Thread: Preferred barrel bullet weight

Greetings Magnetite,
There are many many things that have an effect on how well a particular rifle or barrel shoots a particular projectile. These can include but are not limited to barrel twist, throat length, how abrupt the leade is, powder charge, primer and for all I know the phase of the moon and how you hold your mouth when you pull the trigger. To this is added how well the rifleman can hold the rifle, how good the scope and their eyesight is. Certain projectile weights and styles can provide better performance in a particular rifle or calibre but even this can change over time. Many moons ago when there were no such things as laser range finders and dial up scopes (no cell phones or even pocket calculators for that matter) we trod the trails in the Kawekas with 150 grain projectile loads in our .303 or .308 rifles because the extra velocity gave us a longer point blank range, or thought it did. We couldn't see anything in our 2.5 and 4 power scopes all that far away so trajectory was largely ignored. These days with range finders, dial up scopes and hold over reticles that .308 is more likely to be loaded with 165 grain or more projectile cartridges and the scopes are 4.5 to 14 power or more. Old fudds using the 150 grains are considered backward.
To summarise, yes there are preferred projectile weights but they change over time and everybody has to find their own. Happy hunting for yours.
Regards Grandpamac.