Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Competitive Shooting 600 yard .308 bullet

I had a rifle built with a 1/10 twist 20" barrel in .308 Winchester. When sighting it in I found that it shoots 1" groups at 200 yards with my 150 grain ballistic tips that weren't even put together for this rifle. I think it's a shooter!

I know 168 grain sierra matchkings are the gold standard in .308 match ammo, but if I take up F-class shooting are there better 600 yard Matchking weights out there? The 1/10 twist stabilizes subsonic 200 grainers, so I'm guessing supersonice bullets in the heavier weights would be fine-I'm just not sure if there would be a benefit to using them. Anyone have any experience shooting heavy .308 Winchester bullets at 600 yards?

175gr SMK's will spin real nice out of a 10" twist and will work better for you beyond 600. I'd also give the 155gr Lapua Scenar a try as well. That bullet was designed for Palma shooting out to 1000 yards and will easily out perform any 168gr .308 bullet. If you're getting good results with the 150gr BT, the scenar should work well out of your 10" twist...

You would know...wrong.

Try 155 SMKs and 175SMKs. I don't know a single long range shooter who has uses 168s. At least not in the last decade or so.

Cant speak for the 1-10 twist, but my 1-12 rem in 308 really likes the 155 SMKs. Very accurate out to 600 for me, havent shot them much farther than that yet. They are also a great deer bullet, even though they arent recomended for it.

Blanket statements aren't always true.

When I was shooting 600 yard matches, I shot 168 SMK's. They had me at the Master level.

I tried the 175s. They literally shot 6 to 8 inch "patterns" at 200 yards. I never bothered to try them at 600; I worried that they wouldn't stay on a six foot board.

Went back to 168s, and the rifle went right back to Master class shooting.

Each rifle is worth experimenting with a little bit.

I have some 200 grain SMKs I use for subsonic loads. Does anyone see it worth the effort to try those in a supersonic 600 yard round?

Master class doesn't say that much, and thats not a dig, but its not hard to shoot 95%? prone at 600, I thought I recalled that 188 was MA cut for 20.. and that really actually sucks. IMHO you should be cleaning the prone target at 600 almost every time you shoot it unless conditions are really bad. I could do that with a 223 service rifle.

What I'm saying is that because it works for some, doesn't mean its the best.... And it wasn't the bullet that didn't shoot well, it was the gun combo, that bullet that didn't work, has shot extremely well in some of my guns.

My answer to the bullet though for 600.. 175jlk or 185 jlk/berger. Beyond that it gets a different answer.
I keep hearing all the good about the 155 scenar too.... but have never run it.
The 168 will get beat up in the wind.

Couple of things Jeff...

The floor for Mid-Range Master in F-Class is 97%.

Remember in F-Class we aren't shooting the "Helen Keller" (I call em Braille ) targets that sling shooters fumble around with.

Did I say I scraped bottom in Master? What's top end? I wasn't a hard core competitor, and did it mainly to shoot with friends. With a little more effort and dedication, who knows.

While Master may still leave some room above it, not many guys get there. And my point was that if somebody is saying the 168 is no good, I was just showing where it could go. And for a whole lot of guys, something that can shoot at that level is more than most guys will ever be able to take advantage of.



If cleaning it at 600 is a "given", why do so many guys "fail" at such an easy task?



And what you just said is basically what I said, in reverse. I didn't fault the bullet. I knew that it was good enough to make me want to try it. What I went on to say, was that in MY situation, it wasn't a standard blanket statement improvement. Your "that because it works for some, doesn't mean its the best" is what I was attempting to say about the 175. Worth a try? Absolutely. The be-all end-all for everybody? Nope.



Heck, I literally used to shoot XTC with an issued M-16 (with zero mods) and issue M193 55 grain ball. THAT will get you beat up in the wind (and everything else)!!

I shoot 175 SMKs out of my 1in10 308. Half MOA easy for the bullet. Much harder for me . . .

BMT

Was assuming XC not lazy I need an assist F class ..... grins... could be my bad.

xtc with an M16 is impressive with ball. I know that a 69 at 600 is about 4 times worse than the M14 and 168s...

I can tell you this much though, my second classification card was MA, with a service rifle, didn't seem hard to get to at all. Same with my wife. HM was harder, especially LR HM with a service rifle.

Cleaning that 600 really never did seem hard once I figured out a few things and then it was really pretty easy most times. Was rare to shoot less than a 197-198 for sure. BUT I don't think I could have easily cleaned it with 168s... What Im' saying there, if you look at ballistics.. I may not shoot better than you, but I use better gear and better bullets so when I miss a wind call, I catch a 10... thats the point. 10 ring is half the diameter of the X ring anyway, and its a huge warning that you screwed up.

Ya need to get your butt up here next August. EVERYONE (including service and target rifle) is gonna shoot a 3X600 match..........on F-Class targets.

Hound46
Your gun shoots well at 200 the 155.5 Bergers should work well for you, but for a F class gun you will be burned by guys shooting 155gr and 30" barrels at 1000y
manitou

Yeah right..... MI isn't even warmed up for summer in August.. grins.... I'm still at a loss on F class... targets are tough, I haven't had time to shoot, and have only fair zero's on a non proven load. Bottom line, I used to shoot enough to stay to the top of the game, that will never happen again since I'm back to hunting for the rest of my days. But boy it was fun. Can see how F class would addict too... I enjoy running the range in F Class state matches here. Some are also rans but you have cream of the crop that can really drill em.

BTW.. some of the worst heat I"ve ever had, was Perry in a hot year... huts withotu AC and miserable humidity... oh hell taxidermy school in WI one year was sucky too.. same thing, hot and no AC in the house....

Oh... my... gawd...

I *so* have to remember to let that one drop in a comment where some of our more die-hard sling shooters can hear it...

The only 600 yard clean on the highpower "braille" target at our range was fired with 168 Sierra's out of an M14 by a Marine. We've had AMU and their hot rod 223 loads, USMCR Team with Watson et al, All Guard Team and Maxberry out since then and no one to my knowledge has shot clean at Puuloa.

Are the 168's the best for 600? Absolutely not. Will they do the job on the Braille target? Absolutely. Will they work on the F-Class target? Dunno. Don't play that game.

Chris I dicked around with Berger 168's this past season at 600 yards (F-TR). My best 20 round string is a 198-13X (national record last time I looked is 200-12X). I've also shot a handfull of 197's~198's, just haven't put three strings togeather...

AJ300
What bullet are you using for the longer ranges? I shot some F class matches last year at Raton and have built a 308 to shoot next season, but so far have only tried 175 Bergers. Actually I should say my son tried them. I was thinking of going heavy for the 800 plus ranges and light for the Mid range course.

I've ran 175SMK's for both Mid and Long Range.

Next year I plan on experimenting with Berger 175's. Berger has a little higher BC and I believe they make a better quality bullet. So you can either save a few bucks and buy SMK's and then have to sort them or shoot Bergers right out of the box. A friend of mine tried both and picked up some points shooting Bergers at 1000 yards. As usual, YMMV...