What powder and primers do Hornady use for their .308 win 168gr Amax bullets?

[Blake6422]

Hello,
I am into reloading, but the scope I have has pre programmed ammunition specs in it,
I shoot .308 win hornady 168gr Amax bullets, the scope has the specs for this bullet programmed into it, the thing is, that I want to reload as close to these bullets as possible, because you cannot add custom bullet specs into it.
So I was wondering, what Exact powder does hornady use for this .308 cartridge, or the closest equivalent
Also the exact primers they use for this, or the closest equivalent
Thanks in advance.

 

[jwrowland77]

Ammo manufactures don't use the same powder you or I use bought off the shelves. They use a proprietary blended powder that way they can keep the ammo around the same muzzle velocities as the lot before.

Most likely what you'll have to do is pick some powders and primer and test them to get roughly the same avg velocity that you did with the factory ammo, then assign that load you came up with, to that setting on your scope. At least you'll be able to buy the same bullet and use Hornady cases.

For the .308, several powders come to mind that work great. I use a lot of IMR 4064 as well as 4166. Other powders I've had great success with are 2000-MR, CFE 223 and Varget. Another staple is IMR 4895.

 

[cw308]

I have been using the cases from my shooting range buddy, FC brass. He uses the Hornady 168 AMax Match 308 cal. I have been trying to get him into reloading, anyway He gave me a round to check the specs 2.800 oal ,powder weight 40.3 gr. Hornady has their own voo doo powder. IMR 4064 is very close.The Federal FC brass is thicker then most so reduce your load by 1. grain then listed in the load charts. Using that FC brass I reload using 168 gr.Sierra HPBT bullet, IMR 4064 40.5 gr. with a .012 jump. average 1/2" group at 200 yards, very accurate load for my rifle. Also the primer Federal match. Hope I helped in some way.

 

[30Cal]

Find out what velocity they assume goes behind it. Probably somewhere from 2550-2650fps. It's not going to matter all that much.

Keep in mind the scope is probably "calibrated" to a model for a fixed set of atmospheric conditions and not to real world data.

 

[mikld]

I'm not totally familiar with "caliber specific" scopes, but I would think they are "calibrated" for bullet drop/trajectory. So, why not just adjust your scope's zero to compensate for a different elevation needs?

I agree that the best you can prolly do is match the velocity of your handloads to that of factory ammo...

 

[Unclenick]

Jwrowland77,

Actually it is the canister grade powder sold to reloaders that is blended to keep its burn rate consistent enough for published load data to remain valid. High volume commercial loaders generally buy the unblended bulk grade powder because it's cheaper, and they can adjust to its wider burn rate variability with a pressure test gun, so they have no recipe reliance. The blending, incidentally, is not with different kinds of powder. It's with a held back lot of bulk powder of the exact same number that happened to turn out extra fast or extra slow, depending which way the burn rate needs to be adjusted.


Blake6422,

30Cal has it right. As long as you match the bullet and velocity of the commercial loads and maybe match the same rifling pitch in your barrel, those things are all that could matter to a sight's built-in trajectory information. You don't have to use any of the same load components except the bullet.

The proper name for the ballistics of trajectory is "exterior ballistics", with "exterior" meaning "outside the gun". Once outside the gun, the bullet is coasting through air. The brand of case, powder, or primer are no longer influencing what happens to it at that point.

The only reason rifling pitch might matter is it affects what is called spin drift, which is the tendency of the bullet to swerve in the direction of the rifling twist (swerve right for right hand twist, left for left hand twist). How much it swerves varies with the bullet velocity and rate of spin. Still, this is typically only around a foot of influence at 1000 yards, so using a 10" or 12" twist with .30 Cal won't make more than a couple of inches difference at that range. Other than the direction of the twist, the exact value may be ignored by the sight maker in favor of an average number. I can't know without reading the sight information or instructions.

Anyway, the bottom line is you probably want to own a chronograph. Shoot some of the commercial ammo and shoot some test loads under the same conditions (lighting, temperature, rate of fire) and find a match that's within normal published charge weight ranges. Then if you find your best accuracy load doesn't match that velocity, do trajectory calculations at the JBM ballistics site to see how much difference that MV really makes to your point of impact. Don't be surprised if it's insignificant up to 600 yards.

 

[jwrowland77]

Jwrowland77,



Actually it is the canister grade powder sold to reloaders that is blended to keep its burn rate consistent enough for published load data to remain valid. High volume commercial loaders generally buy the unblended bulk grade powder because it's cheaper, and they can adjust to its wider burn rate variability with a pressure test gun, so they have no recipe reliance. The blending, incidentally, is not with different kinds of powder. It's with a held back lot of bulk powder of the exact same number that happened to turn out extra fast or extra slow, depending which way the burn rate needs to be adjusted.





Blake6422,



30Cal has it right. As long as you match the bullet and velocity of the commercial loads and maybe match the same rifling pitch in your barrel, those things are all that could matter to a sight's built-in trajectory information. You don't have to use any of the same load components except the bullet.



The proper name for the ballistics of trajectory is "exterior ballistics", with "exterior" meaning "outside the gun". Once outside the gun, the bullet is coasting through air. The brand of case, powder, or primer are no longer influencing what happens to it at that point.



The only reason rifling pitch might matter is it affects what is called spin drift, which is the tendency of the bullet to swerve in the direction of the rifling twist (swerve right for right hand twist, left for left hand twist). How much it swerves varies with the bullet velocity and rate of spin. Still, this is typically only around a foot of influence at 1000 yards, so using a 10" or 12" twist with .30 Cal won't make more than a couple of inches difference at that range. Other than the direction of the twist, the exact value may be ignored by the sight maker in favor of an average number. I can't know without reading the sight information or instructions.



Anyway, the bottom line is you probably want to own a chronograph. Shoot some of the commercial ammo and shoot some test loads under the same conditions (lighting, temperature, rate of fire) and find a match that's within normal published charge weight ranges. Then if you find your best accuracy load doesn't match that velocity, do trajectory calculations at the JBM ballistics site to see how much difference that MV really makes to your point of impact. Don't be surprised if it's insignificant up to 600 yards.

Would it be in the MSDS sheet?

Only one I've seen on the MSDS sheet that listed the actual canister powder we used was Federal 168gr Match using IMR 4064

 

[Unclenick]

I was told they switched to Reloader 15 at one point after ATK took over, but they may have gone back after finding 4064 did better in the Mk. 316 Mod 0 ammo they developed for the military to replace M118LR in sniper systems. (Though that 4064 is modified with calcium carbonate as a flash suppressor, so it's not exactly the same.)

I suspect that GMM is an exception and that it is loaded with the more expensive, but tighter spec canister grade powder in order to achieve greater barrel time consistency for match shooting. That, or it's selected lots. Otherwise, you might get some rifles that love it in one lot number but not quite so much in another. I've also pulled older (pre-ATK) GMM .308 168's before and found the charge weights matched the 4064 I bought in canister grade very closely, and what I've pulled has been found by others as well: 43.5 grains of 4064.

The last MSDS sheets I looked at had less information than those from 2009 and earlier. Apparently the government got less stringent in what they require to be included, probably because manufacturers complained too many trade secrets were being given away. The current MSDS is just one for their whole family of centerfire ammunition. But it's not just Federal. For example, the 2009 Hodgdon MSDS sheets I have give the raw powder names that match their trade names, like H380 being St. Marks WC852, or Varget being ADI AR2208, and so on. The more recent MSDS's I looked at from Hodgdon didn't have that information.

If you go searching and can find MSDS's intended for foreign countries, they often have much more by way of specifics, as the regulations are often more stringent in other places. So you could try to find those, if Federal is sold much overseas. I just don't know anything about that.

 

[Metal god]

I pulled a 168gr Fed GMM round back in late 2014 . I got 43.3gr of what looked like 4064 from that cartridge

powder on left from GMM cartridge , Powder on the right from a 1# bottle of IMR 4064 . The only real difference that I noticed was the GMM powder did not look as dark or as black as the 4064 from the bottle . The RE-15 I have now is a much smaller extruded powder then the powders in the pic .