Sitting in the Joberg airport now. Just finished a plains game hunt in Namibia using a .308 camp rifle, a Sako using Sako 180 grain ammo. No drama, worked just fine on kudu, wildebeest, gemsbok, waterbuck and the smaller stuff. And I’m pretty sure an animal doesn’t know the difference between a bullet moving 2600fps and 2750 fps. IT’S BULLET PLACEMENT!
Do you know the particular type of Sako 180-grain ammo? The reason for the question is I hunted moose in Finland with Sako in 2015, and the rifle they had me (and other gun writers) use was a .308 with 180-grain Hammerhead bullets, which are bonded-cores. They regarded the combination as plenty for moose....
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
Don’t know the type, just saw the box said 180 grain. I’m not one who gets his drawers in a knot sweating the minutia. If a PH finds an ammo or rifle does the job, I’m good with it.
Enjoy your .308 in Africa, I've never been yet. But there used to be the old guy who wrote articles about killing all sorts of plains game with 130 partitions from a .270, so a 165 partition from a .30 caliber should be even better. Have a great trip.
My notion about the .308 is that it handily surpasses original .30/06 ballistics, and logically is at least as good for whatever you care to turn it to. Factor in the better bullets we have now, and there you have it…
The only place it falls short is its inability to use the old 220s that were once so popular, and monos seem like a pretty good substitute there.
Intersting. I once did a test comparing a .308 load and a 30-06 load using rifles with 22" Barrels. The .308 a model 70 Youth Ranger restocked with a Ramline so it would fit me and the 06 in a Remington M700 BDL. Amo was what I had one hand, Winchester brand with 180 gr. bullets for both cartridges. Shot were run over the chronograph and it was surprising that the .308 was on average 20 to 30 FPS faster than the 06. I ran the test several time with the same results. I've always wanted to try several other brands of ammo the same way and the different weights as well just to see if all the other brand run the same. I also ran a few 30-06 through rifles with 24 and 26" barrels and the only one that came close to advertised velocity was the 26" Ruger #1B. My favorite load for the .308 is the Speer 165 gr. Hot Core over 49.0 gr. of W760. The reason is my favorite .308 is a Ruger M77 RSI Stutzen with 18.5" barrel and is the only load I've found to give usable hunting accuracy. A bit slow at 2550 FPS but has take big Mule Deer as far out as 259 Yards. The same load is very accurate in the model 70 Youth Ranger so I just stick with it. PJ
Our forefathers did not politely protest the British.They did not vote them out of office, nor did they impeach the king,march on the capitol or ask permission for their rights. ----------------They just shot them. MOLON LABE
