Favorite .308 varmint loads?

Sparrowhawk

New member
Just got a 700 LTR and want to shoot coyotes and groundhogs with it. Know I can just use 150s, but wondering if any of y'all have come up with some lighter bullet higher velocity recipes that kick less and have more ummm explosive effect.

Don't worry about coyote hides, either.

Also curious if anyone has used the Hornady TAP 110-gr. load in .308 for this purpose, and how it did.
 
Last edited:
I shoot 110s all the time loaded with 47grs H335. As soon as these are shot up I will be going to 125gr Ballistic Tips loaded with 46.5 grs of Benchmark. I will stick with this load because it will work on just about anything in N America and is very accurate.
 
I use 125 gr nosler BT with a max load of WW748. I love the affect on varmints and would not recommend these for trying to save the fur on anything, but you're not worried about that. It is quite accurate in my rifle too. I don't think that the recoil is much less with these than a factory 150gr load. I don't know how much importance you had on that part but you could always go with less than max and try it too. I've shot ground squirrels to deer with that load and while it is not "perfect" for any of it, it does well for all.
 
Thanks y'all. May not have to load for awhile. Tried the Federal Powershok 150 ($13.97 at Wally) and it puts three in .5-in.!

I would, however, appreciate so more load data. Will soon have a bunch of empty Federal hulls.
 
I have been using the 125g nosler bt's in my Stevens .308 on top of 46.5 grains of 4064. They chrono right around 3000fps. The 125's produce the best groups out of any bullet I've tried so far including 2 brands of 168 match bullets. This particular load hasn't shot a group over 1 inch yet with the average group size under .75 inches and many groups smaller than that. Pretty impressive for a 250$ gun. The recoil is completely manageable and quite a bit less than any of the loads I tried with the 168g bullets. I can shoot the 125's all day with this load and not have an effect on my shoulder. The Stevens 200 is a fairly light gun to. A wondering groundpig made its way across the range one day while I was testing loads and at 150yds the 125 nosler did quite a bit of damage, not something I would recommend for shooting yotes if you want to save the hides but it would certainly put them down on the spot.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top