New to .308. What bullet weight to start with? 1:12 twist.

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Allbrian

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I bought my first .308 last week and will begin to reload soon. I purchased a Rem. 700 VTR with a 1:12 twist. I'm looking for any advice on where to start with bullet weights. This will be mostly for target shooting right now. It seems the popular weights are 150, 168, 175 and 180. Also I will be using Varget and RL-15 powder as that is what I currently have, but it seems IMR 4895 is also popular. There seem to be so may different options for this caliber I'm having a little trouble figuring out where to start. Any advice or starting loads would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys
 
Wow! Now I have something read for a day or Two. I guess it will just be a lot of trial and error.

ARH77 said:
About 1/2 way down there is a "Load Map" chart for what some people have been running. It'll give you a general idea of your options and what people run. There is also a lot of other good information in there on bullets, brass, and powders.

http://www.6mmbr.com/308Win.html
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Just about any bullet, other than a 200 gr VLD, should work just fine in your rifle.

Varget and RL15 are two of the best powders. no need to try anything else.

For target shooting I would try the Sierra 155 and 175 match bullets. The 175 is the 168 with a better boattail for long range shooting.
 
Another vote for 46.0 gr of Varget and a 155 gr bullet. Works very well to at least 1000 yards.
168 SMK bullets were designed in the 60's for shooting 300m ISU style shooting. They will work out to 800-900 yards but are crap at 1000.
 
Allbrian said:
I bought my first .308 last week and will begin to reload soon. I purchased a Rem. 700 VTR with a 1:12 twist. I'm looking for any advice on where to start with bullet weights. This will be mostly for target shooting right now. It seems the popular weights are 150, 168, 175 and 180. Also I will be using Varget and RL-15 powder as that is what I currently have, but it seems IMR 4895 is also popular.
Click to expand...

There are many good choices out there.

What distances are you interested in shooting?

At distances out to 600 yards or metres, virtually any bullet, in any case, with any primer, with a full charge of any medium-burn-rate rifle powder, will work well. It is worthwhile to point out that oftentimes a "medium performance" bullet will be easier to get to shoot accurately than a "high performance" bullet. So for example, bullets that are poor choices for 1000 yard shooting (e.g. a Nosler 150 Ballistic Tip), or even awful choices for 1000 yard shooting (e.g. Sierra 168 MatchKing, or a 150 grain flat base) can give you extremely good results at 100, 300, 500, 600 yards.

If you want to shoot beyond 600, it becomes a more specialized question and the field of good choices is a lot narrower. There is a lot more work involved in making ammo that will shoot well in a factory rifle at 1000 yards, but there are a quite a number of ways to do that successfully.

As to powder - absolutely first rate ammo can be made with Varget and Reloder-15, there's no need to investigate anything else, especially if you already have those on hand. Great ammo can be made with other powders too, e.g. H4895, IMR4895, N140, ...
 
maynard said:
Another vote for 46.0 gr of Varget and a 155 gr bullet. Works very well to at least 1000 yards.
168 SMK bullets were designed in the 60's for shooting 300m ISU style shooting. They will work out to 800-900 yards but are crap at 1000.
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Lol. Thanks for the info, but it may be a little while before I start reaching out that far.
 
rnbra-shooter said:
There are many good choices out there.

What distances are you interested in shooting?

At distances out to 600 yards or metres, virtually any bullet, in any case, with any primer, with a full charge of any medium-burn-rate rifle powder, will work well. It is worthwhile to point out that oftentimes a "medium performance" bullet will be easier to get to shoot accurately than a "high performance" bullet. So for example, bullets that are poor choices for 1000 yard shooting (e.g. a Nosler 150 Ballistic Tip), or even awful choices for 1000 yard shooting (e.g. Sierra 168 MatchKing, or a 150 grain flat base) can give you extremely good results at 100, 300, 500, 600 yards.

If you want to shoot beyond 600, it becomes a more specialized question and the field of good choices is a lot narrower. There is a lot more work involved in making ammo that will shoot well in a factory rifle at 1000 yards, but there are a quite a number of ways to do that successfully.

As to powder - absolutely first rate ammo can be made with Varget and Reloder-15, there's no need to investigate anything else, especially if you already have those on hand. Great ammo can be made with other powders too, e.g. H4895, IMR4895, N140, ...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the great info. Right now I'm concentrating on 300 yards. That's the longest gun range around, but eventually I would like to start building a long range rig and find a nice farmer to let me shoot in his field. Maybe I will make a friend at the range.
 
maynard said:
There is a long range in Nokomis. http://www.saskrifle.ca/index.htm

You don't have to pull the trigger any harder to shoot 1000 yards than you would shooting 300 yards.
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Awesome. I had no idea. Although that would make sense since I haven't really looked into it, but thanks for the info. I'll have to head out there this spring to check it out. I would also need a serious scope upgrade.
 
Allbrian said:
Awesome. I had no idea. Although that would make sense since I haven't really looked into it, but thanks for the info. I'll have to head out there this spring to check it out. I would also need a serious scope upgrade.
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Contact them and head out when the season starts. There will also be guys there shooting iron sights out to 1000 yards.
 
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