Thread: 308 subsonic. I'm a bit late to the party.

Originally Posted by 284 Gypsy

308 subsonic...
I'm a bit late to the party.

Ok here goes.....

Request some ideas.

I have a 308 16" rifle. And*have had success with this over the years bush hunting.

With a variety of projectiles. It*has a 11 twist factory barrel.

A mate has a new dog and has expressed interest in shooting subsonic loads over his dog. In*the Southland bush.

My interest is in the reloading side of this exercise rather than the dog side of the exercise.

Previous reloading of Sunsonic*

I have tried some 208grain pills with trailboss a few years ago. And*these work well in terms of grouping out to 50m (about 1").

But in terms of hunting I'm concerned about the lethaly of these.

With only having shot a small fallow(in the neck), and a number of rabbit type creatures.

Current reloading efforts Subsonic**

I have just tried the new Nosler 220 sub sonic pills.

But these must almost be coming out of the barrel sideways! See*image of tumbling at 25m!

I knew that this was probable outcome of this being the case because of the twist rate.

Some options-

A. Option to use these or the Lehigh projectiles is to rebarrel to a faster twist.

Unlikely to do this immediately.

B. Option to go to a cast projectile. I*believe someone makes cast projectiles on the forum.

Questions ...

Who is using the cast option?

What effect does the cast projectile have on my barrel in terms of being able to switch between subsonic load and a supersonic*Berger load?

Lead coating in barrel?

i.e. I want to have the option of shooting subsonic in bush and still be able to shoot supers on a scree slip on same day.

Whoa. That is a lot of txt!

Cheers for any ideas.

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You won't get any lead fouling with cast bullets at subsonic velocity, most people can get good enough accuracy for head shots at 50 metres
I would not bother with the Lehigh bullets they recommend a 1:8" twist same with the Nosler the Hornady will probably be the same,
The extra weight over the 151HP will only give more penetration which is not much use when the 151HP will shoot through a goat with a heart-lung shot.