Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .308 plinker handloads?

Bought a pre 64 winchester 88 in .308. Nice shape , but some idiot lopped the stock off and screwed on a recoil pad. About 13.5 lop. My son is 11 and his cousin is 10. I have 80 100 gr half jackets and some 110 gr. .30 carbine bullets. Anyone have a down loaded .308 load that is good for them to practice with? I mostly have imr powder, or alliant at handgun speeds. Thanks

10 grains of Unique under those plinkers is a lot of fun and soup can accurate. He'll love em. Those different bullet weights might shoot to different spots.

IMR 4198 is another option. I used 20-25 grains if memory serves, based on advice from Seafire here on the forum.

Have 8 lbs of unique. Safe enough?

Trail Boss is your friend. 10 to 14 gr. the 14 gr.load shoots great in my 308.

4759 works well too, if you can find it. It's been discontinued in favor of TB, which is maybe better in some ways, but not others I think.

Trail boss works well, my subsonic load is 11 grains with 170 partitions

It's worked for me too in other rounds.

gnoahhh will be along soon to complain about the price.🤑

Look at ANY cast bullet manual... more info than you'll ever need...

+1 on Unique, I use it in my .35 Whelen for plinking loads. 10 grains sounds about right in the .308 with the 100 & 110 gr. bullets. I have some .30-06 rounds loaded with 10 gr. of Unique and 150 ge. cast bullets. Unique cast bullet loads in my Whelen are very accurate.

10 grains Unique with the bullets you've listed is a safe load. My hunch is for best accuracy with Unique and those bullets, you'll have to work up to 12 grains or so, specially for the lighter bullets. I'm a dedicated plinker and shoot hundreds of reduced .308 rounds every summer.

(Seafire is a great source of info on reduced loads in a variety of chamberings.)

12-15 grains of Trail Boss with 85-86gr .308 handgun bullets makes a great plinker load.

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/17664

5.7 grains of trailboss with XTP bullet is super tame and subsonic in my 308s. Of course start much higher and work down.