now for our other bullets we make so I've developed a method that is safe but yields at times some surprising results. I have some time now to do this but in SD this year the weather in so bad I can't use my radar most of the time so results are slow in coming. Thanks for your post and information. I might have some results to talk about tomorrow when it quits snowing
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nralifer
Well-Known Member
Glad to hear that. Did you use large rifle primers and if so, did the primer pockets loosen? The pic below is a preliminary but the highest charge of LVR I used was 48 gr using a 175 gr bullet. I don't see any pressure signs yet in the SRP brass using CCI 450 primers.
