.308 hornady sst and varget

[yotekilla313]

I got a question. I was loading up some Hornady 165 grn SST's for upcomming deer season and was using Varget powder. The Hornady manual says the starting load is 32.6 while the Hodgdon website says the starting load is 42.0. Since the powder is the component that goes "boom" I used their data instead of Hornadys. My question is why the huge diffrence. Are the SST's suppose to be loaded that lite. What say the experienced reloaders here.

 

[bfr4570]

Each company comes up with all kind of numbers. With Varget I would start with the 42.0 gr.

The 32.6 sounds way low. I shoot mine a little north of 42.0.

 

[Mike B]

You might wanna double check that 32.X number,and if it's true, give Hornady a call - sounds like they have a serious typo there - The low to mid-40's grain range is working well for many folks in the 308 and that bullet weight range.

 

[ackleyman]

44.0-45.5 will be your sweet spot with varget.

 

[bgoldhunter]

Before I switched to RL-15, I was at 46gr Varget with 168 SMKs.

YMMV...

 

[yotekilla313]

Thanks for the advice guys. 44.5 ended up being the sweet spot. This was 5 shots at 100 yards with a Remington 700 SPS Compact Tactical. The bullet was a 165 grn Hornady SST with Win brass and Fed 210 primers.