What are the good powders for reloading .308?

stangri

stangri

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I've been reloading 9mm ammo for a few years and I've got Lee's hand-reloader for my bolt action .308 and I'm wondering what would be a good powder to use for that particular cartridge? I've settled on Hodgdon Titegroup for my 9mm because of the way it measures consistently but I haven't heard of this ammo mentioned anywhere where rifle reloading was concerned. The primers selection I'm looking at is either CCI #200 LR or CCI BR2 or Federal #215. That may affect your recommendation, as I gather certain powders recommend to use certain primers.

Actually if you gentlemen can save me even more time of research, can you recommend a good deer/elk hunting projectile from what's listed here: http://www.budgetshootersupply.ca/catalog/30_Caliber_308_40.cfm

Thanks in advance!
 
CCI 200's will work fine... for powders, Varget and CFE-223 are my best, I also use 748 with 150's and 760 with 165's... your best powder will depend on the weight you plan on pushing.

I would probably go with 165/168's if you want to tune a single load for everything... nothing wrong with either IB's or AB's... depends if you prefer blonds or brunettes... I have taken to shooting SST's at paper and then switching to IB's on flesh... same POI 95% of the time... always confirm POI anyway...

 
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!mr 4064 has worked well for me also. But with powder shortages you may have to look for something close to it that may or may not give better results depending on your rifle . What come to mind is Varget. 4895 either Imr or H,748 or BLC2, RL15 and a host of others . For bullets for the game you have described a 165 gr would be my choice and seeing as you won't be shooting at over 2800fps most cup & core will work. I would likely try Rem 165 gr coreloct.s 165 gr Horady or Speer flate bee or step up to some more expensive bullets such as accubonds, partitions. I have not noted a lot of difference between the primers you mention except that the magnum primers are usually recommended with the ball powders such as WW 748 & 760 or H414.They are a lot of combos the work in the 308 but my point is don't sweat it because the round is so versatile that a lot of powders work in it. I think that you could go as slow as something in the IMR 5340 range or H414. I would not go to anything faster than 3031 and that would not be on my high end.

Neil
 
i settled on Benchmark in Dads Savage 16/116 Trophy Hunter. 42gr set off by a CCIBR2 Primer in a Remington Case gave me 2735fps 5 shot average velocity with 165gr Sierra Game Kings. Drops deer dead in there tracks. Now this is getting close to max load but wasnt showing signs in my rifle.

Shoot Safe
Josh
 
I've used many powders with many bullet weights in the 308, and I recently bought 8 lbs of IMR-4064 for 308 and 223 which I employ in both bolt and semi-auto rifles.
 
As others have said, H or I 4895, Varget, benchmark, 3031 are what I use for bullets in the 150-180gr range... I've also noticed 42gr of benchmark seems to shoot very well with either the 165-168gr Hornady interlock or Amax for me...

For hunting you really can't beat the Nosler partition or Hornady Inderlock or Interbond, if you favour using a mono metal then pay close attention to the specific data for that bullet offerd by Barnes or Hornady as the charge weight for solid copper bullets is quite diffrent from lead core...

My go to all around hunting bullet for my .308 and my 30-06 is the 165gr Interlock, my missus gets a reduced load of H4895 pushing a 150gr nosler Hunting ballistic tip around 2100fps for white tail inside 100 yards (a great youth load).
 
I just purchased some IMR 4064 to try out. Varget is also popular from what I've read. Take a look at this site for more info:
http://www.6mmbr.com/308Win.html
 
Think 165 grain hunting bullets and IMR4064. The Lee Loader only neck sizes, so you can only used once fired brass that was fired out of your rifle. And sooner or later you will need to FL resize.
Do not use those silly scoops either. CC's are a unit of metric volume and have nothing to do with reloading. Plus they can vary the powder charge plus or minus a full grain. Buy a scale.
 
Just about all the powders mentioned here will work well in most .308 rifles as well as .30-06's. But, by far the most superior is weighed charges of IMR4064 or IMR4320. Note in particular that I said weighed charges and that means each powder charge individually weighed and brought to the same exact weight. It takes extra time, but the results in terms of accuracy and grouping will knock your socks off.
 
Varget for me, at this time.
I have used the following over the years, with good results.
IMR 3031
Win 748
IMR 4064
IMR 4320
BLC2
TAC

As most of the manuals say the .308 is pretty forgiving, run what you can get your mitts on.
 
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