I joined this site to give back a little on my load development work with the .358 Win. I looked here for advice when I started and found helpful information. I am a Montana resident elk hunter and thought the 200 gr. Barnes TTSX would be my bullet. Midway had the hard to find bullets and I found Hornady brass at a couple of online sources. Powder selection was my reason for online load searching. TAC and Xterminator seemed to be popular.
I already had 748 and 2015 and LVR. I also have a .338 Federal and found LVR to be my best choice using 210 Nosler and TSX bullets. It worked fine on elk and whitetail deer for me and two Kodiak Sitka black tails. Incidentally My second choice in powder for the .338 Federal was Accurate 2015.
Back to the .358 Win, I also picked up some 200 gr. Hornady FTX bullets. Mostly I used these less expensive bullets to work up the powder charge rather than the dollar a bullet TTSXs. I used CCI 250 magnum primers exclusively. So, the powders used were TAC, Xterminator, 748, LVR and 2015. In the end I found 46.1 gr. Of 2015 to be the best in this rifle with the 200 gr. Barnes bullets. TAC and Xterminator were close seconds.
The rifle is built on a Ruger American that started as a .308 Win. I rebarreled it with a 22.5” 12” twist custom barrel. Velocity is just over 2700 fps with 2015 and accuracy is sub MOA consistently.
I found 748 and LVR to be too slow burning to be able to get enough in the case to match velocities of the other quicker burning powders I tried.
I’ll report back after hunting season, about a month away now.
