"All around" 308 bullet?

Another nod for a 165 in the .308.
My personal favorite, the 165 Ballistic Tip.
I load them over H380, BLC2 and Varget.
Have filled a bunch of whitetail tags with them over the years and have never recovered a bullet.

Welcome to the forum and the wonderful world of reloading too.
 
The 308 performs perfectly fine with cheap bullets. Watch Midway for 500 count bulk deals. Watch Noslers Shootersproshop for Seconds and over runs. I just picked up a 500 box of Speer hotcore 180gr for 21cent each shipped From Midway. Sometimes it will be 500 Winchester 150gr Power Points or Honadys. At 308 velocity's they all are great bullets.
 
I'm in Canada so I can't order ammo,from the US due to,silly laws.

I have to pay 60 bucks for a box of 50 partitions
 
As to powder does it matter what I try? Of course it matters to my rifle but the velocities are meaningless from the manual as the test barrel was 24".

I'm assuming that the pressure will be the same in each powder as listed in the manual. I'll use the same cases and primers.

Blc2 was the most accurate in their test but it may not be in mine.
Varget had better velocity at the expense of accuracy although I'm not sure it matters for hunting.

Where to start? There's 9 different powders. Surely I'm not gonna test each powder from minimum to maximum, and then do it all again with different bullet seating??

I'm sure I'm reading too much into this as I,was perfectly happy with my moa from store bought ammo.
Anything handloaded is gonna be at least as good as store bought right?
 
Handloaded may be better. There is definitely a sense of satisfaction to loading your own. You can usually get better accuracy, but some loads may be lemons. As far as maximizing velocity, unless you are pushing to an extreme, you are on the right track that it's pretty meaningless so long as you are fast enough for your intended purpose. With any near max load this will be the case.

Simplify your powder selection. Find IMR 4064, varget, IMR 4895 or H4895, whichever is most available locally, preferably in that order IMHO. Any of these should do very well with your .308 with 150-165 grain bullets. As a new reloader, I would stay away from any spherical powder. They can do funny and unpredictable things with temperature extremes, and seem to be a bit fussier in general as far as finding good loads. Many on here will get overly anal about squeezing every fps and micron of accuracy out of a rifle/load. Life is too short, find something that shoots well enough for your purpose, then load and shoot a lot of it.

As for the Hornady Spire point and PRVI cases, read my above post recommending them. Both have killed me deer and won me trophys, I shoot them with confidence. Prvi brass is a real sleeper. Lots of serious match shooters started using it during the last component shortage when they couldn't get Lapua. In some of the metric rifles I shoot in international and vintage military matches, it is the only practical option cost wise. It's been very long lasting and accurate for me.
 
Blc2 was the most accurate in their test but it may not be in mine.
Varget had better velocity at the expense of accuracy although I'm not sure it matters for hunting.

Nosler and Sierra don't list a load as most accurate unless it has performed very well in many different guns. Their accurate loads are almost always a good place to start when picking powders. I've had very good luck with Blc2. That being said, I probably use IMR4064, IMR4895, and Varget more. The 308 is an easy cartrigde to load for. If starting over, I'd pick the one of those powders that is most readily available to you locally.
 
BTW, Varget is hardly an inaccurate powder choice in the .308 Win. It's been used quite successfully in 800, 900, 1000 yard "Palma" competition with 155 grain bullets, and the .308 Win case.

Also, RL-15 has been used in factory "match" loads supplied to our military snipers for their 7.62 Nato rifles.

Both remain good choices. The .308 is easy to please.

Link to a great article on handloading the .308 Win: http://www.6mmbr.com/308Win.html

I contributed to that article many years ago, so I hope it's still good.

Guy
 
In a scout gun set up I personally would reload 150 gr sierra pro hunters for target practice and general shooting . And load the 150 gr Partitions for actual hunting!!
With the box mag of the savage the longer ballistic tip/sst style bullets are seated so deep , I find it a tough compromise in case capacity. ( my personal issue per se') .
And the 20" barrel is not going to be a speed demon to take advantage of the bonded or mono styles unless you go lighter. So in my estimation the 150 is likley your best most reliable and convienent to start loading a 308 with.


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Guy and a bunch of others gave the best advice, find some 4064, Varget, RL15 and some 165's and I'd bet you won't have to search much to find a good load. I wouldn't be worried about the 20" barrel. It'll get plenty of speed..
 
I have yet to be able to determine the most accurate load in my .308. RL-15 shoots 100 yard groups under .200, with the 168 CC. And when I switch over to Varget with the 168 SMK, the groups expand out to well under .250. Changing case brands also raises havoc with the group size. I suppose one of these days I will get around to some serious load development. But right now I am pretty happy with it.
 
Elkman":3jfrhvcd said:
I have yet to be able to determine the most accurate load in my .308. RL-15 shoots 100 yard groups under .200, with the 168 CC. And when I switch over to Varget with the 168 SMK, the groups expand out to well under .250. Changing case brands also raises havoc with the group size. I suppose one of these days I will get around to some serious load development. But right now I am pretty happy with it.
Click to expand...

Ya, it's real tough to get the .308 to shoot well... :roll: How could you live with yourself after shooting .250" groups? :mrgreen:

Guy
 
I had one customer that refused to accept any load development that would not deliver 3/8 inch groups in his rifle. He seldom shot them to that degree of accuracy, but he wanted to know that the rifle and load would deliver that accuracy when he received the recipe. He always had excellent equipment and getting loads that would deliver that degree or better for the .308 was always a joy.
 
Another vote for Varget and RL 15. I had 3 duty rifles during my 20 years in SWAT. They all liked either of those two powders and I was able to match very closely the Federal Gold Medal Match ammo I was issued.


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Another vote for Varget and RL 15. I had 3 duty rifles during my 20 years in SWAT. They all liked either of those two powders and I was able to match very closely the Federal Gold Medal Match ammo I was issued.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I've done a lot of hunting with a .308 carbine (a Steyr Scout actually) and mine shoots plain vanilla .308 Corelokt ammo so good that I haven't done a lot of messing around.

I'd pick a bullet in the 150-165gr range that expands readily at the (somewhat) reduced velocity the carbine barrel gives. A 150 Partition or Ballistic Tip would be very tough to beat but don't overlook the more conventional cup and cores...they work just fine at the impact speeds you're realistically looking at.
 
I only have a little over 2 years reloading experience, but been hunting and experimenting with rifles for 35+ years. So, just some food for thought here, you mentioned the intended purpose was protection from bears and wolves and maybe future hunting. First off you have a solid choice in a quick handling, short barrel .308..(although if SOLELY for protection, i would lean towards a lever gun).But if I wanted a utilitarian rifle and it needed to be suited for self protection from animals, I would want the sights to allow for quick target acquisition of up-close targets, and probably use the iron sights or a reflex type dot sight. I think in a "oh crap, its a bear" situation, it may be difficult to get on target with a scope when he's close enough to smell his breath. I would pick a bullet in the 165-180 grain class and work up a load using any of the powders mentioned, like 4895 or Rl-15, that yielded satisfactory accuracy and velocity and spend the rest of the time getting good with quick action shooting and shooting accurately at "longer" distances with the iron sights or whatever quick action type sight I went with...So to your original question, any well made bullet will serve you well as you won't need the super long range accuracy that is possible with a scoped rifle..Again, this is just how I would set it up as a protection weapon...You haven't received ANY bad advice here..Best of luck with your project!
 
I should clarify the "protection" aspect. I own a shotgun for close up "holy @&$& it's a bear coming at me" protection.

The 308 in addition to target practice, and hunting will be a "protection" rifle to eliminate a nuicence bear or wolf.

So, I've stocked up on some 150 interlocks, and cleaned up and full sized some brass.

Am I correct that I know load brass in groups of 5 with a powder charge starting at the recommended starting load, and moving up in .5 increments.

Then I go to the range and shoot groups of five, watching for signs of excessive pressure. If I see signs I stop, if not I proceed until I fire off the rounds, with the manuals maximum never exceeded.

One of these grouping will be the most precise. That's the magic recupie.

Correct?

If I'm correct do I have to do this all the time, or can I simply reload with the same recipie?

Obviously if I change Bullet weight I'll do it again. But what if I change the casing?

Do I need to build up again?
 
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