View Single Post
Old February 4, 2014, 12:17 PM   #17
44 AMP
Staff
 
Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
Posts: 28,818
Quote:
In NRA matches that don't require a 308 others are winning so 308 seem to be only accurate were there is no competition.
Isn't that like saying your Chevy will only stay in its lane if there are no other cars on the road?

One other reason the .308 has such a dominant place (in numbers of users) is that it is the one cartridge that a beginner can learn on, and will carry him/her all the way up to top level competition. Until the shooter's skill reaches a point where they can actually get a useful advantage from other rounds, using one only gets the shooter more cost and usually recoil, compared to the .308.

Before the recent ammo price balloon, the .308 was also reasonably cheap.

Also today there are literally dozens of off the shelf rifles set up to essentially rival the match guns of 50 years ago. A lot of work and thought has gone into the guns, just for long range shooting.

Look at the advice, just here on the boards, when a new shooter asks about getting into long(er) range shooting, they get buried by (well meaning) advice to "get a .308". And its not bad advice.

In an imperfect analogy, but one I still thing applicable...
Race car drivers don't start out in Formula One cars. people with their learner's permit don't practice in nitro fueled rail dragsters...

Some people jump into the deep end in order to learn how to swim. While this often works, sometimes, some of those people drown.

The .308 isn't the ultimate long range round, but its the best one for people to learn on, will serve them quite well until you reach the peak levels of competition, and has a vast support structure in terms of gun and ammo research and development.
__________________
All else being equal (and it almost never is) bigger bullets tend to work better.
44 AMP is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.03524 seconds with 8 queries