Thread: A few 308 questions.

What does it cost to reload a 308 goat bullet?.Gunworks sell 147gr fmj for $25/box of 20.Deadly accurate to 200yds.

The .308 with 180-grain tips is excellent. With practice up to 600 meters or more, you can get a lot of meat, if you want. If I were in your country I would buy you the .375 H&H dice, fantastic caliber. It is one of my favorite calibers. Enjoying the recharge will give you a lot of satisfaction.

Originally Posted by Trout

What does it cost to reload a 308 goat bullet?.Gunworks sell 147gr fmj for $25/box of 20.Deadly accurate to 200yds.

Greetings Trout,
Using a cheap plated projectile like the Frontier 150 grain and a reduced load about $20.00 a box of 20. Closer to $30.00 a box of 20 for the cheapest soft points. This is not much less than the cheapest factory loads and does not include anything for the case. Why do I only use handloads? A ridiculous question and I will get back to you once I have thought up a decent answer. Seriously for many of us loading our own is a significant part of the hunting and shooting experience. The more honest of us don't pretend we are saving any money.
Regards Grandpamac.

with cast and trailboss its cheaper than .22lr or plurry close to it...ideal for sub hundy and finishing shots. some rifles wont feed the big fflat hollow points well but they still work for the one up the spout...using a quietish round for finishing shots is just so much more civilised.

Yes reloading is like making yr own flys for fly fishing.They are both a great hobby that will never die.

I understand that it would potentially be just as cheap to get some factory ammos for this job. There are a few reasons I decided to go down this road instead. Firstly, I like knowing how things work and how I can effect and manipulate them. It sounds like fun. I did look into Belmont ammunition before exploring reloading at all, and if their website is accurate, getting large quantities of their ammo at the moment is not a going thing! The milsurp FMJ could be an option, but I dont have a special rifle for just shooting goats, and perhaps I am making some incorrect assumptions, but I sort of just dislike the idea of putting large quantities of that stuff through a rig I am quite fond of.


So a bit of an update, I have managed to aquire a range of projectiles to start playing with. I have 130grHp, Some 150gr Sp Hot cors (Thanks Micky Duck), and a box of hornady 165gr BtSp.
All came together pretty easy and I was getting pretty excited.
Then I began looking for the reccomended powders... well, it seems its a hard world out there powder wise at the moment. After ever website said every store was out of every powder that had been suggested, it was with little optimism that I planned to visit both Delta Mike and Custom Guns in Invercargill today. Thankfully, the great service I encountered at both stores meant I now have in my possession a tin of IMR4166, 2 packets of Large rifle magnum primers, and all the advice a growing boy needs to safely turn them into bullets!

I also picked up this powder thrower off trademe for $60 to match my press. Time to get on with it!

Those 130gr speer hp are perfect goat medicine and are extremely accurate in everything I have used them in.
They will also work well on reds with a bit more range and a neck or rib shot.

Those 180 hornadys loaded up near max will kill anything in NZ 0-400y no problem at all.

If you can get hold of AR2206H you can't go wrong. It's probably the most versatile powder you could get. It might not be the best max velocity but it's not going to be far behind whatever would be. Not enough to concern you.

Loading for mates is ok so long as you full length size cases to basically return the case to in spec so it's not going to jam.
Stick to moderate loads and shouldn't be a problem.
No need to go above 150gn. Those Speer 125gn TNT suggested by Micky Duck come in packs of 500 reasonably priced.

Using AR2206H can be used as low as 60% of max charge weight so you can load down for small blocks or supressor use of you like.
It's also able to be used across a wide range of cartridges making it versatile.

The way things are around the globe at present id be picking a powder that is easy to obtain such as ADI , Once you have your brew sorted do a bulk buy .

Update folks, have settled on a load that zeroed about an inch higher than the factory load I have been and will continue to use for deer, at least until they run out. I had a brief concern about some slightly flattened primers, but a quick consultation with Mr Micky Duck and some testing revealed that I was bumping the shoulder too much, so turned the sizing die to just touching the shell holder and the problem went away.
46 grains of Imr 4166, 130 grain speer hollow points and a federal magnum primer. I haven't chronographed it, dont think I will as like I already said, its for sub 300 yard culling. I took a wee handful out last night and went 6 goats for 6 shots, all bang, flop shots. Happy boy.

Some economics
1lb of powder = 7000 grains (or so the internet tells me)
7000 / 46 = 152
$89 / 152 = 59c per round

$68 / 100 projectiles = 68c

$16 (I think) / 100 primers = 16c

Brass = saved up = free

59+68+16= $1.43 + my time, which has no value because I was enjoying myself.

My last lot of ammo I supplied to the guys was Federal blue box, at just under $3 a round, or I could get FMJ at $1.50, so Im pretty happy with how it stacks up. I can convince myself that in 200 rounds, I will have paid off the second hand gear I bought!
Thanks again to everyone who helped out.

Originally Posted by LMcNab

Update folks, have settled on a load that zeroed about an inch higher than the factory load I have been and will continue to use for deer, at least until they run out. I had a brief concern about some slightly flattened primers, but a quick consultation with Mr Micky Duck and some testing revealed that I was bumping the shoulder too much, so turned the sizing die to just touching the shell holder and the problem went away.
46 grains of Imr 4166, 130 grain speer hollow points and a federal magnum primer. I haven't chronographed it, dont think I will as like I already said, its for sub 300 yard culling. I took a wee handful out last night and went 6 goats for 6 shots, all bang, flop shots. Happy boy.

Some economics
1lb of powder = 7000 grains (or so the internet tells me)
7000 / 46 = 152
$89 / 152 = 59c per round

$68 / 100 projectiles = 68c

$16 (I think) / 100 primers = 16c

Brass = saved up = free

59+68+16= $1.43 + my time, which has no value because I was enjoying myself.

My last lot of ammo I supplied to the guys was Federal blue box, at just under $3 a round, or I could get FMJ at $1.50, so Im pretty happy with how it stacks up. I can convince myself that in 200 rounds, I will have paid off the second hand gear I bought!
Thanks again to everyone who helped out.

Just bear in mind that brass is consumable, you can do things to help extend it's working life, like annealing (NZ made Annealing Made Perfect Machine, perfect way to crash your reloading budget and cause civil disharmony , or more reasonably, a cheap gas blowtorch and some good judgement).

Furthermore, some people get really anal about brass prep (think primer pocket uniforming, neck turning etc.) but I find most of the people who do that don't shoot worth a damn because they spend too much time online, at the reloading bench and when they finally get round to shooting, it's only for the purpose of 'load development' and they chase their tails because they can't hold a good three or five shot group in the first place!

Federal ammo and brass is fine, some people will turn their noses up at it but I've taken plenty goats and deer with them and they had no complaints!

If your goat shooting is max range 150m consider using the likes of Rob Walkers cast HP at $0.40 each over around 12 gn of a Pistol/Shotgun Powder. Red Dot is kind of the standard. I use others including AP70N and old ICL Nobel Shotgun Powder No 78. Around 1600 fps is very accurate, cheap on powder and projectiles and deadly effective around the 100m mark.

Ed Harris is the legend on this and if you search this site you will find plenty of reference to it. https://www.hensleygibbs.com/edharri...The%20Load.htm

The Frontier pills mentioned above will also work well if they are the FPs. The RNs I have found not to kill so well unless you are on the shoulder hitting bone.

Save the pricey factory projectiles for better things than culling goats.

trailboss is too easy with the cast 151s too somewhere around 6-7-8grns will be subsonic,but for me i WOULD if doing it again...would semi fill case EG more powder to base of neck so its something supersonic and use them for the first round....
those 150grn speers will go good too...I would pick load on similar % level to what you using..so 2??grns below book max...I would be surprised if they pattern much outside your other load if at all....