nralifer
Well-Known Member
So what was the meat damage caused by the ELDM? I have had complaints from members of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation about the erratic behavior of ELDM bullets on Elk.
Improving the 308 Win performance
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hicountry1
Well-Known Member
nralifer
Well-Known Member
What about meat damage?
sea2summit
Well-Known Member
This^
ELD-Ms do great on human size animals and below. If I was going after a 450+ lb animal I wouldn't use ELD-Ms.
hicountry1
Well-Known Member
You want a tough bullet that digs,...Scenar, and they shoot.
They may be one of the better kept secrets out there
I'll pass on the eldm and x's
sea2summit
Well-Known Member
Not arguing. My daughter shoots PRS though and goes through about as many rounds as I can reload in a month. ELDMs are about $0.19 my cost and Scenars are about $0.37...times hundreds of rounds a month that adds up quick for a not significant improvement.
hicountry1
Well-Known Member
No argument on the target front.
What ever shoots the best works.
I use 139s in 6.5, 150s in 7mm, and 155 .308
My prc shoots the 139s sub half moa, and just over 3k
nralifer
Well-Known Member
What would you use?
Wachsmann
Well-Known Member
Above are some cases I fired with the LVR. Cases at top are from lowest charge to highest charge with the bottom pic being the top charge weight at 45.6gr. Top charge case is the bottom left. Nothing was compressed. I was using the 195 ELDM bullets. Charge weight and velocity below. All loaded ammo was at 2.830-2.832 COAL. I wanted them to fit in the mag. Velocity was obtained by a magneto speed chrono. The Gun is a 26 inch Howa 1/10 twist 308 heavy barrel.
43.5=2581, 44.0=2611, 44.6=2642, 45.0=2652, 45.3=2653, 45.6=2652.
The 45.6grn was the highest charge that was shown by Hodgon's site for CF223 and this was on a 215 Berger which was more then the max 190grn charge weight bullet. The case to the left bottom was the highest charge weight and it has a slight ejector swipe from previous reloading of CF223. All cases were trimmed to 2.005 and had the shoulders bumped back to 1.90-1.91 using the Hornady number 420 shoulder case gauge. All cases are annealed after every firing before I do resizing. My 308 after firing generally puts the shoulder at 1.94 to 1.93 depending on the charge weight. Most loaded box ammo from a store will measure 1.94 to the shoulder when using the Hornady gauge(420). I am bumping back a little father than I want too right now I just need to fine tune my die a little. The highest charge on the CFE223 data from the same bullet gave me 2689FPS but it was also giving me hard bolt lift and ejector swipes. CFE223 was also shot in the 68 to 76 degree weather. Not ideal but the LVR has no signs of pressure yet. Temp yesterday was 33 degrees. I will run these up to pressure to evaluate father and if I decide to buy another lot of 212 or if I can find 208 Berger's or I may use the Berger 210's that I have. I was going to use the 178 ELDX yesterday but I decided to use the 195 due to the shorter bearing surface. The 178X as I measured using 2 Hornady 30 cal gauges was .5835 and the 195M was .571. I don't know how much difference this makes but I also have more of the 195 on hand. Will keep testing but the flat spot on velocity that the powders showed would be a interesting area to select a load from with no pressure signs for ringing steel or general hunting. I'm hoping I could get another 100fps out of the powder before hitting pressure and possible having another good point to generate a load at. If I would of had more time I would of loaded more up. I took my 8 year old son who was itching to shoot his BB gun at everything and I mean everything. I'm trying to teach him how to shoot open sights but sometimes he just wants to pull the trigger as fast as he can get anything lined up on the barrel. I was looking at some BB gun traps to use in our garage with him to give the boy some more practice. BB gun stop and a lot of balloons with an X on them can go a long ways for training. I may find one that has the little spinning target inside the tap that you can shoot. Then I don't have to keep blowing up balloons. Anyways thought I would share some data here. The long goal is to find some 200.20x Bergers and get them dialed in to a good load. My second choice which is about 3 different bullets is the 208 Berger, 210ABLR, or 212X. Biggest reason to keep going back to Hornady is its always on the shelf.
nralifer
Well-Known Member
I think you have some excellent data there that indicates you probably can go up on the LVR max charge further. Just do single shots at increases of 0.75 gr. By way of comparison I was able to get to 2944 fps with my Savage 26" barrel using the 175 gr BD2 bullet using 51.5 gr of LVR. No ejector mark or significant primer flattening but I did use SRP Palma Lapua brass. When weather improves I will try a 195 gr bullet. One thing you might do is load a dummy round with the 195 gr bullet you used and see what the COAL it takes to get rifling marks on the bullet. Subtract that from the COAL you used for your test above, and that difference will give you a rather accurate measure of the bullet jump. I have found the free bore lengths for 308Win chambers can vary A LOT. Thank so much for posting such detailed data.
I have been shooting 308's since my days of carrying M-14's in the military in the late 70's. Quality wooden stocks with select fire rates. Later on I bought a couple M1 Garanads in 30-06 with cases of 30-06 ball and black tipped AP rounds. You can't compare 30-06 with 20% more powder volume over a 308. I learned to shoot my m-14 and m-60 on full auto. I think that a BAR 30-06 would kick my butt on full auto
I have a 20 and 24 inch 308's presently. Civilian cases have more volume than 7.62X51 mil brass. So you are wise to sort cases if you are using range brass.
As to powders my go to is TAC, CFE 223, and leverrevolution. For heavy rounds I dabbled in Allient powerpro 2000 MR and Ramshot big game. The problem with 308 is that the pills for hunting become horribly slow once you start exceeding 150 grain. If you want to shoot over 150 gr get a real 30 cal magnum of some sort. I bought the 30-378 with a 30 inch barrel launching 220's. People aren't tuff that's why 308 tactical rifles are so effective way out there.
I'm a long time Texas pig hunter and 308 loaded to 3100+ fps using Speer TNT 125 gr HP varmint rounds just puts them DRT. You used to be able to get the 500 round boxes cheap because I have gone through 1000's of them through my AR-10's varminting. "PIGS" Barnes 130 grain TSX is also effective. The heavy weight hunting rounds are just blow throughs and the pig might run off 50 yards. Pigs are kind of tough. I loaded up some 175's @2600 fps and during pig testing. Perfect broad side heart lung shots 30 cal hole in and maybe a nickel or a quarter size output. Then you follow a blood trail 10 - 50 yards.
I don't hunt with a high probability of wounding something and 308 is not your elk or African plains game go to round. 300 win mag or larger is!
I have a 20 and 24 inch 308's presently. Civilian cases have more volume than 7.62X51 mil brass. So you are wise to sort cases if you are using range brass.
As to powders my go to is TAC, CFE 223, and leverrevolution. For heavy rounds I dabbled in Allient powerpro 2000 MR and Ramshot big game. The problem with 308 is that the pills for hunting become horribly slow once you start exceeding 150 grain. If you want to shoot over 150 gr get a real 30 cal magnum of some sort. I bought the 30-378 with a 30 inch barrel launching 220's. People aren't tuff that's why 308 tactical rifles are so effective way out there.
I'm a long time Texas pig hunter and 308 loaded to 3100+ fps using Speer TNT 125 gr HP varmint rounds just puts them DRT. You used to be able to get the 500 round boxes cheap because I have gone through 1000's of them through my AR-10's varminting. "PIGS" Barnes 130 grain TSX is also effective. The heavy weight hunting rounds are just blow throughs and the pig might run off 50 yards. Pigs are kind of tough. I loaded up some 175's @2600 fps and during pig testing. Perfect broad side heart lung shots 30 cal hole in and maybe a nickel or a quarter size output. Then you follow a blood trail 10 - 50 yards.
I don't hunt with a high probability of wounding something and 308 is not your elk or African plains game go to round. 300 win mag or larger is!
sea2summit
Well-Known Member
It's not as horrible as people seem to say, but there is some. This is a pair I took at ~290 y with 130s.
It's been a while since I've been hunting big animals. My go to round when I was doing bear, caribou, moose was .308 with 180 federal soft points then .300 WM with Winchester black talon that was the early 90's. There's a lot of newer rounds and technology out there since then. I'll probably be looking at Barns, Berger, or Hornady offerings (not in that order) when I get the chance to go after big critters again.
Gday
Just thinking out load
To some it's just killing or hopefully kill & a pill opening that floats their boat
To others they are looking a little deeper than that & for the later , you guys will have less trouble in the field & more than likely have your freezer full
cheers
Just thinking out load
To some it's just killing or hopefully kill & a pill opening that floats their boat
To others they are looking a little deeper than that & for the later , you guys will have less trouble in the field & more than likely have your freezer full
cheers
nralifer
Well-Known Member
The newest tech is Badlands. In the 170-180 gr class they have the best BC and penetration. I have two 300WSMs both will shoot the 175 BD2 at 3150 to 3200 fps or the 150 BD2 at 3450- 3500 fps if speed turns you on. Your shots on those Deer were good. The placement looks like it saved you some meat.
