Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A 308 Carbine

The question I had about Francis Sell's idea of a short range deer gun got me thinking. I was digging around and found an article Finn Aagard wrote way back in the day about a sawed-off 18.5 inch 308 WIN Mauser that he liked to carry. He'd used it for everything-- including braining an elephant. He'd loaded with with ever load imaginable-- 110 grain to 220 grain. He loved it.

I saw some intersections with my own experience. His 308 WIN, shortened as it was, did its best work around 150 grains going at 2600 fps. He mentioned this was in the range of the 300 Savage. Indeed, my go-to deer rifle is a Savage 99 in .308 WIN that I download to around 2600 fps, only I have to use 165 grain bullets, because the 150s don't group well in my gun. My idea was to have a 300 Savage-like gun that shot easy-to-find brass.




These are Aagard's loads. Let's say I wanted to repeat his work. Given what we have and what we know . . .

A) What rifle do we start with? Today, it doesn't have to be an Israeli-surplus Mauser.
B) What length of barrel. He cut his to 18.5" but he would admit that caused some velocity loss? Should it be 20"?
C) Loadings. His loads, especially the H4895 load, spot on with my loads. However, I got to thinking: for a short barrel, would a faster powder work better? What powder? What Bullets would you choose?

I think I found a candidate rifle. I've held one, and I have to agree with Aagard, it's a sweet machine.



It's a Ruger Hawkeye Scout. I'd probably scope it conventionally.

Bonus question: Given Aagard's later epiphany regarding the 7mm-08, ideally, would you want this rifle in a different chambering?