Thread: What components do I need?

New to reloading, and I'm looking to replicate (roughly) the performance of Federal 150gr rounds. I have the Federal brass, so what else do I need?

There seems to be a lot of conflicting info in regards to reloading .308.

I guess I should mention I'm shooting it out of a Howa with a 22" barrel.

Any help would be appreciated.

Are the 150 grain projectiles soft points?

Also to replicate you might need to know the OAL of the Factory Federals.

dies and a press is a good start

They are soft points yes, and I do have some unfired factory rounds so I could measure them.

Originally Posted by kiwijames

dies and a press is a good start

Got those

Dies, press, deburer,scales, funnel,primers ,projectiles, powder(2208 or n140 are good starts)

a good question is what do you have already?

I have all the required hardware, it's mostly the projectiles and powder I'm concerned about. Was going to go with Federal large rifle primers. Is one 150gr proj the same as the next?

(2208 or n140 are good starts)

Theses are the sort of numbers I'm interested in.

Reloading manual and read it a couple times before start.

Originally Posted by username

Reloading manual and read it a couple times before start.

This above.
Then get some hornady interlock.

a dont think you will match the round but 2208 would be a good start, easy to get
any reason you want soft points? lots of better projos around

Yeah I'm not stuck on soft points, if there is better out there then I'll definitely look into them.

I downloaded a huge .rar file full of reloading books, I may be some time lol

Theres two ways to look at this question,
1st, if you want to replicate the federal factory load, you need to get some speer hot core 150g projectiles thht is what federal use.
then chronograph the factory loads as a base line.
Then load up the speer projies to the same oal as the factory loads with a charge of powder like adi ar2208, working from a charge of 44 grains to 47 grains, chronograph the loads till you achieve the same speed as the factory loads.
this will get you very close to the factory load.
why you would want to do that? I dont know, but none the less. There it is.
if however, you were happy with the performance of the federal factory ammo, may I suggest you could put the same level of effort and cost, towards a better quality projectile and instead of getting what you could buy for 40 bucks, you could have a custom load that will give you the best accuracy and velocities that YOUR rifle can produse. It will no doubt be far better than what you could get from a packet of $40 factory ammo.
oh, and it will cost less too.
greg

Nothing wrong with lead tips at normal ranges.

Originally Posted by greghud

Theres two ways to look at this question,
1st, if you want to replicate the federal factory load, you need to get some speer hot core 150g projectiles thht is what federal use.
then chronograph the factory loads as a base line.
Then load up the speer projies to the same oal as the factory loads with a charge of powder like adi ar2208, working from a charge of 44 grains to 47 grains, chronograph the loads till you achieve the same speed as the factory loads.
this will get you very close to the factory load.
why you would want to do that? I dont know, but none the less. There it is.
if however, you were happy with the performance of the federal factory ammo, may I suggest you could put the same level of effort and cost, towards a better quality projectile and instead of getting what you could buy for 40 bucks, you could have a custom load that will give you the best accuracy and velocities that YOUR rifle can produse. It will no doubt be far better than what you could get from a packet of $40 factory ammo.
oh, and it will cost less too.
greg

Thanks for your thoughts.

The only reason I was hoping for similar ballistics was so I could shoot factory or reloaded ammo with the same zero, but I'm starting to think it may be better just to focus on doing the best reloaded rounds I can, even if they shoot differently.

Yep