Ramshot TAC is the short barreled 308 King

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Varget gave a respectable showing from in terms of speed and accuracy.
Remington 700 16.5 inch factory barrel.
FC brass
46.2 Varget
155 Scenar
2.835 COAL. This is heavily compressed. And the brass didn’t shoulder bump on all the cases. Spring back victim right here!
CCI 34
2690 FPS -200 FPS loss to 18.5 inch barrel with TAC. 115 FPS loss to 20 inch barrel with same load.
7.3 SD Equally as accurate as TAC.

D35E7C5F-EDCB-4172-9FA7-C93A652CB42C.jpeg DD684F02-8316-4488-B8D9-5A24D5589456.jpeg
 
Varget is one of the few powders that's hard to come by even during good times. TAC is more readily available but is not temp stable like Varget. For over all accuracy I would pick Varget over TAC. But for general over all shooting TAC wins since it easier to meter and you can normally find it. Run these these side by side in cold conditions and see if the results is the same.
 
I’m in the process of finding a more stable load for the 178s as we speak.

Next up is
43.1-43.3 of 4064
41-42.4 of VV N540

And finally AR Comp

Of the 3 I think AR Comp will get me near 2600 from the 16.5. This Remington 700 will be the last of my short barreled rifles as the Savage 18.5 above has a 24 inch barrel that will replace it.

This was a cool exercise in combustion, neck tension and burn rate.
 
That 155 Scenar would be a very flat shooting load especially coming out of a 16.5” barrel.

That bullet really gives the 308Win some more legs at distance.
 
bluejay75 said:
This Remington 700 will be the last of my short barreled rifles as the Savage 18.5 above has a 24 inch barrel that will replace it.
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That's funny... of the .308 rifles I have, besides my Savage 99 lever-action that only gets cast bullets, I have a 16" barreled M1a, and a 24" Savage model 10 TAC. They are certainly two different rifles, and favor 2 different loads.
 
So VV N540 underperformed on velocity and overperformed on accuracy. No groups over MOA (smallest .34 inches @ 42.3 grains).

4064 is a freaking workhorse. It has shot good in everything I tried it in. Velocity and accuracy was there. Within 60 FPS of TAC.
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Last one gents! I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for when I started this but I think the test itself help me narrow my scope and expectations. TAC is already showing its temp stability. A 20 degree change in weather has swung the velocity 30 FPS low yesterday and 20 FPS low this morning. So it’s average is near 2575. So finding a good temp stable load to accompany the TAC load was a must and I will keep 100 of each in the bag with the rifle and that should get me through 3-4 hunting seasons. 4064 made a great candidate but I’m settling on AR Comp. There was very little point of impact shift. Grouped right on top of the TAC group and out to 300 yards there will be little difference in POI. I did run the 180 grain SST with AR Comp. More bearing surface and a little less speed but it is a hunting bullet. No doubt the 178 ELDm will kill out to 600 yards with the frangible nature of the bullet but 300 yards and in the 180 SST should make a lot of venison with good leaking holes if I do my part.


Remington 700 16.5 inch factory barrel.
Lapua brass
40.8-42.0 gr AR Comp(Not even a hint of flash)
180 Hornady SST (Midway Seconds)
2.825 COAL
Fed 210
Best 2 loads 40.8 @2491 8 SD and 41.6 @ 2532 17.7 SD.
Accuracy and velocity on par with 4064. 4064 has a hint of orange flash on the shot. AR Comp gets the nod. This is with a 10x scope. Any better shooting than this I consider a fluke.
EC3A878E-5FDC-4AFA-8A47-ED3FEDA3EE9D.jpeg 4599D12A-6B18-4915-8F1C-B9A1BD181304.jpeg
 
bluejay75 said:
Last one gents! I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for when I started this but I think the test itself help me narrow my scope and expectations. TAC is already showing its temp stability. A 20 degree change in weather has swung the velocity 30 FPS low yesterday and 20 FPS low this morning. So it’s average is near 2575. So finding a good temp stable load to accompany the TAC load was a must and I will keep 100 of each in the bag with the rifle and that should get me through 3-4 hunting seasons. 4064 made a great candidate but I’m settling on AR Comp. There was very little point of impact shift. Grouped right on top of the TAC group and out to 300 yards there will be little difference in POI. I did run the 180 grain SST with AR Comp. More bearing surface and a little less speed but it is a hunting bullet. No doubt the 178 ELDm will kill out to 600 yards with the frangible nature of the bullet but 300 yards and in the 180 SST should make a lot of venison with good leaking holes if I do my part.


Remington 700 16.5 inch factory barrel.
Lapua brass
40.8-42.0 gr AR Comp(Not even a hint of flash)
180 Hornady SST (Midway Seconds)
2.825 COAL
Fed 210
Best 2 loads 40.8 @2491 8 SD and 41.6 @ 2532 17.7 SD.
Accuracy and velocity on par with 4064. 4064 has a hint of orange flash on the shot. AR Comp gets the nod. This is with a 10x scope. Any better shooting than this I consider a fluke.
View attachment 1026504 View attachment 1026505
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I have some ar comp for testing and a lot of x varget shooters have made the switch. My problem is I cant find it on the shelf along with any other alliant products. I hope you have better access as I think it's a winner.
 
AJC1 said:
I have some ar comp for testing and a lot of x varget shooters have made the switch. My problem is I cant find it on the shelf along with any other alliant products. I hope you have better access as I think it's a winner.
Click to expand...
Powder Valley had some last week. I had 6 x 1 pounders in my cart but I was unsure. Im going to burn up this other pound proofing this load and loading all the rest of my 180 grain SSTs.
When cleaning brass today, I realized i had a few Hornady and a few FC cases in these test shots. I need to do better about that. This is the best groups I have shot with that SST bullet across 7-8 powders. I need to stop using the Midway seconds as they are grossly out of tolerance on OAL and about half are .0005 narrow. There were so many in fact that it was hard to segregate them.
 
AR Comp has been accuracy and velocity king with 150's-175's in my 20" LR308. Great .308 powder! AA2230 actually outran it with 150's(43gr was like 2830fps,and just started showing ejector swipes), but accuracy was nothing like AR Comp. 42.0 was the most accurate at 2750fps, and runs great in my rifle and my FIL's FAL. The more I read this thread the more I'm realizing that I need to get to playing with TAC in my .308! You are seeing a little more temp sensitivity than I am with TAC, but it could be from different caliber use. Between 60°F and 85°F I only saw 7 fps avg difference with 75 grainers in .223.
 
IALoder said:
AR Comp has been accuracy and velocity king with 150's-175's in my 20" LR308. Great .308 powder! AA2230 actually outran it with 150's(43gr was like 2830fps,and just started showing ejector swipes), but accuracy was nothing like AR Comp. 42.0 was the most accurate at 2750fps, and runs great in my rifle and my FIL's FAL. The more I read this thread the more I'm realizing that I need to get to playing with TAC in my .308! You are seeing a little more temp sensitivity than I am with TAC, but it could be from different caliber use. Between 60°F and 85°F I only saw 7 fps avg difference with 75 grainers in .223.
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Temp sensitive but accuracy has held up with very little POI shifts. Not enough to matter. If there are I cant see them. In a way I feel like I wasted components as I could have just batch loaded more TAC loads and spent more time just shooting. I am revisiting two loads on here though. 43.6, 43.8 and 44 grains of Varget w/ 178 ELDm and Im going to reshoot the entire batch of N540. The 178 ELDm is a soft bullet and should perform well at slower velocities. And if the R700 16.5 is a true 400 yards and under gun Im going to see how repeatable the .3s groups with N540 are around 2400 FPS.

I have a Handi Rifle in 308 that I will most likely cut to 17 inches Radial brake it and run a 2.5x Leupold Fixed scope on for a .308(-) or 30-30(+) That a 2400 fps tack driving load will be perfect in.

But TAC is still the short barreled king. I bet Xterminator is pretty good as well!
 
bluejay75 said:
I have a Handi Rifle in 308 that I will most likely cut to 17 inches Radial brake it and run a 2.5x Leupold Fixed scope on for a .308(-) or 30-30(+) That a 2400 fps tack driving load will be perfect in.

But TAC is still the short barreled king. I bet Xterminator is pretty good as well!
Click to expand...

I feel like that load would be an absolute jackhammer on deer, especially out of a nimble little rifle!

I'm going to have to check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure I have some blaster .308 brass ready to size. I'll have to start playing with TAC and 150's. I'm pretty sure I have a lb of X-Terminator as well... May have to do a little comparison!
 
Back out on the range today. I reshot the ladder with N540 at 200 yards and decided to shoot everything from that distance and found two good nodes for the short barrel. Very consistent on the top end. Very stable point of impact.

Varget is a solid performer as usual. All groups under 2 inches.

But TAC turned out the best two groups of the day. Both loads 45.7 w/ 155 Scenar shot .851 at 200 and 43.3 w/ 178 ELDM was under an inch at 200. 178 ELDm is a very slick forgiving bullet.

Finally my shorty 358 Win with 49.1 4064 and 200 grain Accubond shot a little over 2 inches. Good numbers from a 17 inch barrel.

EF36AD0E-B210-4E21-AB8C-A34ADB582C44.png 62E21A4D-B4D3-4768-9C71-A06242A1B7D8.png 9857B1E4-95F6-41D0-ADFB-0E2EF8781A1C.png
 
Today I shot 43.0 gr of TAC under a 150gr in my 20" LR308, and for being only .6 GR over Western's start load it's running pretty fast! 2687fps, recoils like a pretty light load. TAC in .308 is going to be fun!
 
IALoder said:
Today I shot 43.0 gr of TAC under a 150gr in my 20" LR308, and for being only .6 GR over Western's start load it's running pretty fast! 2687fps, recoils like a pretty light load. TAC in .308 is going to be fun!
Click to expand...

Please share the low node accuracy window when you find it. I have some 150s to load myself.
 
TAC flat out performs. I decided to run a proven TAC load of 43.3 grains with the ELDx in better brass and shot 1 and 2 of the 3 .25 inch groups I shot today. The third was with a 168 Speer Gold dot and 43.2 grains of ARComp. I learned today that ES doesn’t matter at 100 yards that much. It had a 40SD and shot .25.

8ED14AD3-93C8-402D-BC8C-C59BAEC7D251.png
 
bluejay75 said:
TAC flat out performs. I decided to run a proven TAC load of 43.3 grains with the ELDx in better brass and shot 1 and 2 of the 3 .25 inch groups I shot today. The third was with a 168 Speer Gold dot and 43.2 grains of ARComp. I learned today that ES doesn’t matter at 100 yards that much. It had a 40SD and shot .25.

View attachment 1031745
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I believe that es and sd are not a major factor at typical hunting ranges inside 400. Long range 700+ it becomes a much larger deal.
 
Shot up to 45.0 gr TAC with a Hornady 150fmj in LC brass today. It maxed out at 2852fps avg, no pressure signs, accuracy was not good though. I'm going to load 45.5 & 46.0 and see what that will do. 2852 is the fastest load I've seen out of this 20" LR308 and still have room to go!
 
Work in smaller increments from 45 on. I would call 46 max if you’re using LC, FC or brass with lesser case capacity.
 
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