Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Good .308 Loads

Hey Mathman you gotta an accuracy load with ww brass, varget, cci, and 168gr below the 46gr that you can recommend? Curious what you might have come up with at a lower charge, especially in a 20" barrel.

I haven't tried it in my 20" rifles yet, but 42.7 grains of Varget under a 168 gr. AMax in WW brass is consistently below .6 MOA for five shot groups from a 24" 5R MilSpec. That's with thrown charges and bullets seated to fit the magazine.

Call Wolfe Publications, buy the back issue of Handloader with the "most accurate 308 load", It'll tell you how to match FGMM (1/2 MOA) in a 40X.

IIRC, one of the author's constraints was selecting one powder charge to use in all the varieties of brass he tested. From what I've experienced using several different kinds of 308 brass, I believe that's a counterproductive constraint.

Matching FGMM, which I agree is really good ammo, isn't all that hard to do anyway.

Thanks I'll try that. 46gr shoots well but being a max load beats my brass up more then lesser charges in my AR during ejection against the case deflector. I seem to remember 43gr working well, I'll drop it a little more.

Thinking of trying some heavier brass just to see if they don't dent as easily as the winchesters.

Yes in PET LOADS water capacity is listed for each cartridge.

I worked up a load with TAC at 46.4 grs with Hornady 150 gr SP with CCI 200's and FC brass for my Marlin xs-7 in 308W it worked well. I started subbing other bullets of the same weight with that charge. 150 gr RP Corelokts,WW 150gr Power Pts, 150 gr Horn BTSP, and some 150 gr Remington Bronze Pt Expanding all held to acceptable accuracy for hunting loads with acceptable pressure signs. It worked in my gun, don't mean it will in yours ,start low and work up is still the best bet. Anybody use bullets coated with moly anymore in the 308? Magnum Man

I run moly in mine. Most rifles that I plan to shoot a good bit or run high speeds will get moly. I looked at my current 168gr/Varget/moly load and I am 0.3gr above the listed 46.0gr max.

MM, have you run TAC with 168s yet?

Not yet.

280 no I don't have any loading data for TAC and the 168 gr. all my sources show 168 run with Big Game and the other powders everyone else is using. A few years back I bought 4 boxes of 168 gr SMK for $5 a box that had been moly'ed off a bargain table. I need to keep them as accurate as possible at 2650 to match an M3 dial on a Leupold Mk 4 LRT so I came to this thread where many people had allready covered a lot of ground. Magnum Man

Oops, different mm.

Yeah Mathman I think you might have posted you hadn't ran TAC yet somewhere? So I did bother checking with ya

Magnum Man, Ramshots own data has TAC loads up to 190gr SMK. Just not sure if it is worth a chit for it though Seems like most folks like you stick to 150gr with it.

Anyone loading the 150gr Nosler Partition over Varget?
Data? Results?

Ruger 280 I checked my data sheets from Ramshot and they were 4.2.2 edn. Clicked into the Ramshot site the other day and updated to 4.5 edn and yeah it had the TAC data out to 190 gr bullets . Thanks for the info. magnum man

150 Nosler Ballistic Tip
Varget 45.5 grains
Federal Brass
WLR Primer


10 shots
6 shots under 1/2"

gunut308, I've worked with TAC and 150 gr bullets and RL-15 with 168's so far good results. Varget is on the list of powders to try and it looks like I better get some 150 gr B-tips too thanks. My 308 is a XS-7 Marlin that sure seems to shoot real nice.It was $279 - a $20 coupon at Cabelas 2 years ago and with tax it came to $275 and it sure shoots nice groups for a low dollar gun. It looks somewhat strange on the bench with a 10x40 Mk4 LRT Leupold on there that sells for 5x what the gun costs.Pretty is as pretty does though. Lucked out today and found a clean, little used XL-7 in 270 Win got it for 249.09 with tax. Brought it home and put the 6x Burris on it in 5 minutes. I grabbed some loads with H4350 and 150 NBT's , had it zeroed at 50yds in 3 shots. Shot 2 3 shot groups at 50 yds that could both be covered with a dime.At this rate I think I will start peddling some of my more expensive ones. Thanks again for the info. Magnum Man

Heard and read lots of good reports on Marlin. Played with an '06 at a pawn shop the other day, had a very nice trigger. Looked like the Savage accutrigger. Lots of bang for the buck.

Magnum Man, Have you tried IMR 4895? Its prob my all time favorite.

46-47 grains feeds .270 win/ 130gr and .308 win/ 150gr. I have a powder throw set for this and never touch it.

I have used IMR 4895 in the 06 for service loads in the 03 and Garand. Holy chit batman, it was like shearing Lincoln logs thru the Uniflow. These days on my high volume stuff I sure like the ball powders.Throwing TAC charges will spoil the hell out of you. magnum Man