Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A 308 Carbine

My 700 Classic is happy at 44 grains. I'm getting a little more speed from the 24" barrel.

The cartridges look really racy when I sub in 155 grain VLD Bergers.

That looks like an old 788, if I am not mistaken.

I had a 6mm Rem version of one of those. Good little guns.

20" 308 660 in a Brown stock, Decelerator.

There are things I hate about it, but it's my "best" gun.
There is some blast, some flash in dim light.
It's light, handy, quick.
I shoot it in the field better than anything else I own.
Keep trying other stuff, looking for "perfect", always go back to that 308.

My favorite hunting rifle for a lot of years was a Rem 660 in 308 also. About all I ever shot in it were 165gr Hornadys. Took it to Alaska one year working and loaded it with 200gr Hornadys for bear protection where myself and a couple friends went fishing, never had to use it. All the years I used it it had a 2 3/4x Denver Redfield widefield on it. Son didn't like the scope and replaced it. That scope is now on my 30-06! love that scope! Somehow my son ended up with that rifle and I took him pig hunting this year and he borrowed my 25-06! I don't get it!

A very similar set-up:

It started life as a .243 LW version and eventually grew into a .308.

It had a pencil-thin barrel at first (both .243 and .308) but I finally realized that it was too "whippy", so I put a McGowen Precision 20" #3 profile on it, adding some weight but doing wonders where it was added--out front.

McMillan stock with 12.5 LOP, both epoxy and pillar bedded and a Timney trigger were added.

I can bump 2700 fps with 165 grain bullets, and when I haven't drank a pot of coffee, its' bench groups are great. I've shot it quite a bit out to 400 yards, but after that I wonder if bullet expansion would be what I want. I don't think I've shot a deer past 70 yards with it, though.

It's pretty much become my favorite bolt rifle for hunting deer around here.

Heres mine. Tikka T3x Lite 308 cut to 20" and threaded dropped in a tikka hunter stock with 1" cut off. great little all around rifle. Just got the can. It usually wears a muzzle brake.

I’ll bet so. Earliest of the “improved” cartridges. Just imagine if you gave it a longer neck, reduced to 6.5mm and came up with a catchy name.

I call the little 300 the original short magnum.

I’ve always enjoyed the carbine type rifles. My lust for them was fueled by Bob Milek in a “Shooting Times” article many decades ago. In the article, he took a .308 Remington Mohawk rifle and customized it to his liking. He made a bolt release, new trigger guard, sawed off the ventilated rib, and put it into a Mannlicher stock, with muzzle cap, pistol grip cap and buttplate. I carried that magazine around for many years but my finances never allowed it. I did find a very nice REM 600 in 243 and bought it from my next door neighbor. When I married my second wife,I had a heart attack 6 months into the marriage and couldn’t work for several months. I had to liquidate it and other gear to eat. Later, I found a Ruger 77 tanger RSI in 308 for $300 and it was only 2 weeks old and returned to my local gunsmith. I still have it and the 3 sons argue over who’s gonna get it when I'm gone. Also have a Winchester M70 Carbine in 30/06 that fits me well. I had another but had to sell for a down payment on my youngest son’s classical guitar. Also have owned a Remington 742 carbine in 308 that was sold after my heart attack. Did have Winchester 94 Trapper also. I just enjoy my carbines for walking around rifles and hunting from stands. Very noticeable if you touch off a round at dusk. My hearing was already bad from being a scout in ARNG and shooting every thing they had available. The barrels were 20”, 18.5”, and 16.5” all very handy. I liked the 165 grain bullets in the 06 and the 308. I primarily shot old REM Corelokts HPs in 170 in the Trapper. I used
2 x 7 Redfield on the M70 and a Burris made Browning 2 X 7 on the Ruger, and also have used Leupold 4X on them.

Dunno if it qualifies as a carbine, but Eileen's "big" rifle for the last 15 years has been a lightweight custom .308 with a 21" barrel, built by what was then named Serengeti Rifles of Kalispell, Montana, and is now Kilimanjaro Rifles. It was built on a Kimber 84 short action, and weighs 6 pounds, 9 ounces with scope.

The first time she used the rifle was on a South African plains game safari, with 150-grain Nosler E-Tips handloaded to around 2850 fps. She took several animals, the biggest this zebra, which weighed around 800 pounds. It was dead from the first shot at around 150 yards, but was stumbling downhill toward her and the PH, so she gave it another.



The last animal she took with it was this cow elk, at around 250 yards with a 130-grain Barnes TTSX handloaded to the same velocity, since her recoil headaches had increased in sensitivity. It went around 20-25 yards, obviously dead upon impact. It was the biggest cow either of us have ever taken, as large as some mature bulls.

Here's a Model 660 in 308. Apologize for the bad pic. Probably should have kept this one.

600 Mohawks didn't have the vented rib, the original 600s did.

There are actually some non-cataloged factory built Remington 600 Mohawks with Mannlicer-style stocks out there that were sold through U.S. military outlets in Europe.

That's a fine looking Zebra

Never had a .308 rifle. Did use a 6 barreled version quite a bit. I forget a lot these days, but the one trick I did with that one will never be forgotten. Big tree, maybe 125'+ tall. Cut it down with three bursts. I'm pretty sure the dink in the observation platform near the crown crapped his knickers. It's a great round, no matter what you call it.

Hunted for years, killed all kinds of stuff with a 17" barreled 30-06, RU 77 Tang that cost me $80, used/abused, and chopping off the muzzle bulge. First animal killed was a ram at @ 330 yards. Killed a caribou at @ 375 yards a couple years later. Several moose under 100..., a couple black bear. "Carbines" don't give up much.

If the 22" take-off factory standard 270 barrel I put on as a replacement doesn't work out (working on it, not too happy with its accuracy to date), the Stub is going back on. That thing predated Ruger's carbine by about 10 years. And I have confidence in it - it's just short, loud, & punchy.

Eileen liked it a lot!

She wanted a zebra on her first safari, for which she used my Ultra Light Arms .30-06, but "only" got a big kudu, gemsbok, blue wildebeest and red hartebeest. So she had to go back and get the zebra on her second safari....

In my youth I cut many barrels to 19 inches long. Why I picked 19 inches I can't remember but the 7x57, 35 Whelen and a couple of 223's never caused me any troubles. Nowadays I prefer somewhat longer barrels having several 22,24 and 26 inch barreled hunting and paper punching rifles. This because muzzle blast bothers me more than it used to.

I shoot my 16" 308 win patrol rifle alot. I like a blast directing muzzle brake that points the noise down range and it's virtually no different than a 22" barrel. The 308 is a great round. I almost bought a 7mm-08 once, actually had one ordered, but switched to 308 when purchased. Ultimately decided in favor of component availability. 308 win is everywhere

i wish i could post a pic. my brother shat a record book black bear with an H and R/ sako 308 mannlicher. aweosme balance.

Used the lefty Ruger scout 308win rifles in 16" and 18" versions from the beginning and they're a goto for me. Mine are set up with conventional magnifying optics, and presighted red dot for front rail, and NECG detach rear iron sight. Three types of sighting arrangements on one rifle.

I like that scout rifle a lot, even with shorter barrels and if your going to run a suppressor than it's even better. Reliability has been amazing with mine but I did have to polish up the action as it was rough. Still , it feeds fine and extracts perfectly. Even in cold and freezing rain it's worked perfectly whereas the Tikka T3 choked and froze solid as did my pump shotgun, and single shot firearms and even my leverguns failed badly. So that's just my experiance and I'll admit that I'm extremely biased toward the scout, and the Ruger compact series of rifles.