Thread: 708 questions

OK owners of rifles using this round what sort of bullet weights and speeds do you get.
Yesterday a neighbor came to use my range to try out some new amo for this queen of calibres.
Curious as i dont know anyone else with one I tagged along and took the chrony.
He normally uses federal blue box 150 but had a few different 139s to try.
The rifles a Tikka t3 cut to 19 inches, the blue box chronied at 2450 fps, and both lots of the 139s at 2684 and 2680, he seemed pleased but I thought them pretty pedestrian, my m43 762x39 russian matches the blue box and my 308 pushes a 165 gr bullet faster than the 139 bullets he was trialling.
The results left me less than impressed with the 708, is this normal?

i have a short 16.5 inch 708 im getting those sorta speeds from the factory stuff.
hand load 139 going about 2750ish
120s going 2850
both warm esk.
the barrel chop cost me 200-300 fps , kills the same though.

Seems slow to me for 19" tube. My tkka does 2800 with 150gn eldx. That's with a full case of RL17 and 20" barrel.

I'd have expected the fed 150 to be at least 2600ish and the 139 2700ish with that barrel length. Sure the chronograph is reading okay?

I load for accuracy, not speed...

22 inch barrel

162 Amax : 2600 fps
120 Nosler BT : 3050 fps

14 inch barrel

120 Sierra Pro Hunter : 2645fps

The chrony was running right I had the 223 with me and it read 3050 for 1 shot which is right. Federal say on the box 2600 something but that would be in a test barrel though.
We should all load for accuracy over speed ebf, but these seemed a bit dawdly in my opinion accuracy seemed pretty ho hum as well but that was probably just him.

308 will always do better than a 708 from a short barrel.
My 20" 708 gets 2707-fps with Hornady Precision hunter 150ELD-X, mild reload's I get 2754 with 140Gr SGK and 2657 with 154 SST's (slightly warmer load)
Federal Fusions do better with a shorted barrel than blue box for some reason

16" barrel I'm running Hornady ELD-M 162gr at 2600 fps. Stopped when my groups tightened up.

#stopfuckinshorteningriflebarrels

@ebf

I'm curious as to how you're 162gr A Max's go on deer ?

Originally Posted by Rock river arms hunter

@ebf

I'm curious as to how you're 162gr A Max's go on deer ?

At that speed they will be perfect. My 162eldms were savage at a higher speed but would have happily run them at 2600

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

#stopfuckinshorteningriflebarrels

No shortening is ok just don't complain about speed haha. Have learnt my lessons over the years

@Marty Henry
What is the barrel length of your 308 and are you shooting factory ammo or reloads? for comparison
But I agree those speeds seem about 100fps too slow.
Most factory 708 ammo use a slower burning powder than 308 so suffer quite a lot by loosing 5 or more inches of barrel (from the 24in test barrels used in the factory)

22 inch with reloads I just mentioned it as a comparison as I thought the lighter bullet would have had more speed than that.

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

#stopfuckinshorteningriflebarrels

Hahaha,

The 14 incher is not only short, it is a wee little pencil thing... 0.625

Originally Posted by Rock river arms hunter

@ebf

I'm curious as to how you're 162gr A Max's go on deer ?

Very happy with it. The 162 ELD-M is pretty much the same projectile. Did not have to make any changes to my loads between the AMAX and ELMD, and I would confidently shoot both of those at animals, steel or paper. It is as close to the perfect all-round bullet as I have found.