Oh baby, yes
No personal experience, but in a light handy carbine/rifle it seems ideal. Bullets have very good to excellent BCs (optimizing at 142 grain boattails, IINM), giving it a flatter trajectory at longer range, and good penetration at all ranges. With a .30, you have tons of bullet choices; 7mm (7-08) - less bullet choices but still a lot, slightly better bullet BCs and less recoil than .308; 6.5 mm - even still fewer bullet choices, BUT a few nonetheless - not just one or two, but even better BCs yet than 7mm, and less recoil yet. Going down still further, the .257 roberts or .243 also still excellent general-purpose choices, but the bullet choices AND the BC optimization get less at .257 and down, not more like with the 6.5 mm, and the .243 starts getting down to where you might limit your game sizes, and shorten barrel life more significantly. I think the .260 Rem has a place and is therefore here to stay and a very good light rifle choice - it can be put in short actions, too.
BUT, with .308 you can do more things with the bullet choices, and have unity-of-ammo with your .308 battle rifle, buy cheaper surplus ammo, and do more weird stuff like using .30=>.22 sabots if that's your thing, so .308 good choice too. Now, 20 years ago (before I was into shooting), as I understand it, you could have also found .308 in any remote regions/ small gunshops, and people still cite this as a reason for the .308 (and it most certainly IS still a reason in the case of .270 Win and .30-'06). But wouldn't some of you that visit these remote places tell me that .308 is not always available in these remote locations, alongside .30-06 and .270 on the shelves? I dunno, but I suspect as much, given the (very surprising) lack of .308 ammo choices in the city gun shops around here, if at all! So it seems to me that what was ONCE an additional "pro" of .308 may no longer be in the pro column, that being its availability anywhere and everywhere. Seems to me, the choice comes down to this: For a general purpose, light, short action rifle, If you're going to be shooting a lot of surplus ammo or buying ammo off the shelf, get .308 or .243. If you're going to be re-loading most of your ammo, get a 7mm-08, .260 Rem, or .257 Roberts - my choice would be .260 rem.
In fact, it seems to me that for cartridge efficiencies/balances, not being too over bore or inefficient or unreasonably hard on the shoulder, for general purpose North American game rifles, one might argue that the ideals are these (or close to), particularly if you're into BCs for longer shots with less bullet drop:
1. Very light, short action rifle: .260 Rem (6.5 mm)
2. Longer-action, medium weight all-purpose rifle: .280Rem, 7x57 Mauser (7mm), or for a little more vel, a .270 Win (.277), with the .280 Rem being my choice, and having more bullet choices - 7mm bullets optimizes BCs at 168 grain boattails, or about 175 grain full-based.
3. Heavier ("magnum") rifles (for large game or longer ranges): .308 cartridges, with BCs optimizing with 190 grain bullets. .300 WinMag or one of the new short magnums being good choices.
But again, these are analyzed "in the lab" so to speak. Others with years of hands-on experience may have other (undoubtedly better) recommendations.
