I've mainly been looking into good bullets for hunting, but I was wondering what bullets you guys tend to go with for .308" plinking or target shooting. I hear a lot of the Sierra Match King bullets and may look at getting those. Ideally, bulk and cheap is the name of the game.
Preferred 30 caliber target plinking bullets
- Thread starter cheier
- Start date
Sierras are not cheap and your bullet choice might depend on what you call plinking. Are you thinking 100 yards or 500 yards? What are you going to be using as targets?
For cheap 150 or 147 grain rounds you might be able to find pulled military surplus. Of the readily available commercial reloading components in my area, I prefer Hornady Interlock BTSP for shooting out to 200.
For cheap 150 or 147 grain rounds you might be able to find pulled military surplus. Of the readily available commercial reloading components in my area, I prefer Hornady Interlock BTSP for shooting out to 200.
In my experience the Hornady FMJBT 150 gr are one of the most accurate non-hunting, non-match .308 bullets available. I have bought large quantities of them in bulk from Ammomart in the past. Perhaps they or other vendors still have them.
My range has a 100/200m bay, so most of my rifle shooting may be at these distances. In rare instances, I may be shooting beyond. I believe at least once a week I may have access to a 900m range, but most of my shooting would be 100 to 200m. I would probably be putting some more thought into my bullet choices for the 900m shooting, but for the shorter, I'd just like something I can have some fun with for cheap. I did notice that Henry has some of those Hornady 150g FMJBT bullets in stock for about $0.26 per bullet. I may look at loading these into some milsurp brass.
How fast are you pushing those cast loads? I was considering cast as well, but I don't want to deal with leading issues at higher velocities, though I'm guessing that the gas check might limit that effect. I was mainly planning on shooting cast for most of my handgun loads and some legacy rifle loads like 38-55 and 45-70.
Mystic Precision
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Summerland, BC
+2 for the Hrn 30cal 150gr FMJBT. Quality is very good for the price.
Have some instock and about as cheap as you can get for a 30cal bullet these days
Jerry
Have some instock and about as cheap as you can get for a 30cal bullet these days
Jerry
Plain base cast bullets are limited to around 1300-1700fps before they start stripping. With a gas check they can get up to 2000-2400fps with a good bore. If you find some cast from extra hard alloy with high velocity lube they can reach 3000fps but I've read they are very picky at those speeds.
My Rem 700 .308 is shooting about 1.5" @ 100yds with 160gr gas checked cast bullets sized to .311" and around 1900-2000fps (I've pushed them faster but the accuracy goes down). None of my surplus rifles with rougher bores can shoot cast accurately past about 1600fps even when oversized.
For fun plinking or shooting crap at the camp on the off season I generally use cast bullets. For semi-accurate plinking I use Hornady 150gr FMJBT as mentioned above. For accurate shooting I tend to use Hornady 168gr BTHP because they are a lot cheaper than the Sierra Match Kings and I'm not good enough to notice a difference.
