Hunting bullet recommendation for short barreled 308

[Thebear_78]

Looking at the website it looked like they both had an est. bc of .176

 

[RockyMtnMT]

You are right it does. My mistake the Hammer Hunter should show .208 G7-bc estimated. Our site is not allowing me to edit right now due to some upgrade that was done and now it doesn't work. Some update.

Hopefully next month we will be better caught up on things and be able to spend some time shooting over two chronographs to get a muzzle vel and a 200y vel with most of our bullets and get a bc calculation from them. Should be better than our shooting for drops. bc is tough. Last thing I want is to list them too high, but if I am too conservative then it looks bad. In the end we just want them close enough to get guys on target and they can make their own adjustments. I have seen large swings in bc on the same bullet fired from two different rifles. No good way to explain it other than when we were done the solution for each rifle worked perfectly. I guess that is what matters in the end.

Steve

 

[LDHunter]

I've hunted with Remington Model Sevens for over 20 years and before that the 600 series rifles and have had excellent luck with Nosler Partitions and recently Accubonds. The 150gr bullets have such good terminal performance that it's easy to never look any further but accuracy out of the 165gr bullets is amazing to see out of short barrels.

The Model Seven get's no respect from those that own Model 700's and I get it but if you turn your back on them when you are looking for a lightweight rifle then you simply are missing out on rifles that perform well at under 6 pounds right out of the box.

Admittedly most of mine are of the Remington Custom Shop variety from back when their Custom Shop wasn't just a fancy name for a hyped up jazzed up production rifle but they're still Model Sevens and they shoot great, carry like a dream and are all well under an inch at a hunnert in accuracy if you get the bedding right.

Mine all have 20" barrels except the SAUM's which have 22" barrels. When you shoot a short barreled rifle it will quickly spoil you for rifles that take a 40 acre field to swing around and carry like a lead sled. In my opinion the only reason to have a barrel longer than 20" is if you are planning on shooting over 600yds but since this is a long range hunting forum that is quite often the case here... LOL

By the way... Never overlook Varget for the 308. It's temperature insensitive and very predictable as a medium burning powder and is great in short barrels. Accuracy and velocity is outstanding.

I'll stay tuned for your results with that 16" tube (I've always wanted to try one) and by the way... Nice looking rifle.

 

[Havoc]

morning, the barnes 130gr. TTSX. is sleek well built design. construction

of a 165gr. very very good penetration. have shot big hogs in the head.

.750-1.00 exit hole. very accurate. very good bullet. powders, RL-15, w-748

w-760, 4064, and 4320. take ur pick. all very good powders.

THK. U lightbulbgun) very good build!!

I talked to a Barnes rep and he said you need at least 2000 fps for the bullet to expand, not sure if he'll have that out to 500 yards.

 

[Thebear_78]

I worked up a load with CFE223 and 168 Berger classic hunter.

It was the first time I tried the OCW method versus running a ladder. It worked out pretty well. I settled into a cluster at 48.0gr of CFE 223 for 2595fps. I got it up to 2670fps but the accuracy at 2595 was much better. I played with seating depth a little bit and got it shooting quite well. Closest I could get to the lands is .077" off the lands and still run thru the magazine.

According to my ballistic program this combo should stay supersonic out to 1000 yards and should be moving fast enough for expansion out to 500 yards and still carrying almost 1200fpe of energy.

After hearing so many people having good luck with the bergers I'm hoping it will work out for me too. The only failure of a Berger I have seen was on a goat where one came apart in the front shoulder out of a 300 WSM. Mt goats are built like tanks and have tested many premium bullets. Being that I'm running it 400fps + slower it shouldn't blow apart out of my 308.


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[Thebear_78]

I had to remove a bit of my feed ramp to use all the COL I could get out of the AIC style magazines. The Berger shot really well loaded out to max COL the magazine would allow. Right at 2.87", 2.255" measured to the ogive. Due to the varying nose on those bergers they wouldn't reliably feed at that length with modifying the feed ramp.

It's shooting so well at that length I won't be changing anything.

 

[Thebear_78]

I got a chance to shoot it with the suppressor last weekend. Luckily my dealer does "suppressor visitation days" and will meet us at the range once a month or so. It worked out very well. It prints right at 2" low compared to the unsuppressed zero. The load with CFE223 and 168 classic hunter was printing sub 1/2moa and confirmed the velocity on my buddies magneto speed right at 2623fps with an SD of 6.8

 

[Winkfish]

I am running a 16.5" barrel on one of my rem 700. I have great success running Sierra Game Kings 150Gr over Varget. I am able to keep 1/4 to 1/2 MOA.

 

[dfanonymous]

The 178 eldx out of a 20" has pretty good expansion even at 700y. I wish I took some pics of the wound cavity.

 

[TwoMore]

I have a buddy that shoots a .308 shorty , he is using the 190 grain LRAB in it and it murders deer and hogs, that bullet will expand down to 1300 fps , when we did the math, the .308 was well suited for that bullet at the distances he shoots it at.

 

[105amatt]

You might take a look at the Berger 185 Classic Hunter.

 

[Don A Parsons]

A few folks have jumped onto the ELD-X 178gr bullets up here in Western Canada after seeing the impacts on the furry critters. Bear, Moose, Elk and Deer are not liking them very much.

They make a mess up close at 40 too 200 yards, they start to come into their own at 250 on up too 400 yards, I can't say what they do too the thick skins past that since we haven't seen or heard of any hits past those ranges.

Those 178gr'ers are sending some ft-lbs of energy down there at the 400 yard mark, so I won't fear giving them a go.

I'm shooting them out of my long barrel 30/06 at 2550 ish ft-per second since I'm all about soft re-loading,,, both my long barrle and 18" short like these rounds as they work good at the range for accuracy too the 600 meter mark easy. This of course is target practic.

The ELD-X is gaining a pretty good harvest track record across America since Hornady is putting in the time and effort to make a quality bullet of these things,,, and they are performing awesome in the F Class shooting too.

I'll be running the 178's the rest of this year from both of my 30/06's and soon too be 308,,, I'll be trying the 212's for target match later next summer.

The nice thing about Hornady up here in Canada is price.

Like other have mentioned too, Sierra makes some pretty fine bullets too, Nosler and Speere have done me well over the years too.

The bullets i like best are the ones that perform well out of the rifle and mushroom up on impact too put some punch into those thick skins.

Don from Western Canada

 

[Bucklowery]

My 308 20"barrel I am running 168 gr amax and Nosler b-tip at 2525 with 43.5 barges. Works good on deer up to 200 lbs out to 700 yds

Thanks

Buck

 

[TXAoudadKlr]

I've shot sever types of bullets out of my ar-10. Fmj, TTSX's, Swifts, and partitions. All shot around 1.5moa.

The Nosler ABLR makes the most sense to me given the range of critters you're after.

CEB just released a new 180 grainer for their Maximus line, might be worth a look.