Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting A very basic, common, .308 rifle setup

$50 for a box of 20! ...... Time to take up reloading.

Yeah... I know... That's the going rate of their premium deer hunting ammo. I still have my box from a few years ago and only use them for deer hunting and not waste any shots.

I know Coal Rd and Big Levels. I've hunted it several times, and may again this year. Season is really short there, though. I get a Nat'l Forest permit every year thinking I'll make it there again. Getting there during the two week season isn't always easy since its a 3 hour drive for me. I usually stay overnight in Waynesboro. Mills Creek Reservoir has some nice Brookies in it.

I was actually thinking of Big Levels when I got this. A nice handy rifle for that area. Winchester Model 70 Featherweight .308.

308 is by far the easiest to reload for ill offer a hands on lesson and free time on my elite range even though your not a true Virginian

I have been enjoying a Model 7 308 stainless in a B&C stock wearing a VX-2 3-9x40. It’s simple. It’s light. It’s boringly accurate with Hornady 150’s.

Seriously? I'm being dead-on serious... I have never reloaded, have absolutely no clue how it's done. I will send you a PM (if I could find it within this new forum). If I ever got into reloading, all I would do is .308 rifle and .45 ACP handgun, and that's it.

Thanks... --Butch--

If you have a .308Winchester that won't shoot a 150 Hornady......something ain't right.

There's others. Another posted on this thread already. Although hasn't been around the other site in a long time and might use a different name over there I don't remember.

-Jake

My second centerfire was a 308 Ruger and is long gone. I picked up this Mauser M12 308 a couple of years ago cheap. A sudden opportunity came up so I found a couple of boxes of 150 gr Federal blue box. It worked.

IMO the .308 Win and 300 Sav fit in the same niche - and I have two of each
.308 Kimber Montana with 2-7X33 Vari-X II (great rifle, but more of a practical tool than the others. Gets a lot of use and I don't worry about wear and tear)
.308 Savage 99F with 1.5-5 Vari-X III (kind of finicky, less use these days)
300 Sav Remington 700 Classic with 2-7X33 VX2 (most accurate, real sweet since cutting barrel back to 22" and putting in Timney trigger)
300 Savage 99F with Williams receiver sight (new to me, goes into rotation this fall as a walking and too-sloppy-for-scope-weather rifle)

None of them are safe queens. Throw in my 30/30 99F and I think I have just enough deer rifles

That's the real deal right there. All you need.

.308s....

I only have 3 of them.....

I have two, too. Well, other than a Colt AR in 7.62. Only two .308 hunting rifles. Other than the Winchester M70 in my previous picture, I have a Browing BLR '81 Lightweight with a Leupold FXII 2.5X in Talley bases and rings. Tips the scales at a tad over 7 lbs empty. Shoots great and carries easy.

I have a Mark X 308. Wood stock wears a 3-9x40 Bushnell 4200 Elite. Pretty basic set up. I have never hunted with the rifle. It was Dads deer rifle. I sighted it in for him. Shoots 1.5 inch groups. Sort of a heavy barrel. It came to me with a cheap tasco scope and weaver bases and rings. I swapped out for the Elite and some Talley LW rings. I may hunt with it someday. For now its a good piece I remember my Dad by.

I hunted deer last year with a MRC X2 in 7mm08. Wears a Swaro AV 3-10x42. When I bought it I had the factory chop the barrel from 24 to 22. I hunt in AL out of a climber stand and it worked great. One thing I didn't like about it was it a lb and a half heavier than I was happy with.
But this proved to be beneficial in keeping it steady in the stand. I will use this setup again this year.

I also have 700 XCR 2 in 270 win , McMillan edge stock with a Timney trigger. It wears a VX3 3.5-10x40 in Talley LWs. This is my favorite rifle over all.

My old Ruger Tanger in 30-06 with a VX 3 3.5-10x40 sits in the closet. It was my first bolt gun and I hunted everything except birds with it for two decades exclusively. Its had a few scopes on it before the VX3. It had a Bushnell trophy on it for years. Which was a hevk of an upgrade from the cheap tasco it had when I acquired the whole setup for $100.
Still shoots green box Corelok 165s first two touching and the third shot an inch high and to the right.

Last year I bought a Winchester XPR in 350 legend for a hunt in Ohio I go to every year. Wears a XV3i 2.5-8x36 in Talley LWs. This is a very basic setup except it has a detachable mag instead of a trap door.

Very Nice. That one's a keeper. If they don't shoot like that, there not fun to shoot.

I started with a 06 went though a magnum period but when I retired bought my first .308 a Seekins Havak Element topped with a Z5 2.4-12x50, should fill my needs until the end of my hunting days.

I have a Savage Hog Hunter I bought for suppressor use. I was amazed how accurate it is. The SOB is fun to shoot. Wifey shoots it a lot with sun sonic loads for fun.

130 Hornady out of the ‘06 or .308 is a WT and hog killer. I like the way it blows thru a WT chest at 3K fps, quick kills. My guns shoot this bullet well.

Some say the 7-08 is the .308 with the “suck” squeezed out. I have both, don’t believe that.

DF

My only .308 is a Ruger 1B with a VXiii 1 1/2-5. It works.

I found these two photos from 10 years ago, up my older sister & B-I-L's farm in Upstate New York. They called me up saying there was an "annoying little 6 pointer" in the upper pasture all the time. 2 of my sisters prized horses would get pissed and run him off all the time, and he would come right back later that evening. (They own a 125 acre farm with 9 horses).

Anyway, I drove 10 hours from VA to Upstate NY to the farm... Free place to stay... Free use of an ATV... and 125 acres all to myself. I was in Heaven! My B-I-L called him a basic "farm deer", that was used to people, ATV's, etc... and wanted him gone. I parked the ATV out beside the upper barn about 100 yards, 125 yards from the treelined hilltop. I patiently waited, waited, it was around 4:30pm in November and dusk was approaching. I blew a single grunt from my grunt tube, and again waited and waited. Suddenly, I see the small 6 pointer coming down the treeline, looking around "Hey, who's here on my turf?" He sniffed the ground and I put my .308 rifle and Bushnell scope on him, right behind his left shoulder. To my surprise, he quartered towards me in that last microsecond, as I squeezed the trigger.

BANG! The small 6 pointer took one step and flopped over DOA right there! My B-I-L heard the shot and came up to the upper pasture, driving a backhoe! LOL... We chained the buck up to the backhoe, raised him up in the air and field dressed him right then and there. I couldn't believe it... That 165gr Ballistic Tip round blew the Aorta off the buck, passed through the other lung, and out the other side, making a huge exit hole (seen in the photo). We hung him up for the night in the lower barn, and then we drove to a processing center the next day (seen in the bottom photo).

I drove back to Virginia with two coolers full of steaks, roasts, sausage, stew, etc... Hard to believe that was 10 years ago in Upstate New York. Sadly, you can't do that now from out of state. New York State is no longer the same place I grew up in, as a kid in the 60's & 70's.