Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 308 Winchester reduced load for deer

Can anyone recomend a lighter bullet to use for deer hunting? Standard 150's are a bit heavy for my nephew. He's been shooting 125's with good results. These are Speer TNT HP made for varmits. My thought is to use a 125-130 soft point. Does anyone make a bullet in this weight that is suitable for deer? Thanks

Barnes TSX in a 130 ought to do okay. Might have to handload for it, though.

Sierra makes a 125 grain flat base in their Pro-Hunter series. My late father used to kill deer with a similar 135 grain single shot pistol bullet Sierra used to make shot out of a 30 Herrett Contender.

BTW, how fast were those 150 grain loads your nephew tried? The 308 is a very tractable cartridge and can be quite accurate even when you back out of the throttle. You could easily load it down to mild 300 Savage levels and still have a good deer killer for reasonable shots.

If that's still too much, here's a link:
http://www.hodgdon.com/data/youth/308win_y.php


mathman

If he doesn't shoot much you might just try a box of reduced recoil loads from remmington.

The 150's were factory Federal loads. The 125's that I loaded were a reduced load from the Speer book, probably around 2100 fps. My original thought was to develope a reduced 150 load for him to shoot. But, I'm afraid that the bullet might not expand well at the reduced velocity. By going with a lighter 125-130 bullet, I could keep the velocity high enough to expand properly while hopefully keeping recoil in reason. Thanks for thoughts, Tim

If you want to stick with a 150.. try a 150 30/30 bullet. It won't be so pointy but should open up well at the velocities your using.

The 30-30 bullets is a good idea...BTDT. And if you really want to lighten it up, Sierra makes a 125gr Flat Nose Hollow Point 30-30 bullet that should work very well at 2200fps or so, and the recoil should be very managable. Good luck with your young hunter!

I've shot some Federal factory 150s loaded with Speer Grand Slams and they seemed pretty crisp. I also ran some Remmy green box 150s over the chrono and they put up about 2800 fps from a 20" barrel. So Hodgdon's youth data with a 125 should go a long way toward taking the edge off in comparison. Even if you go with a 150 at 2500 or so it'll be a marked reduction yet still expand at moderate range. Let us know how things come out.

mathman

I would either try the 30-30 type bullets and IMR 4759, or the Sierra 125 gr flatbase. Hornady also makes a 130 gr spitzer.
Nosler makes a nice 125 gr Ballistic Tip that my son took his first deer with. I load the 125 Sierra with enough 4064 or 4895 to get 2900 fps.
whelennut

I agree, try the 150 FP for the 30/30. You can go as low as 60% of the max load of H4895 for a given bullet weight.

SOS

Hornady has the 130 grain SSP (single shot pistol) bullet which should perform well at reduced velocity.

+1

I'm pretty sure the old man killed a deer or two with the Hornady SSP out of his 30 Herrett too.

what whelennut said,

or for in the woods load it down to 2700-2750

Hodgdon has loads ready to go;

http://www.hodgdon.com/data/youth/308win_y.php

Also, they have their aforementioned "60% rule" for H4895, which goes something like "if Hodgdon lists an H4895 load for a particular cartridge and bullet weight, you can reduce the charge weight all the way down to 60% of the max charge weight for a reduced load". Go here for the gospel;

http://www.hodgdon.com/data/youth/index.php

So, if you go to http://data.hodgdon.com and look for H4895 loads for a 150 grain bullet, you get a maximum load of 45.5 grains of H4895 for a 150 grain Nosler BT loaded to a COL of 2.80". That's the same load they printed in their 2004 Annual Manual, you might want to pick up this year's manual just to be safe. An NBT might be a good choice for this kind of work; if its only loafing along at 2400-2500 fps, it ought to give textbook performance.

I haven't done this yet, but on some board I read that folks don't always get decent performance as loads get down to the 60% level. So you might have to do more experimentation to get acceptable accuracy. I'd also call Hodgdon to find out what primer they'd recommend for these light loads, dunno if its better to go hotter or cooler.

A Nosler Bt 125 gr at 2400 fps would work great.

I know my father started my brother and I on reduced .308 Win. loads. He used 47 gr. of 4831 and a 125 gr. BT. I have moved onto bigger and "better" things, like my .30-06 and 6ppc, but my brother still kills deer with that load and it performs perfectly with very little recoil.
selmer

I have always had luck with Hornady bullets. So, I think I will try their 130 grain SP. Starting with a reduced load and working my up. Thanks for all your input.

Simp, I also highly recommend that you simply go to the Hodgdon website and use the Youth/Reduced loads there. They are lab-tested and verified. It's always best to start on known ground. You can work up slowly from those if you need to, but most folks find they are happy with the loads exactly as printed.

Thanks for the tip. The load that he has been shooting came from the Speer book number 12. IMR 4198 at 28 grains with a 125 bullet. I was looking for something a little more powerful until he is ready for some "normal" 150 loads. Looks like I'm off to the gunshop for some H4895. Thanks again.

I've killed a ton of deer over the years with the 30.06 using the Hornady 130gr SP in front of 52grs of IMR4064. My 17yr old son has also used this load to take quite a few. Recoil isn't that bad to me and he seems to handle it well also and he's not a big boy. He started shooting it at the age of 12 and still does. Having said all that, i just recently ordered some Barnes 130gr TSX to try and they should be here today. The Hornady has never failed me i'm just sort of bored with them and wanted to try something different. Mike