Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Powder advice for a 308 win with 150 grain Hornady GMX

Looking for load advice for the 150 grain Hornady GMX in my 308. I got lots of Varget, RL15, IMR3031, and TAC. Anyone with any recommended loadings, please chime in. With my 150 grain SSTs, I use 3031, and get the best accuracy, but was reading the GMX bullets are longer, and 3031 might be too fast of a powder, which leaves me wondering, Please feel free to offer any other recommendations if the powders listed are bettered, as I'm not afraid to try something different, like 4895, or AR Comp. Thanks for the help! Steve

For .308 you should always start with Varget.

Agreed, I've heard a lot of nice things about CFE-223 as of late too, I would look at it if powder capacity became an issue.

Yep.

Here's another mono option. The Cutting Edge Bullet concept is sort of a mono Partition. Leaves fly off in 360* direction, increasing tissue damage and quicker kills. The core bores on thru.

May not be the best choice in thick areas where the bullet may hit brush. Otherwise, great terminal performance. Not cheap, but how many do you actually shoot at game. Practice with something cheaper.

DF

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Dmn Varget, wish you weren't such a useful powder:)

In it's weight class, hard to beat.

And S.D.'s are usually about the lowest of any powder in that burn range.

DF

Just load them atl east 50 thousandths off the lands. I tried 3 different oals and the most accurate loads were the farthest off the lands, -.100”

My experience, too.

Monos often like to jump, sometimes more than one would think.

DF

I just found out that Sportsman's Warehouse had the left hand Tikka T3X Superlite in 308 Win, and I had a VX3 2.5-8 sitting around, so I ordered it for a lightweight hunting rifle, figured a nice 150 grain mono bullet should work nice on elk and what not, so I'm gonna be cooking up loads as soon as I pick it up. Thank you for all the feedback, I'm hoping to get some pics up of the groups as soon as I get loading. I'll make sure to load them a little farther off the lands as well.

I like it for heavier bullets in .223/5.56x45 but haven't tried it in any other application so far. Sure flows thru a powder measure nicely.

Varget is a good .308 powder, but overall, with bullet weights from 150-180 grains, I've seen at least slightly better accuracy with H4895. You may give up a little velocity, but H4895 is well worth trying.

I get good accuracy with H4895 pushing 150gr TTSX in my Kimber MT .308. Haven't tried Varget.

I've had excellent results in the 308 using all of these....

Varget
IMR-4064
RL-15

Many suggest the 308 is one of the easiest calibers to find a good, accurate powder and load for.

CFE223 has been fantastic with my .308 and 150 Interlocks. Over 2900 fps from a 22-inch barrel and 1/2 moa accuracy. Just under max load.

I'd say that was right; the .308 would be on the short list of easy to load for rounds.

Some deny that certain rounds are inherently more accurate than the average, but IMO these exist, the .308 being one of them.

DF

Varget is a good powder for 150's in the 308, but with longer bullets it results in more powder compaction than I like unless I take steps to avoid it. If I had TAC on hand I'd see what I could get out of it with that long GMX.

I'd be interested in relative density of more common .308 powders, like Varget, CFE-223, RL-15, H-380, etc. Even the IMR's. 4895, 4064, 4320.

Lots of choices with that round.

DF

H4895

You bet, as to the 223/556, not to sidetrack too much, I found it to be completely compact enough to seat the long 62 gr tracers I made up for some 'adult' bottle rockets last 4th of July, I sent 90 rounds up on the mountainside at midnight, neighbor Bud called and said his kid wanted 'those' kind of bottle-rockets!