reduced load 308W

mveniot

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
6   0   0
Location
NW Ontario
I recently purchase a Browning micro hunter in 308 Winchester, has a 20 inch barrel. I am planning to shoot deer in tight bush situations, shots about 50 yards. Also I am not a lover of heavy recoil. I got a good deal on the firearm.

Not sure what weight of bullet vs reduced load would be best for this hunting situation. Would a 180 grain bullet work better than 150 grain in heavy bush?
What recipe should I use? I have some once fired Winchester brass.
Thanks for your help.
 
Why not try Remington's "Managed Recoil" 125 gr. .308's ?

... loaded expressly for the purpose with a specifically designed bullet to give 2 x expansion and 75 % weight retention at reduced velocities out to 200 yards. The few that have tried them report no problems at all for deer at 50-75 yards.

Only downside ... generally not enough to function an auto-loader, but should work great in your micro-hunter. Recoil is reportedly less than a standard 100gr. 243 load.
 
IMR4007SSC is a good powder to start with. With the max load in 308 it is under 50,000 PSI and if I remeber correct it is 48,000.

I'm using it for 7.62 NATO rounds.
 
Gatehouse provided an interesting idea in another thread, which was to use the 130 gr TSX for reduced recoil without giving up any performance. The TSX's all have a similar depth of nose cavity within caliber regardless of bullet weight. The bullet increases or decreases in weight based on the length of the shank, while traditional jacketed bullets gain weight with longer lead cores which produce potentially larger upsets as bullet weight increases. What all this means is that the light 130 gr TSX will upset to the same size as the heavier bullets and it's higher velocity will make up for the lack of bullet mass, resulting in equal penetration. Equal penetration and an equal frontal area diameter will result in a wound cavity of similar size.

A comparison of recoil in a 7 pound .308 Winchester would look like this:

130 gr @ 2900=14.45 ft/lbs
150 gr @ 2700=15.49 ft/lbs
165 gr @ 2600=16.56 ft/lbs
180 gr @ 2500=17.07 ft/lbs
200 gr @ 2400=17.97 ft/lbs

By comparison, Ben's load of a 180 gr bullet with 19.5 grs of SR-4759 ( I guessed the velocity at 2000 fps) is only 8.69 ft/lbs.
 
Boomer, can you steer me in the right direction, as so far as the formula you used to come up with recoil for a 7lb 308W? This could be a great asset to me as a first time reloader.
What is TSX? is this a bullet manufacturer?
 
Back
Top Bottom