Starting back in the mid 1960's when the .308 Win. was first used in NRA high power match rifle competition, I've shot many matches with the folks who made it replace the .30-06 as "the" cartridge for use through 600 yards. Proper tests with Win. 70 based match rifles epoxy bedded in wood stocks clamped in free-recoil machine rests proved its prowess in the accuracy game with shoulder fired rifles fired at bullseye targets. Its accuracy was the reason the NRA in 1966 had to reduce the scoring ring sizes of high power targets to reduce the number of unbreakable ties shot with the .308. It's accuracy was half to two-thirds what the .30-06 chambered rifles would produce with equal quality components and barrels.
The best of these rifles with Sierra's or Lapua's bullets, WCC58, WCC60 or WW cases and IMR4064 would shoot under 1/4 MOA at 200 yards and 1/3 MOA at 300, 190's and 200's under 1/2 MOA at 600 and under 3/4 MOA at 1000. That's as good as benchrest rifles shot at those ranges these days shoot if you use extreme spread of a few dozen shots fired. One test in 1971 with Lapua D46 FMJRB 185-gr. match bullets produced several 10-shot groups at 600 yards ranging from about .7 inch up to 1.5 inch; one at about .9 inch was pictured in a 1971 American Rifleman Magazine with a Lapua bullet ad. Then a 40-shot group with them was fired starting with a cold barrel shooting once every 30 seconds or so; they all went into 1.92 inches on that 600 yard target. That rifle and that ammo won all the NRA 600-yard matches at the Nationals that year.
240 and 250 grain bullets from 1:8 twist 28" barrels shot from .308 cases will also shoot under 3/4 MOA at 1000. And they buck the wind quite well too. Recoil's their only thing that starts to make them harder to shoot accurately on paper.
In 1991, when Sierra's 155-gr. Palma bullet was first used in competition, folks loaded a few thousand prototype bullets atop 45.3 grains of IMR4895 metered (not weighed) in new Win. "PALMA 92" very uniform cases primed with Fed 210M's on two Dillon 1050 progressives. 20 rounds were picked at random for a test in a pre-'64 based Palma rifle clamped in a machine rest. All 20 bullets went into 2.7 inches at 600 yards and a picture of that group was published in a fall 1991 issue of Handloader magazine. Not too shabby for 3/10ths grain spread in charge weight, .004" max bullet runout and new cases in a virtual SAAMI spec chamber except for a shorter throat for those short bullets. A couple dozen top Palma competitors from around the world shooting it that year all said it easily shot about inches or better at 600 in their rifles with all sorts of bore, groove and chamber dimensions. Sierra's Palma bullet will shoot under 3/4 MOA at 1000 from a well built rifle properly tested; same thing with Berger's Palma bullets.
With the semiauto service rifles, the Navy's 7.62 NATO converted match grade A Garands would shoot good lots of M118 match ammo into about 2/3 MOA at 300 and 1 MOA at 600 yards. With good commercial match ammo, accuracy was better. It took the Army and Marine Corps teams a bit longer to get their M14NM's producing the accuracy of the Navy's M1's, but they did it, Handloads for these rifles shot darned near as accurate as they did in bolt guns and better than M118 7.62 Match ammo. Sierra's 168 replaced the 1920's match bullet of 172 grains for arsenal match ammo, the M852. It shot great through 600 yards but starting at 800 yards in cooler weither and half worn out barrels, it went subsonic. Lake City and Sierra Bullets contrived the 175-gr. HPMK with the longer boattail like their 190 has and long range accuracy got better.
Some military teams replaced the M118 bullet with the earlier Sierra 180 HPMK bullet with the long boattail and that may well have been the most accurate load ever shot through 1000 yards in M14NM service rifles. It was the equal of the USN and USAF long range loads for Garands with a primed M118 case stuffed with IMR4320 under a Sierra 190 grain HPMK.
It was the US Army International Shooters who spawned the need for a medium weight bullet for their .308 Win. free rifles used in 300 meter matches. Western Cartridge Company's 200 and 197 grain match bullets had too much recoil to shoot really well but their WCC58 and WCC60 cases have yet to be equalled for uniformity; Lapua's come pretty close, though. They got in cahoots with Sierra and the 168-gr HP International 30 caliber bullet was the result. Gary Anderson won his share of gold medals in international matches with that bullet as well as the Nationals; his 200-15X record at standing on the 200 yard line was the one to beat for decades.
The .308's as accurate a round as any of the others these days, but it doesn't quite buck the wind as good as others. Sierra Bullets tests virtually all their 30 caliber bullets 180-gr. and lighter in .308 Win barreled rail guns. I've seen a few series of their 10-shot groups testing HPMK's in production runs when they had their plant in California. Good batches of bullets shot in the ones; target after target after target at 100 yards. At their Missoury facility, good lots shoot 1/2 inch in their indoor range of 200 yards.
amlevin, with a well built rifle whose groove diameters are a few 10-thousandths smaller than the 175 HPMK bullets, proper handloads (full length sized cases without expander balls bending their necks), you can get the above levels of accuracy with them. Providing they're properly tested.
