[twoblink]

I'm just wondering if you are hunting (be it urban pests, or wild game) when will 308 not be enough and I will have to move up higher?

[Art Eatman]

A fair number of TFL folks spoke of using the .308 on elk. I think I'd be picky about my shots on a moose, although the old .30-40 Krag accounted for a goodly number of those--albeit with the 220-grain bullet.

For US hunting, I'd venture the .308 would do for all but the Alaskan bigbears.

Art

[ojibweindian]

I'm pretty sure the .308 can't kill my smelly ole running shoes! :D

[Joe Demko]

I expect it might be a tad low on penetration for use on diplodoci, ceratopsians, or stegasauri.

[JeFF D]

Anything from small game to Moose though I'd want something a little bigger for moose but it will get the job done like anything else with good shot placement.

[twoblink]

Even a good Nosler partition won't kill your shoes? Are you sure?? :D

Yeah, had people telling about needs for such things like 375H&H, and it makes me wonder what they are hunting...

[seeker_two]

...the idea that the .223 is a battle-rifle cartridge...

[ojibweindian]

i'm pretty sure as they are an evil-smelling pair of pavement pounders!

In all seriousness, from what I've heard, read, and have personally shot (not much), the .308 should do fine for anything short of big, dangerous creatures.

I suppose you would want to move up if going after big bears.

[Preacherman]

.308's and other cartridges in this class (7x57 & 8x57 Mauser, .303 British, .30-'06, etc.) have taken innumerable elephant, rhino, buffalo, etc. in Africa. (As a matter of fact, there are two documented cases of elephant being killed with a .22 LR!!! No, I'm not joking!) Poachers in Africa often use the AK-47's 7.62x39 cartridge, killing anything and everything with it, but they typically fire full-auto.

The big thing is, these cartridges simply don't have enough "punch" to turn or stop a charge from something determined to convert you into fertilizer for the African landscape. Given a clean shot at a vital part, with the animal unaware of your presence, they'll take anything, anytime, with no problems. However, if there is a chance that the animal will become aware of you (before or after the shot) and want to discuss the matter at rather closer quarters, they won't prevent it from getting to you and turning you into something that would gag a gargoyle (to quote C.R. Sam!). They also lack sufficient energy and momentum to penetrate full-length through a major critter, if that's the only shot you have available.

The heavier rifles were designed to deliver enough "punch" to put the animal down in a dangerous situation - and even they don't always work... There's a picture on the wall of a training station in Skukuza, the headquarters of the Kruger National Park in South Africa. It shows a twenty-foot circle of red mud. On one side of the mud is a pair of boots, with a shin-bone sticking up out of the left boot. On the other side of the mud is a hat, upside-down, with neck vertebrae sticking up from it. The mud in the middle is the rest of the hunter... He whacked a buffalo with three rounds of heavy-caliber rifle fire, and fatally wounded it: but the buffalo had enough energy and hatred left in it to reach him and render him into mush for the ants. In another well-documented case, a buffalo absorbed ten solid hits from a .460 Weatherby - over 70,000 foot-pounds of energy, accurately placed - on the run, before finally stopping and expiring. Impressive, no?

Never trust ANY rifle caliber to do the job 100% of the time - it's the shooter, bullet placement and performance, and the mood of the animal that count!

[Kaylee]

anything it misses. :)

[Marshall]

A .308 will kill anything! The question is, at what yardage will it kill anything with a high degree of probability?

[Redlg155]

I agree with Preacherman..

You can shoot and kill anything on this planet with a .308. Just when it will expire isn't a sure thing.

I've seen videos of hunters, actually one of the Real Tree videos, of a guy taking a brown bear with a bow. You can bet those guys stayed well hidden and had some serious backup in case the bear found out who poked him with a sharp stick!


.308 works great on all two legged critters. Both fat and skinny. Just don't expect anything to work 100 percent on four legged critters.

Good SHooting
RED

[GhostShooter]

...the idea that the .223 is a battle-rifle cartridge...

http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/roflmao.gif

http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/2M16.gif

[4v50 Gary]

What our Holy Father Preacherman and Kaylee says.

[Rebeldon]

It doesn't kill germs. :D

It should be able to kill any beast in NA, but shot placement is obviously more important the larger the animal is. It doesn't make much sense to risk wounding an elk or moose with the .308 Win. if a .30-06 Springfield or .300 Win. Mag is available.

[twoblink]

Preacherman,

My friend's got a small range by his house in TX, and he's got a 30-30 in the truck; he says that a 30-30 will drop a bull, but not a charging one... So probably is true with calibers that are big also..

My friend's Wild Bore on the fire place, he said, 2 shots of 8mm in the side (a good front shoulder shot, then a good heart shot) and you'd think that would drop the beast, but it didn't, and so there's a tear whole on the scalp of the boar.. He said he was all fumbly as the boar charged full steam and almost reached him before he got the 3rd shot off..

So I suspect not being detected and shot placement being the two key points..

Or moving to a 4 gauge slug shotgun.. :D

[Uncle Ethan]

It won't be enough if you get between Chucky Schumer and a Television camera.:p

[Tamara]

Undead ninja grizzlies.

[modifiedbrowning]

Grisly dead un-Ninjas?:D

[Nightcrawler]

I don't know about undead grizzlies, but I know from personal experience that .308 (out of a 21" FAL) works quite well on your typical carniverous, reanimated nonliving person (zombie), (with headshots, primarily, of course. Body shots will work, but the spine or other major bone structures must be broken in order to immobilize; the undead aren't phased by hydrostatic shock). It also works quite well on various large, toothy, man-eating mutants, including 500+ pound bipedal frog things.

So, again, undead grizzlies not withstanding, it works very well on undead persons.

(Don't ask...)

the idea that .223 is a battle rifle cartridge

BWAHAHAHAHAHAA!! :evil:

[voilsb]

it might not take care of a pack of bigfoots quickly enough. especially if they're on elephants.

might not work too great on the undead, depending what kind they are.

[MLH]

A tank!:uhoh: :D

[podwich]

The mall ninja, of course. "Taking multiple hits to the back from a .308..."

:D

[Brian Williams]

Tatertots?


No, it was hottentots.

[Lone Star]

twoblink-

I think you mean a Boar, not a Bore. But I have met Full Bores at parties.

I like what the late "Karamojo" Bell said when chided about his use of what were, for Africa, smallbore calibers. He said he knew that some hunters were "big bores" and others were "small bores", then added that, "I hope I'm not a bore at all."

Lone Star;)

[Ron L]

The mall ninja, of course. "Taking multiple hits to the back from a .308..."

Podwich, you took the words out of my mouth. :) Of course, the ballistic plate duct-taped onto his back helps. :rolleyes:

[Pointman]

What won't a 308 kill?

Bad legislation....

[Art Eatman]

Arrgghhh! Pointman, you took the words right out of my mouth!!!

That's unsanitary.

Art

[cracked butt]

I've been told by many people that it won't kill anything larger than a whitetail but in fact that you need one of those magic magnums to kill moose or elk. It must because the .308 won't penetrate the plate armor that these beasts wear but a magically endowed magnum will go right through the armor.:what: :eek:

[Freedom in theSkies]

The Killer Rabbit...:p

You'd need the Holy Hand Grenade for that.
Preacherman: What do you think?

[Skunkabilly]

Humpback whales :D

[Gordon]

I love the .308 but it gets pretty crowed in the case with a 200 grain bullet in a short action, also 2200-2400fps is .35 remington country.

[Preacherman]

The Killer Rabbit... :p

You'd need the Holy Hand Grenade for that.
Preacherman: What do you think?I dunno, Freedom - never have encountered one of those... does the smoke smell like incense when it goes off? :D

Just to illustrate that "stopping power" can sometimes be on the animal's side... We had an hilarious incident in South Africa in the mid-1980's. A patrol was moving along the South African border with Mozambique, through the Kruger National Park. They were in three "Buffel" APC's: this is an open-topped, V-hull, mine-protected vehicle based on a Unimog-type chassis. Very effective against even anti-tank landmine blasts: even with a full-house TM-46 going off beneath it, the guys inside will typically suffer no more than a headache.

Anyway, the corporal driving the lead vehicle made the grievous mistake of driving between Mommy Elephant and Baby Elephant. Mommy didn't like this one little bit, and called up a couple of her girlfriends to help her express her displeasure. The three of them literally dismantled the Buffel, armor-plate by armor-plate! What an anti-tank landmine couldn't do, three angry elephants did with surpassing ease... The guys inside were OK - they legged it out of the back as soon as the elephants approached, and allegedly broke several Olympic records in sprinting back about 150 yards to the next vehicle. They unfortunately left their rifles, etc. in the Buffel (R4's - a South African variant of the Israeli Galil in 5.56mm.), and these were reduced to scrap along with the vehicle. (Not that it would have helped them much to try using them... a 5.56mm. is pretty useless against even a whitetail in its military ball FMJ configuration, so against an elephant, it would only have made them angrier than they already were!)

The funniest part was the reported reaction of the lieutenant in charge of the patrol. He was reported to have said ruefully, whilst surveying the wreckage of the Buffel after the elephants had departed, "Now how on Earth do I explain this to the quartermaster?" :D

[Gordon]

Flesh dismantantling amor plate? Well I believe it only because the Preacherman said so!:scrutiny:

[twoblink]

If a 308 is shot in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it still make a nice big hole?? :p

The 308 seems like a well optimized round.

Art, is there any "hunting" loads and tips you can think of (or anybody else) that I can't get in a 308 but can in a 30-06??

[Art Eatman]

Most receivers of rifles for .30-'06 are long enough that you can seat the bullets pretty far out. This lets you get more push for 180-grains on up to 220, compared to the .308.

Years back, I read that factory loads for the .308 ran 53,000 psi, but for the '06, 47,000 to 49,000. On account of all the older rifles in '06. So, loading a modern-made '06 to 53,000 gives a couple of hundred ft/sec more punch, throughout the spectrum of bullet weights.

The Federal High Energy loads in a 26" barrel give 3,150 ft/sec to a 165-grain, according to a guy in Australia who's chronographed them. This agrees with what Mr. Federal sez on the box.

I've always joked that my Wby with its 26" barrel is a "cheater". That is, guys with 22" .308s can't get the MV I do with my handloads, and a .300 WinMag with a 24" isn't that far ahead of me.

About every ten years or so, somebody writing for the American Rifleman does the proverbial test of chopping one inch at a time off a barrel. Sometimes, two or three different cartridges for the testing. Off and on since 1940, then, I've read that for cartridges like the .308, it's around 50 ft/sec/inch. For the '06, around 75 ft/sec/inch. For 7mmMag or .300 WinMag, around 100 ft/sec/inch.

SFAIK, the "why" has to do with relative case efficiency. The '06 is at the edge of "overbore", and the maggies are moreso.

The .308 was among the first to be computer-aided in its design. It works pretty good in a 22" tube. That's why you see me recommend it over the '06 for those not wanting a 24" or 26" barrel for their rifle. A short '06 is gonna have more muzzle flash and the longer action = more weight, but no more MV than the .308.

And now you know as much as I do. :)

Art

PS: I've always liked the doggerel I once saw in a Cooper Column:

"Ain't many things a feller can't fix,
With a few hundred dollars and a thutty-ought-six."

[duck hunt]

A .308 will surely not kill those huge prehistoric elephant things from The Two Towers.

[twoblink]

duck hunt, I'm not sure I agree with that;
Placement is everything... ;)

The case efficiency is a lot better in 308 from my understanding; it shoots quite flat, and for regular rounds, pack about as much wham as a '06.

As far as chopping barrels, what surprised me the most was actually something like the .357Mag out of a 16" barrel vs. a 2" snubbie; totally different beast.

I do think the '06 is more versatile, but for logistics and price, I don't think the 308 is beatable..

I'm wondering as I have two rifles in 308; an M1A and a Mauser; if the action effects the velocity that much as some of the gas is used to cycle the round??

[Jim K]

Why do I suspect that folks who think a .308 is enough for an elephant have never seen an elephant? I am reliably informed that they are easy to kill with even a .22CB cap as long as the shooters is in his armchair and thousands of miles from the nearest wild elephant.

Jim

[Art Eatman]

Aw, Jim, it's the "amplifier" effect of armchairs. Bullets go faster, aim is better, IQ goes up...All that stuff and much more...

twoblink, I'd imagine that with a gas port out by the muzzle, the loss in gas pressure against the bullet is hardly enough to measure. In a Garand, my understanding is that the pressure at the port has already fallen to 2,000 psi. The percentage loss would be a function of the square of the bore diameter vs. the square of the gas-port diameter.

Art

[twoblink]

I think however, while the gas-port leak probably isn't anything to measure of significance, the bolt slam might be what off's your aim.

Jim, Elephants? Isn't that what a 4-gauge shotgun SLUG was designed for???

Yeah, I know, people go "blah blah blah hunt elephant blah blah blah .22LR blah blah blah" I'm a fan of a .22LR, one of the best rounds in the world, but unless you are talking 1000 rounds rapid fire, I don't think I want to wait 4 weeks for the elephant to "bleed out".

An elephant's heart is bigger then my head, it has more blood in the heart then two of me, I know that!! So a .22LR hole just isn't going to cut it...

[Preacherman]

Peter Capstick wrote of two verified elephant killings with a .22LR in East Africa. I met a guy who lived there at the time, and he confirmed that they had, indeed, happened. In both cases, the shooter was at VERY close range, and waited until the elephant moved its leg forward, exposing the (relatively) thin skin behind the leg. The shot was fired into that area, where the main arteries and veins lead from/to the heart into the lung and chest area. The bullets perforated these blood vessels, causing death by blood loss after some time (and distance!). Still, not something I'd want to try... having been "up close and personal" with elephants on many occasions (although I've never hunted them - never wanted to!), I don't want to anger one of them any more than I have to!

BTW, since coming to live in the USA, I'm realizing more and more how incredibly fortunate and blessed I was to grow up and live in South Africa, where hunting is freely available if one has friends with farms, and where encounters with all the animals American hunters dream about are only a relatively short drive away. I've taken (for food) buffalo, eland, kudu, most of the smaller antelope, etc., and never paid a cent for safari fees. When I look at what Americans are charged to hunt in Africa, my eyes widen considerably! Just goes to show that if you know the right people...

Perhaps I should get on to my farming friends in South Africa and have them investigate the possibilities for providing lower-cost hunts for African antelope for interested Americans. They could charge a quarter of the professional safari outfits' fees, and still make a pretty decent profit. Of course, they wouldn't offer 5-star accommodation, etc., but who needs that?

[tex_n_cal]

Hmmm...

A .308 won't kill the owner of a .50 BMG, when the latter is just within its effective range:D

[Gordon]

Roger that one!;)

[duckfoot]

can't kill a M1A2 tank driver

[MJRW]

I would believe that an elephant could dismantle armor no matter who said it. I mean...its an elephant. Its freaking huge. Like very very very very very large.

And if it can't be killed by a .308, I don't want to take shots at it.

[45R]

a High Point :neener:

[Glamdring]

Well back in the good old days many people used 6.5mm carbines to survive with in Alaska (see "The Wilderness of Denali" by Charles Sheldon), Alaska/Canada ("Writings on Ice" by Vilhjalmur Stefansson) and Central Asia ("Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central Asiatic Expiditions" by Charles Gallenkamp). There are plenty of others that used military cartridges of the day to take most everything that walked.

Sheldon fed himself and also sled dogs during the winter using a 6.5mm carbine in darkest alaska. At one point he notes "that for five dogs the meat of an average sheep provided only two meals."

IMHO the 7.62NATO/308 Win--along with all similar power cartridges like 7x57, 270, '06, etc-is enough gun for hunting anything short of Elephant, buffalo, or Brown Bear/polar bear as long as you use a good bullet (partition, Failsafe, Barnes X).


In the end I think it is more important not to use too much gun for yourself than using enough gun for target. Better to use a "little gun" with a tough bullet that your not afraid of, than a "big gun".

[WonderNine]

What won't a 308 kill?

Hmm....legions of the undead?

Nothing else comes to mind....

[Skunkabilly]

Skunks and killer whales.

[Andrew Wyatt]

I've seen a PH with an FAL kill three or four elephants.


it was up close, and they seemed to go down pretty immediately.

It was on a video that was shown in high school on south africa.

[Correia]

Sorry Skunkbilly, I know from first hand knowledge that skunks are not .308 proof. Sorry to let you down. :)

[Uncle Ethan]

That sounds like an admission of murder!! I bet nobody got close enough to check the damage.

[Skunkabilly]

Depends what type of skunk.

The ones you see on the side of the road are Skunk Drones. They scurry about looking for food for the colony.

The Skunk Warriors are the ones that are tougher and take multiple .308 hits. Their sole purpose is to combat other lower forms of life such as possum, raccoons, bunnies, and owls. You don't see them often.

The Skunk Elite have never been detected by human. They move tactically among the shadows and are virtually undetectable even to other animals. Their only trace is their smell. They move around urban areas collecting carbon fiber material to build the ultimate weapon.

Beware, once the ultimate weapon is assembled, skunks will rule the earth again.

Watch out, we wiped out the dinosaurs. Guard your carbon fiber.

[firestar]

It can't kill the Devil, as we all know, only God can kill the Devil.:D
Remember El Diablo?

[Uncle Ethan]

Well, that explains the horrible skunk smell outside when my dog barks, but we never see anything. There must be some SEAL [Skunk Elite Awsomely Lethal] Skunks around here after my carbon fibre fishing poles.:D :cool:

[twoblink]

If you use a steel tip on a 308, and shoot someone at close range and maybe get a shoulder shot, will it just go cleanly through with a small hole?

[Uncle Ethan]

No- the exit wound will be much larger with tissue damage.