I’m just starting to reload and I’m going to playing with 308 loads first. My Hornady and Lyman books both recommend IMR 4064 as a good powder. That appears to be a medium range burn powder, which I’m not finding great availability on.
I generally shoot shorter barrels as I run suppressors, so I would like a faster burn rate (I think). I haven’t found anything that identifies how powders respond to temp. Hodgdon VARGET states “it is insensitive to hot and cold temperatures”. Is there an index that identifies temp sensitivity or are you looking for verbiage in the description?
Two questions:
What powered would you recommend starting with on a 308 that is temp stable and gives me the best velocity (faster burn rate).
What is a solid 308 hunting round in the 130 - 150 grain class? I bought some 178 grain ELDX bullets that I’m going to test, but I would like a lighter bullet as well. I think my 308 likes the lighter stuff. I’ve had better accuracy with factory loads in a Hornady 150 interlock than the 178 ELDX. The interlock my be fine to reload, but looking for another option as well.
Thanks for the help.
Most cost effective, available, and works quite well with 125-155 grain bullets is Ramshot TAC. Lot of good info out there using this powder with 125 grain bullets, and especially the Barnes 130 TTSX for a great hunting load.
Ramshot TAC has more temp variability than Varget, but if you go look at Ultimate Reloader, they tested Varget against TAC, and what you will see is that the impact to take in fps is actually not that great over a pretty wide temperature range, just not as good as Varget.
I switched to TAC for all my 110-155 loads due to how well it performs in that range and for cost + availability.
I run 49.0 grains with the 125s and get 3150-3175 fps from a 24 inch barrel. Good groups, and I hunted with that load in two different guns all of this deer season. Shot two deer with it, one at 510 and 560 with a 125 ballistic tip.
Brass - I use Winchester more than anything else, then Federal, then Lapua, then Hornady.
I use the CC1 Large Rifle primers.
Hope all this helps.
Good luck
Also, I hunted with the 155 AMAX as my heavy bullet all season. If your gun likes the Hornady Black 155 AMAX factory ammo, then it usually can be found for anywhere from $27-35.00 a box on the internet. The 155 ELDM is pretty much the same as the AMAX but claims a better bc due to the new tip. The bc for th AMAX is listed at 435 I think, but I have always used 420 and it falls inline with my shooting results running it at 2820 fps.
308 Winchester 175 Sierra MatchKing Ladder Test with Varget and IMR 4064
Rifle Shooter - google this header and an article done in Rifle Shooter will come up comparing varget and 4064 in the 308. There is another one also doing it with the 168s. Great article and data if you are a 308 win shooter.
4064, 4895, Varget will be better than the TAC in the heavies, has been my experience. I have shot it with the 178 hornady’s with my groups staying between .750 and 1.125. Fine for hunting. I also hunted a few season ago using IMR 3031 at I think it was 40-41 grains with the 178 ELDX getting solid 2.0-3.0 groups at 300 yards so it will work. Used Federal brass for those loads.
One thing, using the 155s and 4064: the only blown primers I have ever experienced was using the data from Handloaders Magazine with that combo. It shows 47.0 grains of IMR 4064 with a 155 grain bullet…I found that to be way over pressure, along with the very similar 4895 load for that weight bullet.
Backing it down to 45.2 grains of 4064 in a Lapua case gave me 2900 fps in a 24 inch barrel. Other than that, I have never experienced any issues with load data in the 308 win. Anything I am giving you I have shot hundreds or thousands of handloads using the combination. Just do like everyone says, go 1.5 - 2.0 below the max and work your way up to a max listed charge.
I have a 20in 7mm-08, and developed an excellent load for it using Varget. I then acquired a 16 inch barreled rifle and tried using that load in it and did not get good results at all.
I got Gordon’s reloading tool, free download, off the internet and found out that for that 16 inch rifle, there still wasn’t enough Barrel to burn all the Varget completely. I switched to n140 based upon some testing I did with Gordon’s , and noticed an immediate Improvement in group size.
I’m relatively new to it myself but so far no problems out of it. They do recommend that you download it too, and indeed run it off of a thumb drive.
There’s a number of YouTube videos out there from people like reloading Weatherby and little crow Gun Works that use it routinely.
It will warn you if you’re getting a load that’s getting close to maximum pressure and certainly if you get overpressure. It’s obviously up to the individual shooter to do their own testing and verify that they’re not over pressure with a particular load. As you get closer to maximum, tolerances can stack up and lead to overpressure. Interesting thing, if I take most hand load data off of something like barnes or Hodkin, and then plug it into gordon’s, it says it’s all over pressure. Most likely it’s somewhat conservative, lawyered up
I’m shooting all 168 grain bullets in a 20” bolt gun. My best loads are with 8208xbr behind eldm. And BL-C behind Nosler ABLR. Both very accurate out to 475 yards where my furthest target is here. I’m getting around 2780fps with these loads. Easy powders to find round here too.