Thread: Getting the most out of a 308.

I recently bought a Howa with a nice Bell & Carlson stock on it.Someone cut the barrel back to 16" and put a A-tec can on it. Good rig for tight stuff but not what I want for shooting at Reindyr up to 500m.

Lothar-Walther has a special on Crome Molly Barrels at the moment and they have some .30 cal tubes up to 28" in length.I want to be chucking as heavy a bullet as I can up to my maximum self imposed shooting limit of 500 m. I bought a second hand S&B PMii with recknagle rings so thats the glass side of the equation covered,I dont like bipods so I would be resting the rifle on my pack for long shots.

My questions are:

1) Is it worth paying extra for a 28" barrel?

2) Should I look for any rifling twist in particular?

There is a long range shooting range just down the road with regular classes.I will join up and get to learn the Rifle and combo but have to get this project thrown together fairly quickly.

Thanks in advance.

Personally I wouldn't consider the 308win to have enough powder capacity to warrant a 28" barrel.

Your twist rate will be determined by what you define as "heavy" pills.

I shoot 155gr & 185gr projectiles out of a 1:10 twist 32" True-Flite barrel in FTR out to 1000 yards.

Twist rate is faster than needed for those weights but doesn't seem to hurt accuracy.

200 gr projectiles would require the 1:10

Have just replaced a barrel that shot over 6000 185 gr projectiles before starting to spread the groups.

You can get 2900f/s out of a 26" bbl and 155 grain bullets with a little care.

a long heavy barrel will make it sweet to shoot and render the need for a suppressor unnecessary,the muzzle is that little bit further from your ears and the powder will be completely burnt so it will be quieter and sound quieter if that makes sence??? if you have one,thread muzzle anyway,either it will be good to use or not...either way the little bit of $$$ to thread wont hurt.
the difference between 20-30" shotgun barrels is huge noise wise.

if you have it long throated as most .308s are you will be able to seat long if needed ,but the theory with 08 is to seat deep enough to give it good square starting point. the little bit extra weight wont hurt either. fit a good recoil pad like a limbsaver and it will be VERY nice to shoot.
you have other stock so are avoiding the issue with hogue bending....

For comparison, my 2010 308 AIAW came with a factory 26” Lothar Walther 1/12 twist barrel optimised for 155s and goes real good with a PMII.
I would have said they’d know a thing or two about 308s and barrels so therefore buy with confidence.
I have some 168 ELD-Ms to try but haven’t shot them yet, seems to be plenty of guys overseas shooting 208s through theirs with success though.
Would also be worth while exploring 1/10 twist for the 308 with the heavy projectiles.

All depends on how far and high you will be carrying it really. If you have motorised transport to a lookout, go hard with a long tube. If you do much trekking to hunt, I’d keep it to a max of 24”. I had a Remington 5R with a 24”’barrel and was getting great velocity with 168gr ELD-Ms. Easily good to 600yds, and you could push 750 with a lot of practice and skill. It was lovely to shoot, as it was 11lb with a 4-20x scope and a truck axle profile barrel. NOT nice to carry long and high, hence it no longer lives with me.
Twist on the 5R is 1:11.2”
Another thing to think about is apparently a lot of weight in a barrel can cause negative effects on accuracy, if the action can’t handle the weight.

I dont mind heavy guns but I would rather a light one.

I had to carry 78kg, 20km through some mountains last year.

Character building and knee wrecking in equal measure. This time we will shoot a buck beyween us and share the load out. Downside is the country we will be hunting in is even more ugly than last time.

Epic mate! I’ve spent a little time in Norway, enough to know I’d love to go back again and go for a hunt local style.

Gnarly scrub man !
In that sort of country, I'd go for 28 inches and bare.
What power is the PM II ?

With my experience of using rifles with tubes at 26"and longer you could not give me one. While i agree if carefully loaded you can get close to 3000 fps with 150/155s in fullbore rifles you don't need this for a 500 meter target/reindeer when a 24 inch tube will give you 2850+ fps.

Originally Posted by Bagheera

Gnarly scrub man !
In that sort of country, I'd go for 28 inches and bare.
What power is the PM II ?

I just ordered a 26" because the 28" was sold out. The money saved from ordering that longer tube will pay for the barrel fluting. I wont get it blued I will cerocoat it or paint it.

The S&B is 4-16x42 with illum.

Now the question is: What profile I should have it turned down to?

Originally Posted by norsk

The S&B is 4-16x42 with illum.

Perfect power range match for a 308 in open country as pictured.

Good scope for the job.
How much more would it have been for the extra 2 inches ?
Im not an expert. 26 sounds long to me.