Browning BAR Owners - ammo input needed

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

biggameballs

Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2007
Messages
380
So I recently aquired a new Browning BAR lightweight stalker in 308 and topped it off with a Burris Euro Diamond 1.5-6x40. It should be one hell of a combo in the dense woods of northern MN.

I'm new to the BAR and any semi auto rifle for that matter. I'm wondering how your BAR shoots hotter loads. I realize every gun and cabliber is differnt but I would think most BAR would show similar characteristics. With the price of ammo I dont want to have to buy 5 boxes of ammo to find what it likes. Some of the ammo I'm looking at are high end Federal and Winchester ammo which are more expensive and lower on the performance end but the two that I'd like to try are the Nosler Trophy Class and the Hornady Superformance. Both are loaded pretty hot and are very reasonable in price. They push a 165 grain to 2800-2900 fps which is basically 30-06 level but will they be accurate?
 
hate to say it but you are gonna have to try them and see if they produce what your looking for in accuracy. Ive never owned a BAR, but worked with a friends quite a bit. I never found it to be inaccurate with any load, but it shot a particular handload much better then anything else, and Winchester silver tips came in second. One note, ive got a normally very accurate .243 that dosent like the superperformance. My only experiance with either of the loads you use as i load my own mostly.
 
I should also add that not only will they be accurate but more importantly will they be reliable and cycle the action properly? You can pretty much make this a general question and forget the brand names of ammo I mentioned. For those that hand load had you had good luck with hotter loads? I'd like to shoot the hot loads but wont do it if I have to sacrifice accuracy and reliability. At $25-$45 a box of ammo I'd rather not mess with this hot stuff if it is going to be junk in anything but a bolt.
 
As with any gun, you've got to experiment with different brands, loads, etc. There's no way anybody can say what's best in your rifle. Even if someone has a similar BAR, it's still not your BAR. There's no way around spending the bucks to find the load.
 
I disagree. The BAR is a gas operated gun. Either hot loads will have too much pressure and wont work right or it wont matter. I'm not asking which round will provide the best pin point accuracy. I Just want to know if in general they shoot the hot stuff okay or not.
 
I had a BAR, but the one I had was in 30-06. Reliable it was, but accurate it wasn't. I tried a ton of different ammo in it, and the only ammo I found that shot well at all was 150 Grain Fusion's which are made by Federal. For some reason it shot pretty well. I'm talking 1.5-2" groups where most everything else was shooting 4-6" groups from it. I did find that Federal Power Shoks shot second best at 3" groups.

This isn't to say this is what will work for you, just to say that like any gun you have to try a bunch of different rounds. You may get lucky where yours shoots everything well, or you may have one like I did that shoots most everything horribly with it only liking one or two kinds of ammo. You just have to try.
 
Okay lets try this. Does anyone know how far down the barrel the gas port is on a BAR? Hornady says their Superformance ammo returns to the same pressure as their normal loads about 13" down the barrel.
 
I'd say break it in a bit with some less expensive ammo, then try some hotter stuff and see what happens. Personally though, unless hunting elk or moose, I'd get boxes of Remington Corelokts, Winchester Power Points, Federal Blue box in 150 or 165gr and try them out. Maybe try the Federal Fusions or whatever Winchesters new mid priced ammo is. Then I'd roll with the most accurate. Doesn't sound like you'll be shooting very far or at any tough animals, so why worry about premium ammo? But, if you plan to take it elk hunting or something and want to find the "one load for everything" than you'll have to try the premium ammo that interests you and find out if it cycles reliably.
 
Hey Balls: The gas port on my lightweight '06 is almost exactly 9" from the face of the closed bolt. I'm sure that the distance is about the same on both my steel framed '06 and the .338.........Far as your light mags go I'd try a few & see just how well they seemed to work and go from there. My '06 load is NOT one recommended for autos. I use 165 Sierra HPBT over 57.5 gr. of 4350 in both the '06's & 72 grains of the stuff under a 225 Accubond in the .338...........they all work and haven't presented any issues and both those '06s have seen many, many hundreds of rounds.

Had a buddy years ago that used top end 748 charges under 150's in his BAR .308.....gun shot very well. I'd suggest that if you handload that you start out with something like 4895.

By the way ALL of my BAR's will shoot under an inch at 100...

I also meant to add that if you experience excess battering with those hotter loads you will only wind up replacing the polymer buffer and that's no big deal....in fact you can substitue a thickly cut piece of leather if needed.
 
tip 1) if you don't close both of your eyes when you shoot, you don't need a semi

tip 2) if the recoil of your .22 makes you tear up like you're cutting onions, don't shoot superformance

on the other hand....let's go shooting


(mods: he's sitting 15 feet from me in the office, no scolding necessary)
 
Well I do like to let the lead fly during hunting season. I am more worried about ammo that doesn't jam under rapid fire then stuff that's accurate because god knows my accuracy goes out the window when buck fever kicks in!
 
We're out here. But you're just gonna have to try some ammo out and see what groups best from your rifle.

Not that it will help you with your 308, but my dad uses factory Winchester Silvertips, the old non-ballistic style with real nickel silver alloy. He won't even try another load.
 
Not a lot of Browning BAR owners on this forum?
Click to expand...

I own one but it isn't one of the small calibers like the .308, mine is chambered for the 375/338 wildcat, duplicates the 375 H&H ballistics.

In ammo for the .308 I would recommend the Hornady 150 grain Interbond, great penetration, flat shooting and excellent weight retention on big game. Just use cheap ammo for practice and the good stuff for hunting.
 
I would like to add winchester silvertips to your list of good ammo. They are pricey but if you're not going to reload, which I recommend, you can't go wrong with silvertips.
I love the BAR but 1" groups is going to be hard to accomplish. It's a ultra-reliable and robust gas system but accuracy disappointed me
 
I have a BAR in .338 win mag and I've been using Remington Core-lokt. It has cycled with no problems.
No offense meant but perhaps if you take more careful aim, for the sake of the animal, you won't need to spray so many bullets all over the woods.
 
Jchico28 why so serious. I dont really go out with the intentions of spraying animals. It was a joke between co workers becasue I missed a monster that ran right under my stand last year.
 
I've done most of my deer hunting with an 06 BAR for a long time, near 20 years. Long ago, an old 'smith warned me against using hot loads and so I never have. I've never reloaded for it either. I've tried a lot of different ammo over the years, generally 150 and 165 grain stuff. Some shoots better than others, anywhere from one to four inch groups.

Doesn't answer your question authoritatively - you might want to call Browning and see what they say. What I can tell you is mine has never missed a beat. In all weather, field conditions it's never jammed, failed to fire or had any problem whatsoever.

...and now for my un-requested $.02... Why bother with hot loads in your BAR - unless they were really, really accurate and you can't help yourself! LOL! My point: an 06 will kill anything you need to kill out to a greater distance than most will ever hunt. If you know your trajectory and you practice, you'll put your rounds on-target and a deer in your truck.

If you look at the tables, depending on a bunch of variables you can get a slightly flatter trajectory - maybe an extended range of 30 - 70 yards. Or, you can hold over another inch or two and have just as dead a deer with a whole lot less expensive bullet. JMHO.
 
Lets switch this up and maybe I'll get the result I was hoping for. BAR owners what is YOUR go to round that shoots great out of your gun and what have you tried that didn't work. I fully plan on buying 4-5 differnt boxes of ammo but I guess the point of this thread was to try and establish a pattern. If 3 guys say Cor Lock is what shoots best out of their gun then they will be one of the boxes I buy. If 4 people say Winchest XP3 shot like trash then I will avoid them. Etc.....

The reason I started this thread was in hopes to find a good STARTING POINT on what these guns like so I didn't buy 5 boxes of ammo and come up empty.
 
If it were you would you buy 5 differnt boxes of 150 grain ammo if that's really what you wanted to shoot or would it be more likely that it will be bullet weight that determines what it shoots well and I'd be wasting my time buying 5 differnt boxes of the same grain?
 
The bullet weight affects the length, which affects the distance to the rifling and how the bullets reacts to your specific rifle's barrel harmonics. Buy two boxes first and compare them first. You might get lucky on the first try.
 
Well I went a head and ordered 2 boxes of Hornady 150 SST, 2 boxes of Winchester silver balistic tips, and 1 box of the Wichester power max bonded to break the barrel in. Hopefully after I get the barrel broken in with the cheap power max bonded it will like one of the other 2 rounds. If not I'll have to try some 165's.
 
I've done nearly all my hunting with a BAR, MKI's and MKII's. My father hunted with a MKII BAR from 1995-2005, and only put down his BAR because he was ready for a 257 Weatherby Mag.

My first BAR was a 1969 Grade II in 308, never a malfunction but I didn't think it the most accurate. I did not use a large variety of ammunition, mostly Barnes TSX bullets in 150gr. That BAR was replaced with a MKII Safari in .270 with BOSS system. This is a TACdriver! I have only used Federal 130gr. Barnes TSX. Never a malfunction in hundreds of rounds.

BAR's are one of the baddest hunting platforms out there.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

B
  • Locked
Precision scope mount for a BAR LW Stalker
Replies
8
Views
467
MtnCreek
MtnCreek
Back
Top