Going long with 700 sps tactical

[walteray]

Hello all, I'm new to the forum and joined to gain some information and maybe a little help. I'm an avid shooter amateur gunsmith I work on my own guns and friends. I'm an aviation mechanic and very handy with files drills and the like. Being enlisted with a family I don't have money to spare, ever. On this thread I want to get some in-put I do reload I understand the basics of long range shooting and bought the SPS tactical in .308 for hunting and target shooting. Currently I load 48 grains of Varget behind 185 grain Sierra Matchkings use Remington brass, new and fire formed with Winchester primers. I found using lee's collet neck sizing die is great and get sub inch groups at 200 on a really good day. The gun is furnished with a pentax 3.5x10x50. I want to tackle the possibility of 800 yards and have been looking at a konus scope and wanted to know if any users have an opinion on the scopes and on different loads if you want to give away your secrets. Tips for long range shooting and opinions on aluminum bedding blocks etc. I am on a major budget but want to take my shooting to another level including any help with ballistic calculations I do have a chronograph which I bought for my handgun reloads and haven't used much for the .308. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

48 grains of Varget...thats a bit warm don't you think? (46 grains is the listed max for a 168 grain MatchKing, and thats a pretty stiff load)

And I didn't know Sierra made a .308" 185 grain MatchKing...

 

[walteray]

im sorry its a 168 grain I have a cold and am having trouble thinking, its a little warm but the remington brass holds up great no pushed primers buldged or split cases I look at every single case before I load it short if using die penetrant for cracks i look them over pretty well, 46 compressed is the max load and the first five of 48 came as a mistake when i weighed them over-all and they shot great I havnt had time to try some new super low loads (i started at 44.5) and worked up and stopped at 48 any suggestions for a new or different bullet i want to try something totally different?

 

[Ridgerunner665]

I had an SPS Tactical (sold it to a member here)...mine shot great with Reloder 15 (between 43 and 44 grains...don't remember now exactly what it was)

Reloder 15 gave more speed and the same accuracy as Varget in mine.

 

[C-grunt]

Look into the Berger 155 grain VLD bullet. I have read many of the distance guys are going to this bullet as it has a high BC and stays supersonic past 1000 yards.

 

[dakotasin]

i've seen the konus scopes, but never felt compelled to buy one.

have you bedded your rifle? pillars?

i use 20 moa bases and scopes with turrets on my long range guns. keeping your budget concerns in mind, i'd suggest you look to leupold vx-2 6-18x, sightron s-2 4-16, or nikon buckmaster 6-18. all 3 of those scopes will have turrets. the nikon and sightron will run you about $350 while the leupold will be another $100 or so on top of that.

 

[JimKirk]

any help with ballistic calculations

http://www.jbmballistics.com/calculations/calculations.shtml

Here is a link to J B M Ballistics, There are several different calculators here.

What it calculates, I find to be very close in the real world.

Since you have a chrono, you can get the velocity to input.

You can find the Ballistic Coefficient of your bullets on the maker website.

It will also prints out range cards too.

Jimmy K

 

[walteray]

Thanks all so much, The stock on the gun is a hogue with aluminum pillars. Will a full bedding block help? I have the tools to do the work If its going to make enough of a difference. Im going to make some phone calls to see if I can find a shop that has a nikon or sightron scope I can fondle...