Quote:
Originally posted by donnie
question is about premium bullets for my .308 ruger. been shooting 150gr grand slams for years with 1.5-2" groups. looking to improve on this but not real sure about bullet B.C. what bullets meet the premium/ good B.C. criteria?
i know the gun will shoot better. 110gr v-max group around .3".
looking to get this performance with hunting rounds without losing the premium bullet 'on game' i've been getting.
thanks
kingdom
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I gues it would help to know just what you're shooting at with a .308 that you need a premium bullet? Also, what big game animal needs .5" or less accuracy? Heck, even the BC changes with the velocity delivered by whatever 30 caliber round you're shooting. For more years than I care to count, I used the plain old simple Sierra 150 gr. bullet with a fairly stiff load of H-335. it was good enough to drop a 195 pound mule deer at 427 paces. The shot was witnessed by two others and we all pace it off, then took the average. No premiun bullet, just a plain old 150 gr. flat based spitzer. I wasn't too comfortable with some of the meat damage I got on closer shots, so I switched to the Speer 165 gr. Hot-core for use in the .308. Velocity is 2550 from and 18.5" barrel and 2610 from a 22" barrel. Deer at ranges from about 35 feet to 250 plus yards just lay down and die. Only one bullet has ever been recovered and it retained 65 percent of it's weight with a classic mushroom.
I've only used a premium bullet on deer one time, and it was the last time. Results were a disaster. I got the deer but I felt bullet performance left a lot to be desired. FWIW, it was the 180 gr. Nosler Partition on a 295 pound mule deer, an animal that was close to a yearling elk in size. I prefer 180 gr. bullets for the 30-06. If I'd have been using my normal 06 load using a 180 gr. Sierra, the deer probably would have dropped on the spot or did a short run before dropping. The first shot hit the top of the heart cutting a thumb sized groove in the heart muscle. The Sierra would have torn the heart apart. The muscle was not penetrated, that is, no opening was made in the heart allowing it to leak blood. The next shot was in the lungs. two more were complete misses and the last shot broke it's neck finishing this fiasco. No bullets were recovered and the wounds were all very narrow with little destruction of tissue. maybe that performace would have been OK on a bull elk or moose, but I consider it bullet failure on that deer.
I don't know what the live weight was on that deer, but with the head removed, skinned, gutted and the legs cut off at the knees, it weighed 295 pounds on a certified butcher's scale. I had to cut it in half just to get it in the truck. He was so old he had a small rack and did not go into the rut. His teeth were such that he would not have survived another winter. I just wish the bullet frim the first shot would have performed as it was reputed to do.
FWIW, my load for the .308 is 49.0 gr. of W-760 and the 165 gr. Speer Hot-core. Interstingly enough, it shoots to exactly the same point of aim as the Speer Nitrex premium ammo. Groups from both loads run right about an inch from a Winchester Mod. 70 and 1.25" from a Ruger 77 International, a rifle most fussy about what runs down it's short 18.5" barrel. But that's another story altogether as to how I found out what that thing liked to shoot.
You can use other powders to gain more velocity, but that Ruger 77 is a very fussy rifle and the laod works well enough in both guns that I stick to it for both rifles to keep things simple.
I guess my point is this, does one really need to use a premium bullet for most of their hunting needs? Are they really more accurate, or is it gun writer BS? You have to remember, they get them for free and have to say how great they are.
I don't consider myself as any great shakes as a big game hunter, going mostly after deer, but I think I've been able to learn a few things over the 55 years I have hunted them. One, get as close as I possibly can. Two, place the bullet where it will do the job, and three, be able to turn down a shot that is questionable.
Paul B.