I shoot a lot of .308 ammo for deer,as the .308 is my usual go to for deer hunting. My pet load turned out to be 49.0 gr. of W-760 with the 165 gr. Speer Hot-core in Winchester brass and Winchester WLR primer. Velocity is no great shakes at 2550 FPS from my rifle's 18.5" barrel, but tell the 250 yard deer that was a bang/flop that the load was no good. FWIW, the same load delivers 2610 FPS from a 22" barrel.
The bullet on the 250 yard deer hit the front of the chest and pass trugh the deer's body stopping at the leg bone on the back leg, breaking the bone. I do believe the bullet would have gone clean through the deer had it not hit that bone. All other deer shot with that load have been complete pass throughs.
Why such a weird loading with a powder that's too slow for the round? Well, my pet rifle in .308 is a Ruger 77 RSI, the one with the Mannlicher stock. I have three of these rifles, all in .308 Win., and none of them will shoot anything else worth a damn, factory or handloads, with two exceptions. One is the 180 gr. Sierra round nose with 48.0 gr. of W-760 and the other is the Speer Nitrex factory load with 165 gr. Grand Slam bullets. Surprise, surprise. When chronographed in the RSI velocity was exactly 2550 FPS and in a Mod 70 Winchester with 22" barrel, 2610 FPS, exactly the same as my handloads. I just load up a batch of the 165 gr. Speers and forget about it.
FWIW. I've given those two loads to others who own Ruger 77 RSI rifles that wouldn't shoot, and the feed back has been great. All have reported good results with that load for decent hunting accuracy. (1.25" at 100 yards, this from a rifle that won't shoot anything else worth squat. The 180 gr. Sierra load does .75" to 1.0" depending on which RSI I shoot it in." The last load has never been chronied although I just might one of these days. My RSIs will not give good groups with any 180 gr. spitzer I've tried, nor will 150 gr. bullets shoot worth a damn.
Frankly, I've given up on 150 gr. bullets as they damage too much eating meat to suit me.
Paul B.
