Specialized 308 loads

[Broom_jm]

A good friend of mine gave me 80 pieces of PRVI 308 Winchester brass. I full-length resized it, trimmed to length, chamfered and deburred the case mouths and then used a counter-sink bit to cut away the primer crimp.

I used WLR primers, charged the cases with ~30.5 grains of H4895, and seated 125gr Hornady soft-points to 2.560". I got these at a great price from Andrew, at Profire Arms. They are less than half the price of the 155 grain A-Max bullets my son has been shooting, so far. The gun is a Savage Model 10 FLP. At 100 yards, these bullets group about 1" left and 2" low of the A-Max rounds.

There were two reasons for this round. The idea was to find a lower-recoil plinking load and one that could also be used for deer hunting at modest ranges. (Outside of Indiana, of course.) The accuracy of these loads is more than sufficient for both needs and the recoil is mild enough that you could shoot it all day long. It's about like a 243 Winchester, in more ways than one.

We'll use the A-Max loads when we really want to test the rifle and our shooting skills. For fun shooting and as a backup gun for out-of-state hunts, these mild little rounds should be just fine.

 

[Skip]

You are a good dad, Jason. I hope he realizes it now rather than later!

 

[Leo]

For a close distance plinker (100 yards or less) I have used the little 110 gr .30 carbine bullets. They would be fine in a bolt actionand even a kid could handle the recoil. Like you, I found the 125 grain bullets were a good weight. My favorite for accuracy was the Speer 125 gr TNT bullet. I really liked the gentle recoil on the 200 yard offhand target. I used a lot more powder that you report, but I needed the gas pressure for functioning the M1a.

 

[Broom_jm]

Well, I don't know if I'm a good dad, enjoy a challenging reloading project, or like the idea of something economical and practical, but I guess it might be a combination of these things. It helps that this Savage rifle will group just about anything you feed it into an inch and a half at one hundred yards...with ammo it REALLY likes going into groups one third of that size.

For those who don't know, you can take any advertised load of H4895, multiply the MAX load by 60%, and come up with a reduced recoil product. This is especially useful with light-for-caliber bullets. The max charge of H4895, under a 125gr SP bullet, is ~50 grains. Multiply this by .6 and you get a reduced charge starting point of 30 grains. We tried 30, 30.5 and 31 grains. By a small margin, 30.5 was best, so we called that good. It's not like we were hoping for high velocity or half-MOA groups, so this wasn't something to obsess over.

This load will mostly be used for ringing steel, exploded milk jugs and practicing from various positions. If/when the need ever arises, I'm sure it will work quite well for a small-framed or young shooter to use on whitetails out to ~150 yards. If Indiana ever "fixes" their deer rifle regs, it could be used to good effect, here. Until then, we'll take it on trips to MI and AL, as a back-up rifle.

 

[william]

Have you ever tried to load sub sonic 308 rounds? I need to figure out some for my dad. I guess our famlies work opposite...son reloading for dad here

 

[djones]

Thank you for sharing. I might have to try some of these out!

 

[Dave Doehrman]

A good friend of mine gave me 80 pieces of PRVI 308 Winchester brass. I full-length resized it, trimmed to length, chamfered and deburred the case mouths and then used a counter-sink bit to cut away the primer crimp.

Just curious, but did you encounter crimped primer pockets on the PRVI brass, or just do it as a routine reloading procedure. I have used PRVI brass exclusively for the past 3 years, reloading thousands of cases, and never encountered crimped primers.

It could be that PRIVI makes .308 rounds for some military use and they crimp those, but I haven't seen this. I buy the 168gr HPBT Match ammo and shoot it through my gas guns and then reload the brass for my bench rifles. I have reloaded some of these cases 11 times and they are still in great shape; no loose primer pockets or splits in the case necks. I toss about 1 out of every 100 cases when I get a little too much lube on the shoulders and put a ding in the shoulder area.

 

[Broom_jm]

The primer pockets may not have been crimped, per se, but they are tight and had very straight walls, with no rounding or beveling. So, I gave 'em some bevel.

The primers seated very tight and the brass was difficult to FL resize, which is why I am saying it's a pretty hard brass...something I would expect of military cases.