Thread: Light Loads for a .308W.

@grandpamac great to see you getting to the stage of incorporating a bit of armed bush walking into your fitness/health kick .

I think me & @Arthur McBride have discussed this before as we have both been down a similar path & used those same light loads in our Mighty 06's with great success & 08's over the years with my wife & daughters both using them for decades .

I worked out "light"hunting loads for my wife nearly 4 decades ago when we first started going out as although she was a country girl she had never fired any rifle larger than a .222 (gee she is a old bitch) & back then when she started hunting with me the lightest/shortest rifle l had was the 308 Mohawk l got for my 21st (gee l am a old bastard) ,l brought one of those terrible plastic Ramline stocks for to take more weight off for her & then when my girls started hunting at 10yrs old ,l had a Ruger Paddle stock cut down to 16" as their deer rifle ,both weighed under 7.5lbs fully loaded ,no suppressors , so recoil & noise were a big factor but l would not compromise on hunting performance in the field as wounding game would have a much bigger turn off effect than noise IMO.

With 150 grn loads l found loads as mentioned by AM very good as well as the following & these were successfully hunted with by them for decades as we later ended up with a collection of Sako 75's Finnlights due to my work & the girls later claimed Howa's they set up for themselves with good old Dad's (sucker) spare scopes/stocks etc & they still hunt with them to this day .

Proven light 150 loads used on everything here except Wapiti & on Plains Game in Africa by all.


. POWDER/ LOAD...Velocity FPS
- Hornady 150-gr. JSP 2400 / 20.0 grns 1780 -A extremely light recoiling load that was very good on Goats, Fallow,Yearlings etc

- Hornady 150-gr. JSP AA 5744 / 24.0 1830 - Ditto


- Hornady 150-gr. JSP IMR-4227 / 24.0 1997 -Excellent light hunting load for what ever walks in Kiwi Land


But what a lot of people over look is drop down a bullet weight & use the excellent 125 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet a bullet that performs brilliantly in light recoiling loads , just keep it under 3000 fps impact velocity and it will put down even large Deer like a bag of shit seems to be a very accurate load in a variety of rifles l have tried it in and has FAR less felt recoil than a normal 150 gr load does.I can not find my old proper load Data for it from back then ,but l have scrawled on another comparison note ,so if you worked out a load similar -

I settled on a proven light hunting load ( so aim for same approx with what ever is now available after the great ammo/component Apocalypse ) the 125 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip bullet with 46 grs IMR 4895 for approx 2950 fps,on game at around 100 -175yards (as far as the girls would hunt) these will punch through both shoulders (so guessing around 2800fps impact).All the girls used this load a lot for when we had access to a prime Sika patch & when called in or bumped at under 100yards the jacket of the bullet would mostly be found just under the hide on the off side after going through both shoulders . These are a fantastic Fallow,Snack Pack Red , Chammy & goat load as well.

They would have taken 100's of game with these loads over the years,including many impressive heads.

IMO may be have a think about a lighter bullet as well, it would be perfect for the little Berger monster & depending on rifle may shoot to a easily remembered POI (never owned a folder). Hope info helps , good onya for sticking at health kick & good luck with the Armed Bush walks .