Loading for the 308 Winchester

Bill Gabbard

Some folks are always looking for the newest and fastest round on the market, while others are looking for those obsolete or nearly obsolete calibers. I find myself leaning more toward the latter but have a hard time passing up an old classic. One of those classic rounds - the 308 Winchester- seems to be enjoying a resurgence in popularity. A few years ago, I had given my Grandson Waylon my Kimber 308 and haven’t done a lot of loading for the 308 since. My wife filled that empty slot in my gun cabinet last year at Christmas with a Bergara B14 Hunter and put me back in the reloading room working with the 308.

While testing for this article, as usual I called on my friends that own 308 chambered rifles. We put nine (9) bolt rifles through their paces as well as an AR style rifle, a DPMS AR 10T. We used bolt action rifles from a variety of manufacturers including Bergara, Kimber, Remington, Ruger, Savage, and Tikka. This gave me a good spread from a super lightweight mountain rifle to a heavy bench gun and covered the price range from high to low as well.

Barnes Bullets

The 5 ½ pound Kimber Montana with its pencil thin 22-inch barrel preferred 130 grain bullets and had to cool after 3 shots but still managed to group Barnes 130 gr TTSX bullets into a 0.566 inch group. This combination has proven quite effective on Whitetails. The Bergara B14 and the Tikka T3 both joined the half-inch club using the Barnes 165 TSX

Berger Bullets

Geoff Esterline of Capstone Precision was kind enough to provide me with a nice selection of .308 caliber bullets to try and the results were quite impressive. The best groups of the test came with a Remington 40X that had a slow twist barrel and loved the Berger 115 Flat Base Target bullets. The Remington 700 MILSPEC 5R had a field day with the Berger 175 Open Tip Match and the 185 Open Tip Match Juggernaut bullets putting 4 different loads under one-inch. The Bergara went under the one-half inch mark with the 155.5 Full Bore Target bullets and under the one-inch mark with the 185 Classic Hunters. Five different bullets and one trip to the range for each bullet produced groups under an inch for all of them.

Hornady Bullets

Seth Swerczek of Hornady came through again with a nice variety of Hornady bullets for the test and the results were outstanding as we have come to expect from them. We used rifles ranging from the heavy barrel bolt action model to AR style rifles that produced groups under one-half inch. Dustin Cooper’s DPMS AR-10T turned in a group of 0.438 inch - pretty amazing for an AR style rifle. Tylers Price’s Rem 700 shot a 0.241 inch group with the old standard 150 gr SP bullet. The Bergara really likes one of my favorite bullets for Whitetail, the SST.

Nosler Bullets

Several years ago, good friend Tommy Floyd brought his Remington 700 ADL Synthetic in 308 to the loading room wanting me to help him work up a load that he could take Elk hunting with confidence. A good stiff load of Hodgdon Powder’s BL- C (2) pushing Nosler’s 165 gr AccuBond shot near quarter inch groups and gave Tommy the confidence he needed to take a 900 pound Bull Elk with one shot, not to mention the fourteen deer and two coyote he has taken with the same load since then. Nosler’s Zach Waterman sent us additional bullets to use on this project and their accuracy should give anyone confidence.

Speer Bullets

David Gabbard Jr, a serious competitor in our local Lollipop Matches, had been telling me about the accuracy he was getting from Speer’s new 172 gr Impact which is their entry into the polymer tipped bullet game. The old Turkey Slayer, J.J. Reich from Vista Outdoor. sent me a few of their 172 and 190 Impact bullets to try for this article. J.J and David were on the money on these bullets. Tyler Price tried five loads through his Remington 700 using the 172 grainers and four of them shot under an inch. I tried four loads using the 190 gr Impact bullets through Dustin Cooper’s Savage Model 10 FCP-SR and two of them came in under an inch. These bullets show lots of promise!
 

I had such a wide variety of 308 bullets to try that most of these loads bullets got a one-time chance to shine, and they really did quite well. I loaded either four or five sets of loads to shoot a three-shot group. Three of the rifles used were heavy barrel models and one was an AR style rifle, but the rest were standard weight hunting rifles in bone stock configuration. Every bullet that was tested turned in good results with at least one of the tested powders. VihtaVuori’s N140 and N 150 powder were strong with most bullets and Alliant’s Reloder 15 performed well with a variety of bullet weights. Hodgdon’s Varget, and BL-C(2) do well with most bullets and the new StaBall Match is fast becoming a favorite. The result shown here pretty well proves that if you will take the time to try different powder and bullet combinations you can find a load for your 308 to fit nearly any purpose. Whether you are going after targets, varmints, Whitetail Deer, or Elk, the 308 Winchester is indeed a classic that can be loaded to fit your needs!