My .308 hurts my tender body/wallet. Suggestions?

themarauder

themarauder

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Just north of Toronto, thankfully.
This is the first time I've ever owned a scoped rifle and I wanted something decent that I can use for pretty well everything from gophers to deer to paper out at 800 yards. So I bought myself a Remington 700 Police in .308 and put a nice set of rings and a Falcon Menace 3.5x18 scope on it. (Confession: I like that it was reasonably priced and looks all tacticy as well.)

The gun shoots very small groups. Best one so far was a hole with three little cloverleaf marks around it at 100 yards. It works pretty well out to 800 yards and shoots far better than I am currently capable of.

However... I'm shooting 168 grain Remington factory match stuff. An ORA 800 yard match last month cost me $200 in ammo and a rather nasty bruise on my right shoulder. This gun kicks the crap out of my shoulder and my wallet. I'm going to start handloading for it, at least for matches. Any suggestions on bullet weights, loads etc? (Assuming 300-800 yards. Maybe 1000.)

Also wondering about recoil reduction. I've had people at the range (heh, ask a hundred people, get a hundred different answers from the experts, some of whom stand next to each other and have completely convergent answers.) suggest a new recoil pad for the butt of the gun, lighter loads, lighter bullets, a strap on recoil pad, getting the barrel ported, and just shooting more and toughening up. (Why, when I was your age we fired 500 grain .303 bullets with 500 grains of powder behind them one handed! In the snow! Uphill!) Since I'm collecting suggestions I figured this would be a good place for it.

I humbly ask for enlightment, oh wise bearded ones of the CGN.
 
Taming the kick

A muzzle brake can make that 308 feel like a .223....Unfortunately, then your shoulder won't hurt, sooo then you'll shoot more, and than your wallet gets thinner...and than the wife throws things at you and some of them are heavy, that hurts too....It's a cycle:D
 
I have a Remington 700P in .308 as well. Personally I find the recoil to be pretty light. I shoot 168g Matchkings. My brothers Remington 700LTR has more recoil them my 700P and it has the factory muzzle brake.

For recoil reduction you can install a muzzle brake and that will take away allot of the recoil. But that makes the gun louder (or so I've heard).
You can try placing your rifle in different spots on your shoulder. There is a pocket on your shoulder where the butt should be also make sure there is nothing between the butt and your shoulder like a lapel pin. You can try different butt pads or a shoulder pad that helps to reduce recoil.

Or you can shoot more and toughening up :p
 
Get a Limbsaver pad and you'll never look back. Not only are they very effective in reducing recoil, but they also reduce muzzle jump to almost nil.
 
Taylor-Made said:
A muzzle brake can make that 308 feel like a .223....Unfortunately, then your shoulder won't hurt, sooo then you'll shoot more, and than your wallet gets thinner...and than the wife throws things at you and some of them are heavy, that hurts too....It's a cycle:D
Click to expand...



Most excellent second post sir. :D



To the OP:


Check out the Savage 10FCP-K. I have the left-handed variant, but combined with a brake, and Savage's Personal Anti-recoil Device (a.k.a. 'P.A.D.', an over-glorified chunk of soft foam) my .308 nudges my shoulder "smoothly", for lack of a better term. I could shoot all day with it if I wanted.

I can barely handle a full magazine of .303 Brit in my Enfield, however. :redface:
 
1. Make sure the rifle is pulled snuggly on your shoulder and not free recoiling a bit before bearing on your shoulder. (Yes, I know, the bench rest guys will disagree, but they shoot mouse guns.)
2. Try a Decelerator or Limbsaver recoil pad.
3. Shoot wearing a shooting jacket with a padded shoulder or wear a Past field strap on shoulder pad.

You are going to want to keep using 168 gr bullets with a normal powder charge.
 
Sounds like you are not holding he rifle properly? A 308 shouldn't beat you up. Make sure the stock and scope are set up to fit you properly, this will help you hold it correctly.
 
1) Wear a winter jacket, or just tuck it in a bit harder.

2) The reducing the charge suggestion is sound. The sweet spot for consistancy often isn't the max charge.

3) Increase the weight of the rifle, either by a heavier stock or heavier barrel. Expensive though.

Mind you though, I shoot an M14 primarily so recoil is very mild for me.
 
Rifle weight has a direct effect on recoil. If your rifle has a hollow butt stock (the cheapie Savage black plastic stocks do, for example), you can fill it with lead shot or old lead pistol bullets. Adding a couple or three pounds to the butt of the rifle will make it, A) extremely unbalanced and an absolute joke to carry around or shoot offhand, and B) much, much more pleasant to shoot in a prone F-Class manner. A friend of mine puts weight into his .300 Win Mag Savage for load development and practice at the range, and then removes it for hunting.

In addition to how much a rifle actually recoils, the amount that it hurts you (or doesn't) is a function of how well it is fitting you and your clothing, so try different combinations of how you fit yourself to your rifle, as others have suggested. You could also try removing (unscrewing) your butt plate or recoil pad entirely, and putting a small sandbag or beanbag between your rifle and your shoulder. Whatever you do, try to keep you face and neck in a comfortable orientation, and have your eye comfortably lined up behind your scope (move it forward or backward, or up or down, if that helps).

Loading with Sierra 168s is probably a good choice for shooting out to 800 yards in a factory chamber; they are a more-tolerant bullet than many of the higher performance match bullets. Sierra 168s will almost certainly *not* work at 1000 yards, but there are other ways to skin that cat in a factory rifle / factory chamber setup (either Sierra 175 or Sierra 190).

It is usually the case that best accuracy and best consistency of velocity will be found at or near max loading. I would steer you away from the American practice (from their "across the course" competitions) of having several different loads for a rifle (a 200 yard load, a 300 yard load, a 600 yard load). Instead I would suggest that you keep things simple and just use one good load, e.g. a super-accurate near-max-loaded 168 or 175 Sierra.
 
308 is actually a mild recoilng round. Try shooting a 50 with a can all day and that will jar ur teeth. Also if you can get into a job where you dont have to pay for ammo, its much less painful on the wallet.
 
My brother is a smaller man than I and his Tikka T3 in .308 was annoying him. Not that it hurt, it just made him uncomfortable. I put a limbsaver on it and now he can shoot with me all day. In my humble opinion, they are worth it. If I had a gun that kicked me to the point of annoyance I would probably buy a limbsaver.

Don't listen to the people who tell you that you shouldn't be bothered by .308 recoil. It's all a matter of body size, what position you are shooting it, and preference on recoil. To me when I shot my first .22 I thought there was recoil. I was probably only 3'-6" and 60 lbs and I probably wasn't holding the gun right where it should have been. Bottom line is that you should have fun while shooting. If it isn't fun, make it fun.
 
Have a brake installed. This will make a substantial difference.
Handloading is the only way to go.
I have used the various 154/155 bullets, with satisfaction. All are accurate, Lapuas and Bergers, being VLD designs, will use less windage correction.
Pretty hard to beat a 155 with 46gr of Varget.
 
Not sure about the particulars of your gun but problem is not unique to you, many years ago when highpower sillywet was popular, alot of folks went from the .308 down to the 7mm/08 and other smaller cals. mainly due to recoil.
 
$30 will buy you a PAST recoil shoulder pad.
I use one for my 7mmRM because I found I was develpoing a flinch. I can shoot off 50 rounds now without even thinking aout the recoil.
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The best recoil reduction option I have found is a recoil pad that I wear.

You can buy them for less than 50.00 and they work.

My 45/70 was causing me major pain will high power loads. I used the pad and it took all the pain out of it. Mine is a Past Recoil Reduction pad. Like the one MagnumPeanut shows above.

The nice thing is it is not on the gun but on you. So you can shoot multiple guns without the expense of recoil pads on all of them
 
"...cost me $200 in ammo..." Shooting factory ammo will do that. Reloading will reduce your costs somewhat, however, match bullets aren't cheap. Over $300Cdn per 1,000 for 168's, the last time I looked.
Put on the recoil pad, but pay attention to the LOP. A pad will add about an inch. The PAST pad will not. No mucking about with cutting the stock to keep the LOP either.
 
Some good answers here,
If your shooting O.R.A. events, the only thing you can use that for after a muzzle brake would be precision shoots. No one else will want you near them.
Easiest way to tame recoil is to ad weight to the rifle or change to a better pad.
Gel pad might be ok. Ask people that own them. Try 155's instead of 168's, general consensus is they work better out to 1000 anyways. Reload to keep the price down(sore wallet).

Come out to shoot with me when I have the 50 cal. out, you won't worry about the .308 afterwards, laff.

Most of the guys I shoot with have heavy guns, custom stocks, heavy barrells etc. Recoil is not usually an issue even with the .338's we use.
When you turn a 7lb gun into a 17lb gun the recoil drops off alot

M.
 
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