Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada 308 winchester

Just curious, is the 308 popular in Canada?

It has replaced the 303 Brit for the rifle used by the Canadian Rangers or home guard. Im certain it has a large commercial following as well.

A few years ago a fellow I know went to newfoundland to hunt moose. He said every resident he talked to used a 308.

.308 is still very popular.

I reckon 308win and 30-06 are about as popular or common as it gets with a good deal of 303 and the 30-30 trailing behind.

You bet. The 308 Winchester is a rimless copy of the 303 British. The 308 will never attain the success of its parent, but it works.

thumbcocker;
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope Christmas was a good one and this last Sunday of the year finds you and those who matter well.

It's likely a bit of a regional thing, but when I wander through the ammunition section of say a Canadian Tire that's not really into firearms but does sell a wee bit of ammunition, in south central BC there will always be the following

- .22 rimfire - usually a few varieties.
- 20 gauge and 12 gauge - again usually a smattering of bird shot types
- .243 Winchester - a few choices
- .270 Winchester - a few more choices
-.30-30 Winchester - usually only a single type/weight
- .308 Winchester - usually as many choices as the .270
- .30-06 Spfld. - again as many choices as the .308 and .270

The store may also have .303 British, but less and less out here and not many choices if one does find it. As well there might or might not be a box of 7mm Rem Mag or .300 Win Mag.

Again this isn't a sporting goods store or gun shop, just a chain store that's handling some ammunition.

That's more or less what I've seen in the past 20 years out here. We have a few gun/sporting goods shops in the south valley here, but not half the number there used to be and since Wholesale Sports and Grouse River closed in Kelowna, there's no large stores closer than 2½ hours or so for us here.

Anyways, that's the view from the south Okanagan more or less as I recall seeing it.

All the best to you in 2021.

Dwayne

Thank you! You too.

I suspect that I'm not the only one who chuckled at this. Thank you sir!

Guy

It’s pretty common knowledge outside of one or two Canadian backwaters that the 308’s parent is the 30-06, not the 303.

But I’m guessing you knew that...

If you want to know which cartridges really are popular, then this is where you look.


Okie John

Well, that's what some people think, but spies took the design and sold some drawings to the Germans and the US.

The 303 scared the Germans and PP created the Mauser.

The US Army tried the 303, but called it the 30-40. Then they saw those Mauser cartridges, used 308 bullets and came up with the 30-03. A lot of people think it's called the 30-03 because it was designed in 1903, but actually, it was named after the 303.

The Brits just stuck with the 303 because the round was already perfected. The rest of the world just kept trying new designs, totally dazed and confused.

In the 1960s, a song was written about that. Stairway to Heaven.

Very popular. With good bullets it will do just about anything. A good friend of mine even stopped a wounded grizzly at about 10 feet some years back with one. Another trapper friend who lived down on the Stikine swore by the 308 and 200 grain slugs.

.300 winmag is all the fetish where i am it seems. But the .308 remains all you would ever need i reckon. That or the .30-06. Other than as a "stopping gun" for bear safety.

Lol, great analogy!

Seems the answer is yes. Here's some more Canadians the ".308" is popular with:

New rifles for Canadian forces snipers

Very popular in this household...except somewhere along the line one of my offspring and one of his offspring continually spout the merits of the .270 Winchester. We are not related as far as I know to "St. Jack" so who knows where this heresy came from!

Happy New Year to all

Paul

I really like the 308 Win cartridge - I shoot one in a Rem M600 and a Savage 26 " HB Varmit rifle - My fav bullet is a 150 gr in it !

I'd guess the .308 is the most popular cartridge over .22 caliber with Canadian hunters and shooters. Followed by the .30-06, .270, .243, 7mm Rem. magnum, .300 Win, .303, .30-30, et al. - or a lineup very very similar and in that approximate order. The .223 and 7.62x39 have a large and growing following among "shooters" but not necessarily hunters, varmints excepted.

My buddy dropped a brown bear with a .308 and a 125BT. I wouldn't worry too much

You left out the Russkies.

Well, that's an interesting sidebar to history. The 7.62x54r was made to be shot from the Mosin Nagant rifle. The Russians came up with the cartridge in 1891. It was inspired by the 303 British. The British had designed the 303 British a few years earlier, in the 1880s. The country was ruled at the time by Queen Victoria.

The queen's granddaughter was Alexandra, the future Tsarina of Russia. While Alexandra didn't marry the Tsar until 1894, one of the wedding gifts was outfitting the Russian Empire's army with the new cartridge.

It is important to point out that the same cartridge was used to execute the Tsar and his family, along with many of the tsar's supporters. I had a prof who argued that the 7.62x54r was one of the tools that helped to curtail inbreeding and reduce the number of royals in Europe.

Ah, history! It is fascinating, is it not, tovaritsch?

Lol, an explanation so tortured “must” be true!

The truth is stranger than fiction.



It's no coincidence that the 308 Winchester and the 303 British have the same case volume - 56 grains of water.

It's no coincidence that when you blow out the case walls and increase the shoulder to 20 degrees (308 Win) from 16 degrees (303 British), the case length is reduced from 2.21inches to 2.015 inches. The 308 Winchester is merely what designers call an improved 303 British case.

It's no coincidence that the Winchester design crew looked to the 303 British for inspiration. At the time, the 303 Britishwas one of the most used (and copied) military and sporting designs in the world.

It's no coincidence that the name 'Winchester' is of British origin.

In brief, the 308 Winchester is a knock off of the 303 British.

Man, you should write conspiracy theories for Qanon.

There is a lot of misinformation out there.

Scotsman William "Hagg" Leever designed what would become the first magazine fed rifle (that worked) in the 1850s. Leever, and his best friend, Johnny Tubb, inventor of the tubular magazine, worked together in their workshop in Edinburgh, Scotland. Leever did not know his design had crossed the ocean. It became known as the lever (sic) rifle after an eastern US newspaper misspelled Hagg Leever's name.

Boxer priming was designed by a Brit, Eddie Boxer, but was adopted by the US. American Hiram Berdan came up with the Berdan priming system which was a big hit in Europe. It just goes to show you how much the Euros wanna be like the US.

Smokeless powder isn't powder, and it's not smokeless, but they called it that.

Single shot rifles can be fired more than once.

Shotguns are only shot guns after you load it and pull the trigger.

Our guide in newfoundland used a .308 with factory 150's. Whatever was cheapest.
Said only the local kids used magnums.