.308 Gallery Load?

[radford56]

This seems a bit off topic for a precision shooting forum, but I need a good .308 Win "gallery load."

I've been pretty much restricted to shooting on a 25 yard pistol range in recent months so I've spent most of my time working on my pistol shooting. The result is that I'm pretty good with a handgun now, but my rifle shooting - particulary offhand shooting - has gone a bit downhill. Since the range recently allowed rifles, including centerfires up to 30-06 equivalent, I'd like to find a good low cost .308 practice round to use in my Steyr Scout Rifle for offhand practice at 25 yards.

It just so happens that I was given 500 110gr Ranier plated .30 carbine bullets recently. I was told that it's best to keep these below 1200 fps to avoid stripping the plating. I know some of the older Lyman books had cast bullet loads that might work, but I'm having a hard time finding any right now.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

 

[Winchester69]

The slowest loading that my old Lyman manual shows is 10.5gr of PB for 1600fps. If you can't find any PB, the next slowest is 10.0gr of Red Dot for 1623fps. Whoops! Found a slower one: 9.0gr of 700X for 1540fps.

 

[1000yardstare]

Speer manual #14 shows the 100 gr semi-jacket at 1571 with 16.0 gr SR 4759 in the .308.

Been shooting cast bullets myself at 50 metres with a .308 Ruger Target rifle, 170 gr gas checks. I only cast in the Winter. Keeps the trigger finger happy while staving off cabin fever.

 

[Laurie]

Have a look at IMR 'Trail Boss', the fast-burning super-bulky 'Cowboy Action' powder. It works really well with any lead bullet in virtually any rifle cartridge and gives consistent velocities and pressures with MVs at or under 1,000 fps in most cartridges.

I think you can regard these very soft plated bullets as nearer to cast-lead than to conventional jacketed designs in this application. I had fun with plated 200gn (Berry or Rainier, can't say which as they're packaged under the retailer's name) plated 44s in an elderly micro-groove barrel .444 Marlin. Velocities ranged from as little as 600 fps up to around 1,200 fps at which point it was a full case-load of powder despite this huge case. the good thing was that MV extreme spreads stabilised at very modest loads, I think that gave around 700, 750 fps from memory showing they were efficient.

One of the Hodgdon annual manuals has an article on using Trail Boss in 10 rifle cartridges to give lead bullets 1,000 fps loads, one of which is .308W. Sorry, can't find my copy.

Laurie,
York, England

 

[Laurie]

Hah - found the Hodgdon Annual Manual with the article I had in mind. It's the 2007 edition, but it was .30-06 not .308W it has loads for. That's the trouble with relying on memory - but what's 12mm of case-length between friends anyway?

For a 165gn cast LFP, the author quotes loads for the following 30-cal cartridges:

.30 Rem - 7.0gn 1,089 fps

.30-30WCF - 6.5gn 975 fps

.30-06 - 9.0gn 1,112 fps


170gn cast LFP

.32 Rem - 7.5gn 1,119 fps

.32-40 WCF - 8.0gn 1,122 fps

If you've not had any experience of this powder, you'll be amazed as to how much room charges of this sort of size take up in the case - that's why it's so efficient with light charge weights, as well as being designed for very uniform ignition and burn irrespective of fill-ratio or powder position.

If I were trying the powder with your bullets, I'd probably start at 5gn and work up from there.

Laurie

 

[nrar15]

I use 10.4-10.5 gr's of Trail Boss for 180 gr NR Sierra's 308 works great. Best powder I've found for subsonic loads.
Bob

 

[StevenDzupin]

I've had good results with 3 to 5 grains of any

fast pistol powder behind a Hornady 'O' Buckshot

ball.

Use only full charge fired cases for you rifle without resizing.

Prime,charge and seat the Buckshot with a block
of wood.

Put a small amount of of bullet lube or any grease
for that matter on top of the ball.

Avoid double charging.

I found these to be accurate up 25 yards.

Push a patch down the barrel every 10 rounds or so.

Good shooting,

Steve

 

[radford56]

Thanks for the answers - I'm particularly intrigued by the Trail Boss idea. I found some info on it that included a method of determining the max load, even if the cartridge you're interested in isn't in the manual. I really like the idea of having the case filled for these plinking loads.

 

[rain164845]

Be careful with reduced loads. I learned from experience with my .223 and Hodgdon Clays. I got a bullet stuck in the bore and thought that surely I ruined it hammering the bullet out of the barrel, but thankfully that sporter barrel still shoots very very well.
Joe

 

[StevenDzupin]

Here is a 3 part article you'll find interesting !

http://guns.connect.fi/gow/arcane1.html

Regards,

Steve

 

[Ksmirk]

Enjoy,

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=468230#Post468230

Looks like 9.6gr trailboss is the charge with 180's I need to find me some cast bullets and get a pound of trailboss so I can get rid of some 4 legged critters around the house. Please let us know how things work out! I have to get my shop walls up before I can get to the loading bench. Later,

Kirk

 

[Bugs]

Try about 14 grains of XMP 5744. I've used this combination for reduced loads with light bullets in a variety of rifle calibers and it works extremely well.