.308 F Class

[welldone]

What set up has been winning at matches using .308? I have .308 and was thninkng about giving it a try.

 

[280man]

Im not a F T/R shooter but I will tell you what I have seen.

Our last Nationals was won in Sacramento by a Palma shooter. I'm pretty sure he was just using his Palma gun with a bi-pod. This is becoming more popular now that some of the Palma crowd have figured out that we aren't bad people and our game is every bit as fun and challengeing as theres.

You will see a lot of Savage F T/R rifles up and down the line both factory and custom versions.

I have a couple of guys that shoot at my club that are using Remington 5R's

Some guys have went the full blown purpose built custom route using top notch actions and barrels.

The one thing thats constant is the top TR shooters choose a 308.

Develope the most accurate load you can for yours and get to a match and have fun

 

[Steve Blair]

I am an F-TR shooter and agree with the previous posters. A fairly typical configuration would be:

Remington or Savage bolt action
26-30" barrel
175-190 grain bullets
Harris or Sinclair bipod
Variable scope capable of between 20X & 50X
Tactical style stock

None of this is hard coded. As Ryanjay and 280man said, give it a try and have fun.

 

[memilanuk]

The beauty of F/TR is that its less about the arrow and more about the Indian. Thats true of any shooting sport to some degree... but especially in F/TR with the playing field leveled considerably by cartridge.

If you've got a .308, get to a match and get shooting. Decide if you even like the sport before you start worrying about what kind of gear is winning matches.

FWIW, range time shooting in adverse conditions generally nets you more points than shooting the same gear as the winners.

 

[welldone]

Thanks guys. Sounds like long barrels and long bullets may be the way to go.

 

[Laurie]

welldone,

you don't say what distances you'd likely shoot over. Shorter barrel rifles and loads that are a bit lacking for 1,000yd often perform very competitively at 300-800yd.

As Monte (Memilanuk) says get out there and shoot with what you have now. See if you like the discipline. Most of us started with factory rifles, in my case an FN SPR with 24" barrel, Harris Bi-pod and £100 ($150) Chinese scope that shot 175gn SMKs really accurately at modest MVs and I used it for everything in my first F/TR season from 200-1,000yd at club, county and national levels.

With my first experience of shooting at England's Diggle and Scotland's Blair Atholl ranges at 1,000yd in GB national F Class league rounds back in 2008, Blair in truly atrocious conditions - quartering headwinds and heavy rain squalls - getting ones, twos (ex five) and odd misses, I should have given up then and there, but learned a lot and loved it. By the end of the season, I'd worked a 190gn SMK load up that stopped the misses and moved me up from bottom of the F/TR class at this level to maybe third or fourth from bottom, and I was hooked!

I reckon I got a better grounding with a season with the FN than if I'd gone straight in and bought what I thought was the 'right rifle' in my first F/TR year. (I'd shot F Class previously with .223 Rem, .300 H&H Magnum and 6BR from the very beginning of the discipline, so wasn't a complete novice either.)

Laurie,
York, England

 

[scaxeman]

welldone,

Long barrels are good, but don't think you need to run the heavy bullets to be competitive. While there are a number of people starting to run heavies successfully, many more are still using 155's (or 155.5's) of some flavor. The light bullets are considerably easier to work up loads for than the heavies, especially for someone just getting into the game. Just get the light bullets going fast enough ( >2950 fps), and you should be at least in the ballpark, even out to 1000.

As others have mentioned, it is *far* more important to just get out there and shoot a match, than to spend eons getting the "perfect" load and equipment combination. The experience will do you more good, especially in wind reading, than any gain you may see in better equipment.

Find a match, and show up. You'll probably be amazed at how much information you can pick up, just talking to the other competitors. I personally don't have the slightest problem telling people precisely what equipment/load I'm running. If they can beat me with my own setup, more power to them!

Hope this helps,

Darrell Buell

 

[welldone]

Sounds good. The yardage is 600.