quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
Curious.

Since Berger has discontinued their 185gr Juggernauts, what is the best available long range .308 bullet for accuracy? 175SMK?

I was not aware that Berger had discontinued the 185 Jug. I must confess that I am not up to speed on Berger offerings, so I went to their website and they still show the 185 Jug among several other 185s and I could not find that it had been discontinued. Maybe I just can't find it.

However, that said, the 185 was not and is not the best long range .308 bullet for accuracy or anything else. It's a very competent bullet, but is has been surpassed for about 10 years now.

The F-class crowd, especially my gang, the F-TR group has shifted from the 175-185 weight range to the 200-220 weight range for very high BC purposes. These bullets require "special barrels" to extract the high BC while not being too punished by velocity loss. I shoot a 210GR JLK LBT at 1000 yards with a 30 inch 1:8.75 twist barrel. My bullets come out right at 2400FPS and group in the low threes at 100 yards. When the conditions are great, I can coax under 1MOA at 1000 yards for 20 rounds with maybe half of them inside .5MOA. Again, when the conditions are great. When the wind comes to play, it's all about trying to stay in the 1MOA 10-ring, and that gets very iffy.

The most popular bullet in .308 right now is the Berger 200.20X.

Thanks for the sanity check.

With my non-competition regular much shorter 1:10 barrel I'll be sticking with 175 and 168 pills then.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:


Thanks for the sanity check.

With my non-competition regular much shorter 1:10 barrel I'll be sticking with 175 and 168 pills then.

I love it. Even doing a search at the Berger website for "discontinued juggernaut", I still can't find the message you showed. They still show the 185 Jug in full detail, with all the propaganda words and nothing about it being discontinued.
https://bergerbullets.com/prod...n-juggernaut-target/

They even offer ammo loaded with that bullet.
https://bergerbullets.com/prod...ernaut-otm-tactical/

I think the 168 and 175 will do extremely well in your rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:

quote:

Originally posted by Merc50:

quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:
[QUOTE]Bring all you've got and load 175SMKs is that's the best bullet you've got.

The timing of this post is ironic. I stopped at Sierra's outlet store in MO this afternoon and picked up 5# of .308 175 SMKs for my M14 Bula. Planning to range out to 600-ish yards at our farm.

So you have 200 175SMKs, that's not a huge amount. Now, I will state here and now that the 175SMK is a fine bullet for 600yards, just as the 168SMK is great at 300 yards.

In the days of yore, before high BC/high weight bullets started getting introduced, the 175 was stellar compared to lesser designs. But we got over that 20 years ago.

The .mil use the 175SMK in their M118 LR loading (if I remember the name correctly,) and it's pretty piss-poor ammo for 1000 yards precision shooting, especially in short barrels like 24 inches. I have stories, but that's for another time. Suffice it to say that any store-bought .308 WInchester ammo is not designed for 1000 yards. (I know there are offerings with Berger jugs, but it won't compete with carefully developed handloads.)

For 600 yards, the 175SMK will do just fine in your rifles.

You are correct, 200 is not many to support load development and testing. In hindsight I should have bought more, especially since I drove out on this trip and usually fly into KC when making sales calls in this area. But, I wanted to see how the 175s run in my M14. Thanks for the confirmation regarding the 600 yard max limit for these.

Now, if I just had some of that March glass which you highlighted for me at your booth at SHOT last year, I would be all set.

quote:

Originally posted by Merc50:
You are correct, 200 is not many to support load development and testing. In hindsight I should have bought more, especially since I drove out on this trip and usually fly into KC when making sales calls in this area. But, I wanted to see how the 175s run in my M14. Thanks for the confirmation regarding the 600 yard max limit for these.

Now, if I just had some of that March glass which you highlighted for me at your booth at SHOT last year, I would be all set.

You have me at a disadvantage, sir. I do not remember you from SHOT 2020. I was invited to be in the March booth to talk to people about how I used their scopes in competition. I talked to a great deal of people over those 4 days. Which day did you come by and which scopes did we talk about? And did you mention that you were on Sig Forum? I have a vague recollection about something like that.

quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:

quote:

Originally posted by Merc50:
You are correct, 200 is not many to support load development and testing. In hindsight I should have bought more, especially since I drove out on this trip and usually fly into KC when making sales calls in this area. But, I wanted to see how the 175s run in my M14. Thanks for the confirmation regarding the 600 yard max limit for these.

Now, if I just had some of that March glass which you highlighted for me at your booth at SHOT last year, I would be all set.

You have me at a disadvantage, sir. I do not remember you from SHOT 2020. I was invited to be in the March booth to talk to people about how I used their scopes in competition. I talked to a great deal of people over those 4 days. Which day did you come by and which scopes did we talk about? And did you mention that you were on Sig Forum? I have a vague recollection about something like that.

No worries, sir, that is a hectic week. Our booth was at the end of that back row, along the wall. We sell forming machines which produce shell cases. I believe I dropped by on Wednesday. We talked about options for FFP in the 5x-25 range. You gave me literature on the 4.5x-28 Wide Angle FFP, it was a concept at the 2020 show, I think. I was looking at options for the M14,out to about 600 yards. I had seen your pre-show post about being at the March booth that week.

I was very impressed with your knowledge and the wide range of selection options. I'm with you on trying to keep track of all the faces and names which wander thru the booth.

Regards, Doug

quote:

Originally posted by Merc50:
No worries, sir, that is a hectic week. Our booth was at the end of that back row, along the wall. We sell forming machines which produce shell cases. I believe I dropped by on Wednesday. We talked about options for FFP in the 5x-25 range. You gave me literature on the 4.5x-28 Wide Angle FFP, it was a concept at the 2020 show, I think. I was looking at options for the M14,out to about 600 yards. I had seen your pre-show post about being at the March booth that week.

I was very impressed with your knowledge and the wide range of selection options. I'm with you on trying to keep track of all the faces and names which wander thru the booth.

Regards, Doug

I vaguely remember that. Thanks for the kind thoughts.

I have been asked to be at the 2022 SHOT Show in the March booth again and I have agreed to it with the caveat that as I am getting on with age, standing in a booth for hours on end for 4 days is hard and I may be sitting down more often.

This forum is full of great people!

BlueDog loaned me his US Optics scope and Weshowe loaned me a GA Precision Hospitaller in 6.5-284 with a NF ATACR 25X scope.

I sighted in my Savage 110 two days ago with the scope and it shot pretty good. Looks like I'm right at 0.5 MOA with some 175gr handloads (FC-18 cases, 175gr Nos CC, BR-2's and RL-15). I've spent very little time with my Savage since I rebuilt it years ago and this was the best it's ever shot. Normally it's around 3/4 MOA.

It's a Savage long action flat-back 110 that started life as a 270. Of the original rifle, only the receiver and trigger are original. It's pillar-bedded to a McMillan HTG stock with a Benchmark 5R barrel chambered in 308 and a NSS recoil lug and barrel nut. I've never had the time to do any actual load development and just shot what I had at the time. I suspect I can get this down to 1/4 MOA with some load work and some fine tuning of the barrel nut screw and action screws.





I just got the GA precision yesterday and I'll get it out to the range this week.


Tony.

I'm not sure if this topic is OBE, but the SWFA SS 5-20x50 scope retails for $1,500 and offers a quality build, high end glass (just short of the top end, IMHO), an innovative but clean reticle, and a comfortable eye box.

SWFA scopes tend to be a bit on the heavy side, but much lower in price than otherwise comparable scopes.