Best Mag Length .308 bullet

[northern skies]

The accuracy exercise is mostly academic. Most of my hunting is done under 100 yards. Only deer tags this year. I grow weary of the Berger's explosive properties on game. It's not that they don't kill, it's that there's lead fragments all over the meat afterwards. All that being said, if I can't figure out a proper load before September, I'll just zero the rifle at 200 yards with Federal Fusion 180 grains and call it a day.

Makes sense. Sounds like anything but a Berger or SST is fair game. I'd pick a 150 partition or a cup & core.

 

[kman300]

I have a Weatherby with a .378" freebore that shoots plenty good.

 

[Varmit]

I find Nosler Accubonds are easier to find a sweet spot when they are around 100 thou from the lands. And just may be the best hunting bullet you can buy.

 

[Eagleye]

I find Nosler Accubonds are easier to find a sweet spot when they are around 100 thou from the lands. And just may be the best hunting bullet you can buy.

I concur that the Accubond is more tolerant of "jump" than many VLD types. Personal experience......
I have a 257 Weatherby [Vanguard S2] it has a fairly long throat, but a long magazine as well.

The factory loaded Nosler 110 Accubond is seated deep, making the jump to the lands over .250" [¼"]
So in developing a load for this rifle, I decided to start at .020" off the lands. I worked my way up
to a maximum working load, using IMR 7977. At 70 grains, I had good velocity and excellent accuracy.
3 shot groups were averaging .625" @ 3380 fps.

On a lark, I took 3 Nosler factory loads and shot them at a 100M target. Imagine my surprise to see a
nice cluster of about the same size as my handloads. Thinking this may have been a one-off, I fired a
second group of the factory fodder.

This was only a fraction larger than the first. Very interesting, but the Nosler factory ammo is somewhat
slower, so it is obvious which I will hunt with. Dave.

 

[RangerPark]

I find Nosler Accubonds are easier to find a sweet spot when they are around 100 thou from the lands. And just may be the best hunting bullet you can buy.

I concur that the Accubond is more tolerant of "jump" than many VLD types.

Thank you gents for the feedback. The Accubond is definitely on top of the list. On reading about secant vs tangent vs hybrid ogives, looks like I should be steering towards tangent and hybrid bullets. The Accubond fits that bill.

 

[todbartell]

I appreciate the input. The Hornady AMAX has always worked well for me. Which one of their hunting bullets would be the closest?

ELD Match. Despite their name, they've gained a good repuation for long range impacts where the speed has decreased to levels where most hunting bullets do not expand properly. Likely not the case for your 100 yard hunting shots

3 shots does not constitute a group

How does it fare in a 10 shot test?

I usually just shoot a few rounds at a time with this rifle. I'll try a ten round string spread out enough to not cook the barrel too hot, next time out. It did shoot a .84moa 5 shot group at 1038 yards a couple months ago

 

[Boomer686]

Anyone? Also thinking about the Hornady SST.

You will get mixed reviews on the SST's but I have always had good success with the 150's & 180's on moose, caribou and black bear with the SST's.

I have had a few pass completely thru at ranges under 80m (each time was a full side-on double lung shot while the animal was running) but from the ones I did recover there was textbook expansion and minimal weight loss (I always weigh my recovered bullets for comparison purposes).

My load consists of 180 SST's on 42gr (I think) of H4895 loaded in nickle plated federal cases (easy to distinguish as my hunting-only loads should they inadvertently ever get mixed with my other loads) and they shoot extremely well out to 500m which is as far as I am willing to shoot with this bullet/ caliber and still retain enough energy to result in a humane kill. Cant' recall how much H4895 is pushing my 150's off hand....

I have nothing bad to say about the SST's & when I eventually deplete my stores of them I will perhaps look at the ELD-X's as a replacement if the SST's are no longer offered.