Rifle is a bone stock Savage Precision Carbine with its original 20" barrel. While not an absolute tack driver the rifle has proven to be nicely accurate and consistent, printing 5-shot 5/8 inch groups all day. Mostly I shoot lightweight 125gr Ballistic Tips out of it and these have been good out to 700 yds. However wind can be an issue and I was getting tired of my buddy whooping my ass with his high BC bullets.
I had some 208 AMAX's lying around and decided to see how they might work in the Savage.
I had no time to actually shoot for group or chrono or any load development or even zero the rifle so I was pretty happy when the first test rounds at 100 yds actually landed on the paper fairly close to the point of aim. The big 208's were stable out of the OEM Savage Precision carbine barrel and recoil was not excessive. I went 1/2gr over the max listed load for Varget and the cases showed no pressure signs. I think I can get another grain into the cases without seriously compressing the powder.
Luckily we were shooting over a river valley and could use the water to spot the misses and correct from there. The first round at 900 yds landed within 5 feet of the target for windage and was very close for elevation .... thank the iSnipe gods for that. Being able to spot the splash it was a fairly easy task to correct the elevation and windage from the mil-dot reticle.
We managed to hit the 900 yd target fairly quickly and then made easy hits on a 930 yd target. Even my wife made a hit on the 930 yd target.
The "THWOCK" of the bullet hitting water and wet mud was impressive even from 900 yds distant. Once we were making reasonably consistent hits at 900 yds we decided to see how far we could stretch out the 308.
Our spotter was able to pick out at decent target at 1250 yds. As most ballistic computers are a bit hincky much past 600 yds and I was only guessing at the muzzle velocity and true zero range, I dialled in the elevation and hoped for the best. First round, no splash, no dust, nothing. Crap!
Took a wild guess and added 5 MOA elevation and 5 MOA windage. Second round, splash low and left. Placing the reticle on the target I was able to calculate windage and elevation corrections off the mil-dots and dial that into the turrets. At this point I discovered I was lying on a red ant hill and the little buggers were organizing to mount an attach on me. The swarm was mostly under the rifle around the bipod legs but I had suffered a bite, which is how I noticed them. As we were so close, I decided to hunker down and concentrate on making the next shot before the ants could really do some damage. Head down, align sights, breathe, squeeze. Third round ......................... solid hit!
Figured I should stop at that point cause it just wasn't gonna get any better than that and the ants were going to make a meal out of me if I stayed any longer.
1250 yds in effectively 2 rounds. It is a holiday Monday and my birthday today and that made for a hell of a day out. I really didn't think a 308 would go that far and do it so easily. The ballistics computer says that round should be supersonic to around 1400 yds and if I could get another 50-100 fps out of it maybe even further.
I had some 208 AMAX's lying around and decided to see how they might work in the Savage.
I had no time to actually shoot for group or chrono or any load development or even zero the rifle so I was pretty happy when the first test rounds at 100 yds actually landed on the paper fairly close to the point of aim. The big 208's were stable out of the OEM Savage Precision carbine barrel and recoil was not excessive. I went 1/2gr over the max listed load for Varget and the cases showed no pressure signs. I think I can get another grain into the cases without seriously compressing the powder.
Luckily we were shooting over a river valley and could use the water to spot the misses and correct from there. The first round at 900 yds landed within 5 feet of the target for windage and was very close for elevation .... thank the iSnipe gods for that. Being able to spot the splash it was a fairly easy task to correct the elevation and windage from the mil-dot reticle.
We managed to hit the 900 yd target fairly quickly and then made easy hits on a 930 yd target. Even my wife made a hit on the 930 yd target.
The "THWOCK" of the bullet hitting water and wet mud was impressive even from 900 yds distant. Once we were making reasonably consistent hits at 900 yds we decided to see how far we could stretch out the 308.Our spotter was able to pick out at decent target at 1250 yds. As most ballistic computers are a bit hincky much past 600 yds and I was only guessing at the muzzle velocity and true zero range, I dialled in the elevation and hoped for the best. First round, no splash, no dust, nothing. Crap!
Took a wild guess and added 5 MOA elevation and 5 MOA windage. Second round, splash low and left. Placing the reticle on the target I was able to calculate windage and elevation corrections off the mil-dots and dial that into the turrets. At this point I discovered I was lying on a red ant hill and the little buggers were organizing to mount an attach on me. The swarm was mostly under the rifle around the bipod legs but I had suffered a bite, which is how I noticed them. As we were so close, I decided to hunker down and concentrate on making the next shot before the ants could really do some damage. Head down, align sights, breathe, squeeze. Third round ......................... solid hit!
Figured I should stop at that point cause it just wasn't gonna get any better than that and the ants were going to make a meal out of me if I stayed any longer.
1250 yds in effectively 2 rounds. It is a holiday Monday and my birthday today and that made for a hell of a day out. I really didn't think a 308 would go that far and do it so easily. The ballistics computer says that round should be supersonic to around 1400 yds and if I could get another 50-100 fps out of it maybe even further.
