LR .308 loads

swampcrawler

swampcrawler

New member
Recently acquired a Bushmaster LR in .308. 16" Hbar,10"twist. Could use some suggestions from those guys running a AR .308, as to good loads for this platform, as well as what is found to be a good C.O.A.L. I load for several calibers, and have lots of components, so diversity is not a problem. Thanks,
G
 
Win 748 works extremely well for me in the 308, What I use with 175 SMK's for my 1,000 yard shooting.
Haven't fooled with an AR pattern 308 in a while, but would assume like the 223; that you will be limited by Mag length, not chamber length.
748 gives a very nice smooth push for the AR actions.
 
"
Haven't fooled with an AR pattern 308 in a while, but would assume like the 223; that you will be limited by Mag length, not chamber length."

Felt this would be an issue. Probably going to limit my bullet selection a bit. Going to try a work up a "do all" load with Vargant, and some 165's, or 168's. Will see. Thanks
G
 
The length isn't the issue for stability, it's the twist.

Provided you can keep some velocity from the 16", you will be fine for most anything other than possibly the 1K mark with heavy bullets.
 
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What about any of the "tipped" bullets--SST's, AccuBonds, Win silver tips, Combined Tech, etc. I have a huge assortment of these in .308 and have wondered how they are going to function as far as feeding .
G
 
again, it depends. USUALLY, if you have a decently assembled gun, the tip really shouldn't matter in regards to feeding.
 
Originally Posted By: nastynatesfishI'm kinda stuck on h4895 right now for my 308 bolt gun. I love it with Sierra bthp 168grs.

I've been using a lot of Varget with the SMK 155 Palma's but H4895 works better with SMK 175's out to 600yards for me, so far. But this is a 28" barrel on a bolt rifle, not an AR.
 
I've shot cheap surplus ammo (147gr), match handloads using Amax and hollow points, blasting ammo using 108gr frangible bullets, and hunting rounds using standard spitzers, Accubonds, and GMX's. I've never had problems with feeding that were bullet or ammo related. I've had feed issues do to the scrappy mag's that come with the gun. I replaced them with Pmags and problems went away. I also had an issue with some reloaded that I did not full length size well enough.

Your gun will stabilize almost all available. 308 bullets with the 1:10 twist. Mine seems to prefer the 165's and up.

Powder: Varget is hard to beat.

I wouldn't worry about crimping either, it is just not needed. I've never had a bullet back out on my AR's.

BTW, I have a DPMS AP4 with a 16" barrel that has been turned down by ADCO. My gun now weighs 7lbs 7ozs bare. With optics, it's just over 9lbs.
 
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Initial load developement for my LR 308 looks like a 168g A-Max, 42.3g Varget, WLRM primer. COL 2.800" , so far this load has been my best results; I guess nothing to write home about, but 2.5" group at 300 yards.
I loaded up 20 more to try plus ten more, 5 each w/different primers. Just havn`t got around to trying them out.
 
Rule of thumb for the sierra SMKs: 168 will take you to 600yds and a touch beyond. The 175s will take you to 1k and a little further.

My friend is pushing 175gr SMKs and Varget out of his savage M10 FPSR and they are unbelievably accurate out to 600yds (furthest we have tried so far). I was actually quite surprised at how well they were grouping at 100yds. Pretty much just making on big hole with a 10 shot group. That's with a 22" barrel. I was getting no larger than an 8FPS deviation when running them over a chrony.
 
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