.308 winchester vs other "fast" .30's

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Oct 15, 2008
Messages
273
Location
SW Georgia
I am currently working up some loads for my cuz. He shoots a Winchester short action 300 mag. I was using some 165gr Nosler Ballistic tips that I use in my .308. According to the Nosler data book The 300 WSM knocks on the door of 3100 fps with a tad over 61 grains of RL-15!!!! Do you guys think that is wasteful or what. I mean my .308 does 2830's with 46 grains of Varget. This seems to be powder hog! I am thinking I need to get him some reduced charge loads that match 30-06 like performance. 2900fps or so. This .300WSM is a pig. The more I look at the .300 mag in various flavors makes me love my .308 even more. I can do almost the same thing with way less powder
 
I am currently working up some loads for my cuz. He shoots a Winchester short action 300 mag. I was using some 165gr Nosler Ballistic tips that I use in my .308. According to the Nosler data book The 300 WSM knocks on the door of 3100 fps with a tad over 61 grains of RL-15!!!! Do you guys think that is wasteful or what. I mean my .308 does 2830's with 46 grains of Varget. This seems to be powder hog! I am thinking I need to get him some reduced charge loads that match 30-06 like performance. 2900fps or so. This .300WSM is a pig. The more I look at the .300 mag in various flavors makes me love my .308 even more. I can do almost the same thing with way less powder

Wasteful? Not if you want or need that kind of performance. That's the beauty of reloading, you can vary the performance by varying the charge weight and bullet selection. As an aside, he can duplicate your .308's performance, but you can't duplicate his .300WSM's performance.

Don
 
Figure out what the 168-grainer at 3100 can do at 3100fps that it can't do at 2830fps. - then ask yourself if the difference serves any necessary or even significant purpose in the field. If it does - shovel that powder. If it doesn't - save the powder. I'm betting you'll be saving. :cool:

:cool:
 
I thought that everyone knew that a white-tail deer will shed off any bullet that is going less than 3000 fps?


:D
 
The point of this post was not making a .308 match a .300 WSM, but praising the .308win for doing over 90% of what the WSM can do with 75% of a WSM powder charge.
 
By these numbers, the .308 gives 83% of the kinetic energy with 75% of the powder charge, using identical 165-grain bullets. There is some loss in efficiency with the higher velocity cartridge, but not as much as you might think just by looking at the velocity numbers.
 
define "may think" The numbers are layed out. 270fps slower and 25% less powder. That is an extra .308winchester charge for every 4 WSMs that are loaded. I am not saying it is a bad choice, just not the most efficient.
 
I'm with Shawnee. I haven't had my 300 Winmag out of the safe in almost 2 years. Hope it's still in there some where. Deer are just as dead.
 
define "may think" The numbers are layed out. 270fps slower and 25% less powder. That is an extra .308winchester charge for every 4 WSMs that are loaded. I am not saying it is a bad choice, just not the most efficient.
I agree. I was just pointing out that energy and performance at range both relate to the square of the velocity, so the .308 is really not 90+% of a .300 WSM, more like 83%. It is still more efficient than .300 WSSM, just not by as wide a margin as the velocity numbers alone might suggest.
 
I was talking velocity, And yes actually it is 91.2% of the velocity of the WSM and uses 75.4% of the powder of the load I am referring to. Energy is a different story and at range the b.c. of the bullet will have a sloping effect. I know it may shine in the 200grain selection as it can lob a 220 grain monolithic round nose at the speed of my 165 boat tail, but Im not hunting rino either.
 
You have a valid point.

However, I have a friend who killed two hogs with one shot from his .338 Win Mag.
My point is that you don't usually buy a magnum round to load it light.

I'm with you though. A hog is just as dead with a .30-06, and it's cheaper.
 
Well being that the old .300 Savage can launch a 165gr bullet at 2,670 fps why not just sell the big guns and shoot the smaller more efficient .300 Savage?

M'bogo
 
Hogdon's website says that you can use 8.0 grains (!!) of Titegroup sending out a 168 grain Sierra HPBT.
I verified this to be true and a reputable reloading manual confirms this. This means one pound of Varget will load 175 rounds, and one pound of Titegroup will load you 800 rounds!!

Just DON"T double charge!!

I remember Waco daily
 
Well being that the old .300 Savage can launch a 165gr bullet at 2,670 fps why not just sell the big guns and shoot the smaller more efficient .300 Savage?

Exactly. You can play this efficiency game both with going to another cartridge (as above), or also by going to a slightly faster burn rate powder in which you will use less powder to reach a particular velocity.

Don
 
Im going to spill it and tell everybody that Im afraid of Titegroup. I wonder what kind of performance you would get if that powder charge was at the front of the case, like you raised the barrel up from the ground and fired. Verses up in the air and down to your target????? 8 grains?? what is it made of?? Does this stuff go Nuclear when you drop a bottle of it.
 
Hogdon's website says that you can use 8.0 grains (!!) of Titegroup sending out a 168 grain Sierra HPBT.
I verified this to be true and a reputable reloading manual confirms this. This means one pound of Varget will load 175 rounds, and one pound of Titegroup will load you 800 rounds!!

I just went to the website and I am sorry to say I could not find this anywhere. Where exactly did you find this?

Found it!

168 GR. SIE HPBT Hodgdon Titegroup .308" 2.800" 8.0 1080 25,000 CUP

Looks like it is a weak load. I wonder if you added a couple of grains what would happen. hmmm...
 
Born Again:

I will not use titegroup in rifle rounds - but is really efficient in handgun rounds. I have no idea what it is made of - but it really works.:)
 
Using a small amount of pistol powder in a large cased rifle cartridge creates what was called a Gallery load years ago. They are short range loads at best.

Don
 
The .300 WSM is probably the most efficient of the .30 caliber magnums. Compare the performance of the .300 WSM with the .300 WM. Per the Hodgdon web page, using IMR 4350 the .300 WSM with a 180 bullet gets 2991 fps with 65 grains, and the .300 WM gets 2974 fps with 71 grains.

I love the .308, and 99.5% of the deer and hogs (and 100% of the wild turkeys :)) I have shot have been shot with the .308. If you decide to kick it up a notch, the .30 caliber magnums would be a definite step up, even if less efficient than the .308.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr
 
I will not use titegroup in rifle rounds - but is really efficient in handgun rounds. I have no idea what it is made of - but it really works.

The drawback is that 8.0 grains will not top the case off.
But I know that if it is published data, it can be safely (and sanely) accepted as reliable. Worth a try, huh??

I thought the idea of getting more loads out of a pound of powder was really an economical approach, too.
I use Titegroup for my .40 SW reloads.
 
I am currently working up some loads for my cuz. He shoots a Winchester short action 300 mag. I was using some 165gr Nosler Ballistic tips that I use in my .308. According to the Nosler data book The 300 WSM knocks on the door of 3100 fps with a tad over 61 grains of RL-15!!!! Do you guys think that is wasteful or what. I mean my .308 does 2830's with 46 grains of Varget. This seems to be powder hog! I am thinking I need to get him some reduced charge loads that match 30-06 like performance. 2900fps or so. This .300WSM is a pig. The more I look at the .300 mag in various flavors makes me love my .308 even more. I can do almost the same thing with way less powder

You think it's wasteful with a RL-15?!?!? Take a look at how much of the slower burning powder it takes for about the same velocity: 70+ grs. of H4831, RL-22, et al.!!!

I'm with you, as far as these magnums go. I only own one magnum and that is my 358 Norma with which I occassionally hunt elk. And really, it's not all that inefficient as it's a relatively large diameter bullet in a 338 WM case. 70 grs. of RL-15 and a 225 gr. Barnes TSX nets right at 3000 fps. For comparison, the 340 Weatherby requires from 80-88 grs. of powder to run a like weight bullet the same speed!
But between my father and I we've killed 3 nice bulls with a 35 Whelen, and I also killed one with the lowly 7x57 Mauser.
To each his own, but I have little use for the small-bore, powder gobbling magnums. I think they're all to keep the R&D departments on ammo companies busy.
35W
 
You are compareing the same bullet but different powders... What would the two calibers do with the same powders?

Everyone knows that if you don't have a .30 cal rifle that pushes a 180 grain bullet in excess of 3,000fps that you have to turn in your man card.
 
As near as I can tell from a half-century of listening to or from reading discussions about magnums, the primary utility is not the "killing power". It's to reduce the problems of range estimation and dealing with trajectory.

A .308 or a .30-'06 will kill a deer dead, dead, dead at 500 yards. No problem whatsoever. The problem is in knowing if that deer is 400 yards away or 500 yards. I've watched numerous people be off by 100 yards in their guesstimations. Heck, sometimes even worse. So, a flatter trajectory is helpful...

25 grains of powder is what, about 7¢ worth, mas o menos?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top