Seems to me this thread, like all before it... is off topic.
The question was,
Where does the 308win excel?
ex·cel
/ikˈsel/
verb
- be exceptionally good at or proficient in an activity or subject.
The question wasn't any of the following:
Is the 308win fun?
Is the 308win nostalgic?
Can the 308win kill anything at all?
Can 308win's hit targets ever?
Does the 308win have any place in the world?
Does anyone need to justify owning and using a 308win?
There is only one area where a 308win actually excels in todays world, and that is due to how bad it is at virtually everything else. The fact that it can produce enough recoil to properly proof a firing position, coupled with its inferior exterior ballistic performance and long barrel life, makes it a fantastic training round. However, most people will not purchase a dedicated rifle exclusively for rifle handling training.
There is no arguing the 308win's place in history. Just as there is no arguing its place in todays discipline. Outside of the specific training requirements laid out in the preceding paragraph, other more modern cartridges can do better at virtually every application.
Terminal performance, accuracy/precision, recoil, exterior ballistic performance, barrel life, etc. Other cartridges can best the 308win in virtually every category, individually and collectively, and be better at their respective jobs. There is only one configuration which can bring a 308win into the modern times... and it's Palma. Long barrels, (like 30-34") with 155gr slippery bullets. Modern components provides the ability for that combination to push velocities high enough with a bullet that has just enough BC to make things favorable.
About 7-8 years ago... a week didn't go by where I didn't talk to someone extremely disappointed in their 308 after trying to use it in a situation where a different cartridge would clearly outclass it. That call is very rare these days, thanks to people waking up to the facts of ballistic reality. Still though, every so often... the phone rings and I'm met with all manner of regret as someone is now $5,000-$6,000 deep in a custom 308... and almost no one in the world wants it. Certainly not the owner.
The bad advice of others, brings more people under my mentorship than any of my own efforts.
I still have a 308win, for nostalgia and training sake. When I have a guy show up for training with a .22-250 or .204 ruger, and I need them shooting something where they can actually see the fruits of their labor behind the rifle, it often comes out. That's what the 308win excels at in todays world... and it's almost the only thing. With my reputation riding on people being successful with what I recommend now, I could not, and would not EVER, in good conscience recommend a 308win for virtually anything other than the very specific aforementioned task of a dedicated training rifle.
Conversely, if you're sitting there just itching to get a 308win... why would you let anyone stop you? I look back on my time with the 308win fondly. No other cartridge taught me as many things. Granted it was long ago, but I worked out the bulk of my knowledge in this discipline on that cartridge over roughly a 5 year period.
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