308 loading advice

[in2anity]

When I do a session of reloading, I was taught to fire the very first shot literally from the hip, just in case... unknown barrel damage, or a vauge out with powder no’s, or what ever...

Not a bad idea - I always cringe a little for the first of those prototype loads...

[Sergeant Hartman]

My suggestion yes. Deprime. Trim, debur and chamfer and then probably resize the necks again.

Having longer length means you crimping your projectiles can increase pressure and make it hard to extract depending on your chamber

[Oldbloke]

Hi everyone,
Im just getting another lot of ammo ready to test and i have sized and primed 40 cases and have realized that i forgot to trim the cases. Should i deprime the cases and trim them? They all cycle through the rifle and measure between 2.017 and 2.020.
Will the untrimmed cases effect the accuracy of my test

Looks like its ok to me.

If you check saami.org Looks like length is

2.015 to 2.020

[on_one_wheel]

Hey Tassie,why from the hip? im thinking its a figure of speech and you mean discount the first shot?? 1st shot from a clean barrel/fouler ??

When I do a session of reloading, I was taught to fire the very first shot literally from the hip, just in case... unknown barrel damage, or a vauge out with powder no’s, or what ever...

Nothing says confidence in reloading methods quite like "shoot from the hip, just in case your gun explodes"

[Sako 85]

Hi everyone,
I just tested my next lot of reloaded ammo for my 308 using AR 2208 have had much better results then the BM 2.
I have attached my targets just wounding which loads i should keep working on maybe with the seating depth. They were all seated 0.030 off the lands starting with 42 gr working up to 45.5 gr.

[JimTom]

Mate you have several loads there around or under 0.5”. If it is a hunting load I’d say that is well and truly good enough. You could piss fart around with seating depth, spend another $50 or so doing it and maybe get slightly better accuracy, or you could be happy with what you have. If you have OCD like me then by all means try different seating depths.

[Oldbloke]

Mate you have several loads there around or under 0.5”. If it is a hunting load I’d say that is well and truly good enough. You could piss fart around with seating depth, spend another $50 or so doing it and maybe get slightly better accuracy, or you could be happy with what you have. If you have OCD like me then by all means try different seating depths.

Agree. Just pick a load and load up a heap. 45.5 looks the goods to me.

[Sako 85]

Cheer thats what i was thinking because it is just a hunting load, do have abit of OCD to. I was thinking it might not be worth the time as the ones slightly off to the sides of the groups could have been shooter error or wind

[JimTom]

Yes mate, I reckon you have it nailed.

[Oldbloke]

Yes mate, I reckon you have it nailed.

If your worried just shoot the two tightest groups again to confirm.

[SCJ429]

I am wondering about the 43.5 load that you measured at 0.558 but it looks more like an inch. Are your measurements correct?

[marksman]

I am wondering about the 43.5 load that you measured at 0.558 but it looks more like an inch. Are your measurements correct?

that's the one I took a fancy to

[Sako 85]

Im not sure if i am measureing correctly. I was told to measure yhe extremes of the group then take off the bullet diameter to get a center to center measurment.
Is this the correct way to measure?

[Oldbloke]

Yeh, should be center to center.

[SCJ429]

Yes it is correct to measure your groups this way, I was thinking that four 308 rounds side by side should be about 1.2 inches and take away 308 is about 0.9 of an inch.
Is the group horizontal or vertical? Was it a bit windy or if it is vertical the shooter may have induced this. I would like to see a couple of repeats of this charge.

[Sako 85]

43.5gr group is vertical it was windy as well though. I might load up a few of the best groups again and see if they repeat. I was abit curious as to why i got a good group at the start then opened up, then good in the middle then open up slightly and good just before i reached my max load which opened up again.

[SCJ429]

The groups from 42.5 to 43.5 are all promising. Make sure the same part of the fore end is sitting on the rest and don't move your head off the cheek piece if possible between shots. This may help with vertical.

[SCJ429]

Could you try 42.3, 42.6, 42.9, 43.2 and 43.5?

[Sako 85]

I will try that and re post the results. Thank you everyone for the advice

[Sako 85]

I will try that, i will try 42.5 and 43.5 again to see if they can repeat the groups. Otherwise i will try just higher and lower then each weight. If 42.5 or 43.5 are consistant i would be happy with that.
The wind was coming from almost directly behind and blowing to the left today

[Cal-ApeR]

Mate, I wish my grouping was like that originally. You've got nothing to worry about. I'm keen to see what load you choose. In the end I settled with 45.5 2208, my particular rifle likes it. I've since stopped playing with loads on this rifle (getting costly) and am happy with how it groups with this load and the 150gr prohunter. Be sure to let us know how you go.