New to my rem700 308 and precision shooting, school me!

[saennor]

Hey guys, I recently picked up a remington 700 sps 308 with the 26" heavy barrel. for glass i picked up a vortex viper 6.5x20x44. shooting long range is brand new to me, ive been doing a bit of youtube'ing on HOW TO shoot long distance, such as bags, shooting prone, scope operation, etc etc etc.

What im wondering about is typically what kind of round are distance shooters going with? and what is a realistic distance to be aiming for, for a distance shooting newbie. 150grain? maybe heavier than that? I believe the bigger the twist rate (1:10-1:12) the heavier the grain, which translates to the heavier bullet being stabilized better? this barrel has the 1:12twist rate. i am not trying to start some kind of debate on how far you can shoot 308, you guys have battled that one to death, im just starting and will be very pleased to be hitting a 1' gong at 500 to 800 yards, THEN maybe start trying to stretch it like the rest of you crazies, haha.

I will be getting into 'rolling my own' for this rifle as well, typically what kind of recipe are shooters having the greatest success with for this caliber (and rifle).

cheers!

 

[duncansuds]

You will be able to stabilize plenty of bullets with 1:12, you will need to find what your gun likes best, each and everyone are different. Depending on budget, I have a few suggestions to try in your rifle, as I owned the same one, before heavily upgrading it. Try Sellier&Bellot 147gr FMJ, did quite well in mine, Federal GMM, Hornady "z-max" (just the 168 Amax with a green tip for added douche-baggary) these are the factory loads that shot decently, again, in my rifle..... handloads are the way to go when your ready, bed the stock and its not too bad...... but honestly, I would do some search functions on here and find the info your looking for, this question or type of question is added frequently to the forums and has a lot of good information to offer in past posts. You might want to look up sniper 101 on youtube and also the magpul precision rifle video as they also have great info. Good luck

 

[Stevebot-7]

In b4 Mystic Precision.

Well there's no shortage of information floating around, I've still got pretty much everything left to learn myself.

http://www.riflebarrels.com/articles/bullets_ballastics/bullet_imbalance_twist.htm
Here's an interesting article talking about barrel twist rate.

All I can say is start small and control the variables. If you're testing a new load, it is not an opportune time to be shooting out to an extra hundred meters. Change one thing at a time, that will let you figure out exactly what's happening.
Start close, develop a load, then start to reach out.

 

[saennor]

Thanks guys!