Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Where does .308 Winchester excel?

Where does the .308 excel? Perhaps a better question would be where doesn't it excel? Just about every application I can think of......Hunting rifles, tactical rifles, benchrest rifles, military sniper roles, etc the .308 has been at or near the top of the heap at one point or another.

No matter how many different cartridges I've played with, I keep coming back to the .308 as it just makes so much sense. This little 700 weighs 7# with a 3-9 Zeiss conquest, stacks 150g Hornadys into neat little groups, is a dream to carry, ample horsepower for anything Im likely to hunt and does it all with mild recoil. I imagine this one will be with me until the end.








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What do you kill with those big rifles?

Any pics?

I find the 308 to be to Militaristic..

I do like it more than the 30-30 ..

Hahaha Hahaha

I needs a .308 now after reading this I don't believe I have one. I have a couple 30-06 as in a Garand and a Browning 1895.

Yep

The majority of people can't use their rifles to the full potential.

It's like cars, if you never drive faster than 55 mph, why get the fastest car you can? You don't gonna use that advantage anyway. I love my 308. Killed a handful of elk with it, many deer and antelope too. It does just fine out to 500 yards and if I wanna shoot farther I'll use a fancier flatter shooting rifle. I guarantee my 308 is cheaper to shoot than the majority of deer rifles out there as well.

To me at 308 does 90 plus percent of what a 30- 06 does with much less recoil.

Depends on the felt recoil of the rifle.

I never was much of a .308 fan because I had a Savage 99 in 308 that would kick the snot out of you. It was brutal due to stock design. Not too bad for a shot or two afeild, but you didn't want to sit down at the bench and shoot a box of shells through it.

Fast forward to me getting an AR10 in .308... Not bad recoil at all. It was quite the boomer though, so I added sound mitigation equipment to it. Tamed the noise right down.

Shot 150's for decades until I switched to 165 accubonds.They are sledgehammers and work on everything.

Can't disagree with that I guess I should have added with stocks of same design..

I've only ever owned one 99 and it's a .243.

I consider .243 to be a very appropriate chambering for a 99. The 250-3000 got the 99 a lot of attention and the .243 is in the same category. Once upon a time I wanted a 99 in .358 until I shot one that belonged to a friend. I'd guess that it would be a good hunting tool. But it wasn't a good range toy. It'd blur your vision shooting it off the bench.

I have my grandad's Sav99 in .243. Not really a kicker at all. I killed many deer with that rifle as a kid. Sure glad to have it!

I heard that the boat paddle 77s in .308 were brutal w the factory " pad ". With 150s I thought it no big deal and im not in the best of shape neck and shoulder wise.

Bench w a T shirt.

I have an old lightweight 77 in .308 with the wood stock...with factory recoil "pad", it was a bit rough but not intolerable.

I have a boat paddle in 300WM that's a barrel of fun from the bench lol.

308 excels in the eastern woods, in broken woods. Ranges from 50 max in the woods to 300 on the edges.

I have one in an AR10, a little heavier than the AR15 but the ability to run AP makes it interesting.

I think it most depends on who's doing the shooting. Guys act like .308 bounces off of fawns over 25 yards.

Does it make sense to buy a new rifle in .308 Win at the moment? I think it does if that is the best chambering for your uses in a firearm you want/need.

All five of the rifles I have owned in .308 were obtained in .308 for that reason. A Savage 99E (traded off to buy my first .30-06 M77Ruger), a model 88 Winchester (originally my dads-now my youngest grandsons), two Ruger GSR's, a blued 16.5" synthetic (a friend wanted it badly and bought it off me) an SS 18.7" laminated-now synthetic and a match barreled M1A I bought three months ago.

I bought the first GSR after I gave away dad's M88. I like having a carbine in that chambering and the GSR really works well as a utility rifle. Good for whatever up to elk. Out to 250 yards or so it has adequate power in my experience even in the short barrels.

The cartridge is common. It is generally less expensive than more flat shooting cartridges. I generally find it easy to load for if you don't chase velocity. Compared to my '06s ammo is lighter. Both of my current .308's are set up to use a suppressor. Ammunition for suppressed use is available. Several rifles in the chambering are lighter than those in a long action (if a few ounces is a biggy). As to recoil and perceived recoil, the 99E kicked as much as any .30-06 I ever owned including my Montana.

What a .308 Win isn't : It isn't a .30-06. The famous "factory load comparisons" aside, my three chronogrphs have always shown the .30-06 to be about 150 fps faster, especially with bullets 165 grain and higher.
I have found it sufficient for the tasks I used it for originally and still do.

That's all I used for the longest time. The critters down here were designed to be dispatched by the 308.