.308 Bullet Selections and Loads

I just got my first high powered rifle a Browning Varminter .308. I reload and am trying to find good loads for it. I have some Hornady 110 grain V-Max, Speer 100 grain plinkers, Speer 110 grain round nose, Speer 125 grain TNT hollow points, Remington 150 grain Bronze point, and Speer 180 grain Grand Slams. I have a couple of pounds of IMR 4895.
My uses will be:

paper punching (plinkers and 110 grain round noses plus any hunting load)
varminting (110 grain V-Maxes and 125 grain TNT's)
Whitetail hunting (150 grain Bronze Points)
Feral Hogs hunting (180 grain Grand Slams)

Know of any good loads that I should try with these?

Any good bullets or powder I should try?

P.S. Is the Sierra 165 grain HPBT listed in the Midway catalogue the same as their gameking that I've heard about?

[Patrick Graham]

Just about any 147 grain to 173 grain bullet in front of Varget or IMR4064 will be a tack driver in that gun.

For me, out of my Remington 308, any bullet lighter than 147 grains has been a little disappointing in the accuracy dept.

[DOCSpanky]

Ditto, I cant get any accuracy with anything below 147!

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I thought I'd seen it all, until a 22WMR spun a bunny 2 1/4 times in the air!

[beemerb]

The best load I worked up was a 150 gr hornady SPBT with 39.5 grs of H 335.Chron,d at 2800 and shot 3/4 min out of a savage 110 FP.Never had any luck with the light bullets in 308 or 30-06.Wouldn't stabilize.

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beemerb
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world;
and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men
every day who don't know anything and can't read.
-Mark Twain

[Art Eatman]

You might check your rifling twist to see if you'll have trouble with the light bullets. A 1:10 twist is the ancient standard for the 30-caliber.

1:9 will work better with heavy bullets, but accuracy with the 110-grain bullets will suffer. 1:11 goes the oppposite...

As far as your bullet selections, they're excellent. The Bronze Point is one of the few I've used which apparently has the front 1/3 "explode", but the rear 2/3 punches on through.

I haven't loaded enough .308 to have any knowledge beyond the book, but 20 grains of 2400 will do quite well on the plinkers. I just loaded up a batch of those--gotta try them.

FWIW, Art

It has a 1:12 twist so it should do fine for lighter bullets, or so I have been told. I'm not sure why Doc hasn't had better luck with them. I would guess you just haven't played with seating depth, charge, and the BOSS settings enough yet. I don't like the plinkers because they cannot be set long enough to come near the rifling. Accuracy for me has been 5 inches at 100 yards with them. The 110 grain round nose are just a couple of more dollars a hundred and they are long enough to be set near the rifling in my rifle. So I am going to load them up and try them.

Art,

Is there any filler like oatmeal needed with those light loads or is it ok to just drop that charge in as is?

[Jack Straw]

KilgorII,

My favorite whitetail load uses Sierra 165 SPBT (Gameking) with a dose of IMR 4064. I can get .75inch groups @ 100yds out of my Ruger MKII.

And the Sierra 165 HPBT is not the same thing as the Gameking bullet. The HPBT is a target bullet; the jacket is too thin for use on anything other than varmints or paper (in case you were thinking of using that bullet for deer -- which I would not advise).

Jack

Thanks Jack. I would never use a target bullet on live game. I just didn't know which was what. Thanks for clearing it up.

Kilgor

[Paul B.]

Just a comment on the Sierra 165 gr. hollow point for game, not the tarbet bullet. Very accurate, but very destructive on game. Shot a running coyote at roughly 250 yards with one. As the coyote will attest, two piece coyotes don't bring much money on the fur market. This was in the late 70's and coyote hides were bringing in prices of $100 or more at the time. Spotted him while deer hunting. The pieces were 5 feet apart. Quite messy. I have not used that bullet since. I recomment the Speer 165 gr. SPFB for deer. works real good in the .308.
Paul B.

[Art Eatman]

KilgorII: I don't bother with filler with the 20gr/2400 load. I guess I would if I were serious about group size. Probably get better uniformity of ignition if the rifle were tilted up before each shot, coming down on the target. I guess. But a rifle primer is a good bit of Oomph! for that fast a powder...

Paul B.: I used the 165-gr Sierra HPBT for a while, maybe 25 years back. From a tree stand, I was gonna shoot an old doe in the neck; about 30 yards. Just as I touched it off, she took a step; the bullet hit the bottom of the spine and took out the whole upper end of the "ulna" and a lot of shoulder blade. The gout of blood and bone was like something out of a Hollywood flick! Exit wound? Stick your head in and look around and still not get blood on your ears!

Surprisingly, she spun on her hind legs and ran almost 100 yards; two-foot wide blood trail.

Real accurate bullet, though...

FWIW, Art

[Paul B.]

Art. After that coyote, I never used it on animals again. Later that day, I actually went to a hardware store and bought two boxes of factory ammo, to finish out the season. One for sighters and one for hunting.
You are right about the accuracy though. One tight shooting bullet.
Paul B.

[McChainsaw]

I have had success with 45 to 45.5 grains of AA2520 with most 150 grain bullets in the .308 w/22" barrel. I use CCI 250 primers.

[REDMISTMD]

Ive got the same 308 browning varmiter. I shoot 48gr of varget with a 125 tnt and get 1/2 moa with it and I shoot 50.5 gr of varget with a 150 gr combined technology fail safe ive crond it at 3080 fps from a 308 thats pretty impresivei smacked a nice mulie last year at 350 yds and it pile drove him goodthe 50.5 was worked up in my gun with no pressure signs max loads are 48 so it s alittle highso be careful