RainDodger
Member
I find myself back into loading for .308 after about 15 years away from the caliber.
Today I took a brand NEW rifle to the range! I can't put a picture of it up right now, but if it's wanted, I can do so later. It's a Rock River LAR-8 "Varmint" (essentially an AR-10 with some differences), 26" (yep, twenty six inch) heavy stainless free floated match barrel (no muzzle device), RRA's "Operator" version of a non-collapsible A2 type stock, RRA National Match trigger. Scope is a Leupold Mark 4, 8.5-25X.
I took 3 different loads to the range:
1. PMC "Bronze". Basically cheap fodder to test functionality and make sure the rifle is on the paper, since the scope was only bore-sighted. The PMC had me within about 7" of the bull right off, which allowed me to move out to 100 yards in just a couple of shots. It was shooting about 2"-3" groups at 100 yards, in kind of random fashion.
2. What I thought would be the most accurate... hand loaded 168 grain Nosler HPBT Match (#53164) bullets over 43.0 grains of BLC(2) for an estimated 2500 FPS. I was astounded when the first shot obliterated the "X". Not so much after a few more rounds. Failed to group well and would occasionally spit one out maybe 2" away. I was getting disappointed.
3. Hand loaded 155 grain Nosler HPBT Match (#53155) over 44.0 grains of IMR-4064, for an estimated 2775 FPS. This rifle loves this bullet. I put 10 rounds inside of an inch at 100 yards. Very happy shooter. I will develop this load further and just for grins I'll measure the chamber, breech face to ogive, see what it is, and go from there.
A couple of small things about the rifle. I had 3 failure-to-feeds. I attribute all failures to two of the magazines. This rifle is designed to us FAL magazines and the steel ones I had on hand were all of $6 each. Yep, six whole dollars. You get what you pay for. Three other $6 magazines worked ok, and the single polymer magazine that RRA provided was flawless, albeit kind of ugly. I dumped the rounds out of the cheap mags and ran them through the polymer mag and it worked like a champ. I've got a line on some polymer mags made especially for the LAR-8 and I'll give them a try.
This rifle is not light. That means, the recoil was no factor at all. With this upper I wouldn't be walking around in the woods, but perhaps a more "tactical" upper is on the horizon for this shooter.
Anyhow, I found it curious that the rifle didn't like what many other .308 shooters find to be the most accurate combination of bullet and powder available.
More to come in the future....
Today I took a brand NEW rifle to the range! I can't put a picture of it up right now, but if it's wanted, I can do so later. It's a Rock River LAR-8 "Varmint" (essentially an AR-10 with some differences), 26" (yep, twenty six inch) heavy stainless free floated match barrel (no muzzle device), RRA's "Operator" version of a non-collapsible A2 type stock, RRA National Match trigger. Scope is a Leupold Mark 4, 8.5-25X.
I took 3 different loads to the range:
1. PMC "Bronze". Basically cheap fodder to test functionality and make sure the rifle is on the paper, since the scope was only bore-sighted. The PMC had me within about 7" of the bull right off, which allowed me to move out to 100 yards in just a couple of shots. It was shooting about 2"-3" groups at 100 yards, in kind of random fashion.
2. What I thought would be the most accurate... hand loaded 168 grain Nosler HPBT Match (#53164) bullets over 43.0 grains of BLC(2) for an estimated 2500 FPS. I was astounded when the first shot obliterated the "X". Not so much after a few more rounds. Failed to group well and would occasionally spit one out maybe 2" away. I was getting disappointed.
3. Hand loaded 155 grain Nosler HPBT Match (#53155) over 44.0 grains of IMR-4064, for an estimated 2775 FPS. This rifle loves this bullet. I put 10 rounds inside of an inch at 100 yards. Very happy shooter. I will develop this load further and just for grins I'll measure the chamber, breech face to ogive, see what it is, and go from there.
A couple of small things about the rifle. I had 3 failure-to-feeds. I attribute all failures to two of the magazines. This rifle is designed to us FAL magazines and the steel ones I had on hand were all of $6 each. Yep, six whole dollars. You get what you pay for. Three other $6 magazines worked ok, and the single polymer magazine that RRA provided was flawless, albeit kind of ugly. I dumped the rounds out of the cheap mags and ran them through the polymer mag and it worked like a champ. I've got a line on some polymer mags made especially for the LAR-8 and I'll give them a try.
This rifle is not light. That means, the recoil was no factor at all. With this upper I wouldn't be walking around in the woods, but perhaps a more "tactical" upper is on the horizon for this shooter.
Anyhow, I found it curious that the rifle didn't like what many other .308 shooters find to be the most accurate combination of bullet and powder available.
More to come in the future....
