Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A 308 Carbine

I have seven rifles in .308 Win. Barrel lengths run for 23" to 18" Still have to put the 23" gun in a usable stock.
'The 18" gun is like the 23" gun, a custom with my ideas. It's in a Lawson thumbhole stock and my guess weight is maybe 6 pounds loaded, slung and scoped. Three are Ruger M77 tangers I go into cheap over the years because their original owners couldn't make the shoot usable groups. They have 18.5" barrels Then there is the Remington ^^) with 20" barrel that was the first experience with the .308 and loud noise. Last but not least is aWinchester M70 Youth Ranger I won in a raffle at a gun show. It has a 22" barrel. All these rifle shoot quite well with the 160 gr. Speer Hot core and a max load of W760. Kills deer nice and dead too.
PJ

I've been using 18.5" 308s, 7mm08s, 30-30s, 223s, etc., for decades. They don't bother me all that much! Certainly not enough to want longer barrels on them.

A) Rem 700
B) 20-22”
C) No comment.

Bonus) I own and hunt with a 7mm-08 but I’d choose a 6.5 CM over it if I thought I’d go down that road.


So far in my lifetime I could have shot everything comfortably with two 20” guns, a 223 and 308.
S.

TAG

I would be very tempted to buy one of the stainless 18"ish Ruger Scouts. I don't own one, but have one here to sight in. Very handy little rifle. I personally like the 308 Winchester chambering in this set up. I prefer the conventional scope placement also.
Bullet wise, I am considering Barnes 150-175 grain. This may take some experimenting. Normally, I like the 20-22" barrels on bolt rifles. But this Scout seems fine. Of course the short flash suppressor adds an appearance of a slightly longer barrel.

The scout rifle set up is certainly "not for everyone" but i do like it. I practice position shooting with that rifle the most. I can keep my shoots on a paper plate at 300 yards with that set up.So it is accurate. When at the range with that rifle ,I have had the more then a couple people ask about that rifle. A few have even shot it! The rifle is a nice balance of power, weight and accuracy.

My favorite.308 is a Tikka T3x compact with a 3.5x10 scope, it has a 20” barrel, the compact has a shorter stock but comes with a bunch of spacers to change length of pull.

As a kid I had a 20" 99A in .308. It was a good rifle, very handy. Personally I wouldn't go shorter. I don't like muzzle blast.

I have a Savage 99 in .308 and a custom one in 450 Bushmaster both with 16" barrels and for thick brush hunting and quick shots at hogs out of a truck window, they work perfect for me. I have ear plugs and scope blast has never bothered me. I also used to have Ruger Scouts in .308 and 450 BM with 16" barrels but not as handy as the Savage 99's, especially for fast follow-up shots

Closest I have is a Mauser M12 Extreme Impact 308 Win. It has a 20" barrel and I would want nothing shorter.

My single shot rifles could be considered carbine length and run from 250 Savage to 450/400 NE. I hunt deer with all of them. I'll stick with the classics my Pre 64 70's in 7MM a true carbine and a FWT 358. If I were to desire a carbine length rifle of the 308 persuasion it would be a 20 inch Mannlicher stocked 358.

Agree on the 358 Win carbine. My pre-64.

This Ruger 77 MKII RLS 308 is my "if you could only keep one" rifle. It's a factory 18.5" barrel. I'm no great hunter but I've killed moose and deer with it as well as the occasional partridge and snowshoe hare. No critter that I've pointed it at has complained about a lack of velocity. I set it up with a Leupold shorty VXIII 1.75-6X and it will hold pretty close to an inch from a bench at 100 with good factory loads or its preferred hand load.

Mike, that's about as perfect of a set-up as a 308 win could be. A rugged open sighted carbine with a perfectly matched, low-power compact scope.

Shaman,
When I read the article you describe the rifle that immediately comes to my mind is a Steyr Scout rifle. 19” fluted barrel threaded 1/2-20 (weird I know, but Steyr USA has a 1/2x20 to 5/8-24 adapter for sale on their website. So with the adapter on let’s call it an even 20” barrel. I screwed a Silencerco single port muzzle brake onto the adapter. I am not looking for the brake to do much, it is the shortest way to have a quick attach / detach system for my Silencerco Omega 300 suppressor.

Since we are at the muzzle, lets talk features from there toward the back. The 19” cold hammer forged barrel is a testament to modern manufacturing techniques. It is flawless. There is a built-in bipod in the forend of the stock, it is not Atlas strong but quite handy when the need arises.

Pretty much the entire top of the rifle has a picatinny rail for scout scope work or a single slot on either side of the ejection port for a traditional mounted scope. I have tried three different options so far. Burris scout scope on qd rings mounted out front. It was decent, but did nothing well and i found it difficult to use first and last 30 minutes of the day. I then purchased a Nightforce NX8 and set it on top of ring bases in their traditional spots. My friend laughed so hard at the absurdity of it I never completed the install and returned the scope. It looked like an elephant riding a tricycle, way too much scope for the rifle.
I then went uber small and lightweight. SWFA 2.5-10x32mm with bdc reticle mounted LOW. Like so low you couldn’t slide a piece of paper under the front bell. Not a good thing as I could see half the suppressor in the scope at low power. I couldn’t see [bleep] at the top powers either due to tunnel effect and poor light gathering ability. Off it went and sold next week.

Settled on a Swarovski Z5 3.5-18x44mm scope at ~16oz so it really balances the rifle well. Now let’s talk bout the action/bolt. Super smooth, the three position tag mounted rotary safety is genius. On full lock you can press the bolt handle down against the stock and it creates a great slim rifle with few snag points. Rotating the safety pops the bolt handle out.

Rifle has a 5 round magazine along with a place for a second one to be stored in the butstock! There is also storage inside the grip cap on the stock, I keep any necessary allen wrenches, a 1/2” box wrench for removing scope if needed to utilize the built in flush when stowed pop-up iron sights.

I removed two of the three 1/4” spacers (can’t remember, maybe i pulled them all) on the stock butt and added the Steyr soft rubber recoil pad. This kept the length of pull short and added some cushion with the recoil pad vs. the hard factory one.

Finally, the trigger. Smooth and crisp, no fiddling needed. Mine was at 3lbs right out of the box. My 308 loads all seem to be where you wanted to downgrade yours to for some reason. Federal GMM 175 sierra matchkings go 2625 out of this rifle and my Tikka 20” CTR. 1980s batch of Winchester 150 grain silvertips were SLOW at around 2450 fps but they were easily sub-moa so they got the callup for hunting. Didn’t get a chance to connect with anything late last season but it will be my goto rifle this coming year. I plan to load up some Nosler 168 grain Accubond long range rounds for it. The barrel has shown me that it will shoot damn near anything under 1” unless you really screw something up.

I

I’ve found that a light and handy rifle doesn’t have to wear a stubby barrel. I have four under 7lbs, and the shortest barrel among them is the 21” on my Fieldcraft. They’re handy because they’re light enough to be carried by the grip with one hand when needed, but they still balance well. O’Connor wrote that his idea of a mountain rifle also worked well in the woods, and those were 8-pounders, not the 7lb ones more common today.

Nothing wrong with a little navel gazing, but in my case it often ends expensively.

I have a Ruger GSR in .308 Winchester. It is stainless steel and I changed to the synthetic stock to reduce weight. I replaced the sight rail with an XS system rail which allow conventional scope mounting and keeps a peep rear sight available.

The barrel is 18.7". It easily exceeds 2700 fps with 150 grain loads but could easily be loaded to reduced velocities. I would recommend this as an approach to your needs.

I owned aa 20 in barrel 99E Savage in .308 Win for about ten years. It, too would work well. So would the .300 Savage I had before that. I actually prefer the Savage performance level in a lighter rifle too.

These days, the only Savage I own is a 20 inch 1917 era TD in .250-3000. While youdidn't mention this chambering it will do a good job on most deer and has very light recoil.

My history of .308 carbines-
Rem M600 Mohawk, 18" barrel in a Numrich walnut stock.
Winchester M70 lightweight carbine-20" barrel, shot lots of deer with it, mediocre accuracy. Traded it away.
Ruger American stainless youth carbine, 18" barrel, fitted with a standard length stock. Great shooter.
Thompson Center youth carbine, just about perfect 20" barrel. Stock fitted with TC-supplied "adult" length spacer.
Remington M700 stainless synthetic DBM cut down to a 20" tube. My current woods rifle, put together as a "tree stand rifle".

Honorable mention, a .30-06 Winchester M670 carbine with a 20" barrel, a Stevens 325 in .30-30 with a 21" barrel.

For most woods hunting, I think a .308 carbine is about perfect. Good up close, but can still reach out some if needed. Usable for for bear in overlapping seasons with the right bullets.

My 42" barrel works just fine, in the woods or wide open spaces. Dang thing only weighs a few ounces over 7#.

I can't see anything good about having a high capacity magazine hanging out the bottom of any rifle used for hunting game. Maybe for shooting hogs or for culling operations, but not for hunting game.

I own several 308s with barrels shorter than 22" and find that while the muzzle blast may be a little bothersome when shooting on the range, it isn't noticeable when I'm afield. One of my favorite still-hunting rifles is a 308 in a Winchester 100 rifle that has had the barrel cut back to 17". I also have a factory specs Winchester 100 carbine with a 19" barrel and can't say that the 2" difference in barrel length makes a noticeable difference in any way. Besides, velocity loss from a short barreled 308 at woods ranges is really a non-issue, since you'll easily get greater that 30-30 velocity.