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Handloading .308 Winchester for a short barrel
- Thread starter Scribe
- Start date
As I rember back to 1987, David Tubb used IMR4350. He used that load across 3 days in the USA 1988 Palma Team triouts.What was the powder used in that load?
Sierra made that bullet for only a year or two. Copper quality wasn't normally good enough to make extra long heavy bullet jackets uniform enough,
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All of the powder is burned within 6-8" regardless of what powder you use. A faster powder might completely burn within 6", a slower powder might need 8". Whatever powder you get the best speeds with from a 26" barrel, will still give you the best speeds from a 16" barrel. A faster burning powder doesn't help give you more speed from short rifle barrels. Pistol length barrels under 8", yes.
The 16" barrel will be slower, but that is because the bullet spends less time in the barrel and the expanding gas from the burning powder has less time to work on the bullet.
Generally heavier bullets need slower powder for best performance. In 308 that means bullets heavier than 180 gr. I mostly shoot 150-180 bullets in my 308 but have experimented with 125/130 and as heavy as 200. Varget is my go-to choice, but there are a LOT of good options for 308 with common bullet weights.
What little experimenting I've done with 200 gr bullets tells me Varget isn't the best choice. I need something slower.
The 16" barrel will be slower, but that is because the bullet spends less time in the barrel and the expanding gas from the burning powder has less time to work on the bullet.
Generally heavier bullets need slower powder for best performance. In 308 that means bullets heavier than 180 gr. I mostly shoot 150-180 bullets in my 308 but have experimented with 125/130 and as heavy as 200. Varget is my go-to choice, but there are a LOT of good options for 308 with common bullet weights.
What little experimenting I've done with 200 gr bullets tells me Varget isn't the best choice. I need something slower.
jmr40 said:All of the powder is burned within 6-8" regardless of what powder you use.
Go out in front of any rifle range with a concrete apron and sweep up the dust into a pile and put a match to it. All the unburned powder will flare up like putting a match to a pile of fresh powder. A surprising amount of unburned powder is tossed out there. You also see problems with high power rifles false-triggering optical chronographs if they are too close to the screens, and this is due to powder particles tripping the screens. One board member had to take his optical screens out to 20 feet to get uncontaminated readings from 338 Lapua. The interior ballistics simulators (QuickLOAD and GRT) both calculate the amount of unburned powder tossed out.
You also see problems with high power rifles false-triggering optical chronographs if they are too close to the screens, and this is due to powder particles tripping the screens.
Oh yes , I get this from guys in the lane next to me tripping my chrono . Funny thing is that it reads right around 1200fps every time . I should pay closer attention to what cartridge is being fired when it happens because it only happens sometimes . It sucks cuss I have to wait for them to stop shooting to run my string or they will screw up my ES/SD
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