308. Long distance rifle??

C

coyotecontrol

New member
I was wondering about different types of rifles that could shoot farther than my 223. One rifle that came to mind was the 308. I have watched many shows dealing with this round and why they use it. Because of the long range distance it can go and the speed of the round. This is a very popular round for police snipers. I intend to use this rifle for long distance shots out to 1000 yards for sport shooting. I thought this would be good for me to learn how to adjust for wind and elevation changes. Any thoughts on what type of rifle to buy. I was thinking about a 26inch barrel with a McMillin stock and Harris bipod. The last thing would be a scope. Does anyone have any advise on a high zoom scope. I was wondering if a person could put a spotting scope on one. I have seen this in real life military sniper training videos, not hollywood movies. Your advice is appreciated. Thanks
 
Originally posted by coyotecontrol:
[qb]I was wondering about different types of rifles that could shoot farther than my 223. One rifle that came to mind was the 308. I have watched many shows dealing with this round and why they use it. Because of the long range distance it can go and the speed of the round. This is a very popular round for police snipers. I intend to use this rifle for long distance shots out to 1000 yards for sport shooting. I thought this would be good for me to learn how to adjust for wind and elevation changes. Any thoughts on what type of rifle to buy. I was thinking about a 26inch barrel with a McMillin stock and Harris bipod. The last thing would be a scope. Does anyone have any advise on a high zoom scope. I was wondering if a person could put a spotting scope on one. I have seen this in real life military sniper training videos, not hollywood movies. Your advice is appreciated. Thanks[/qb]
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it is extremely doubtful you was someone other than a joke with a spotting scope mounted to their rifle-more than likely it was a night vision scope that can be mounted onto the m24 sws rifle-if you want to build a real 1k shooter you need to be prepared to sink about 2500 bucks into a rifle to do it well-and if 1k is truly what you want then a .308 will do it but only marginally-.308 will stay supersonic to about 900 yards and maybe 1000 yards if you use 175 grain match bullets-and also most snipers doing this type of work do not use high magnification scopes, most all are fixed 10x or if they are variable usually the latgest will be 4.5-14 power.

check out this link for the REAL deal.

www.remingtonle.com/rifles/m24.htm

if you need any more help feel free to ask or i can e-mail you some pics of my setup.

justice
 
The .308 is certainly capable of long range shooting, but not because it's a flat shooting caliber. Accurate range finding is crucial.

And don't worry about what Police snipers do. Most of their shooting is done at ranges UNDER 100 yards. They are after precise shot placement to end a situation, that usually doesn't require long range shooting.

BTW, I am a big fan of the .308 and have 3 rifles chambered for it.
 
I shot the 308 in competition for some years and it makes a good 1000 yard round. It is especially good for a round to learn 1000 yard shooting with. It has good barrel life which is a necessity to learn long range shooting.

There are better 1000 yard chambers, but all have too short a barrel life to learn with.

Jack
 
The .308 will work well out to 1000 with the right load, as detailed above (you want a 175 Sierra Matchking going at least 2600 fps at the muzzle) and when you're working at known distances (like a target range). It is really kind of running out of steam at that distance. It is neither flat nor fast shooting, by the way.

On the other hand it's quite accurate and as Jack says, you won't burn through three barrels before you get the hang of what you're doing. And it's fairly inexpensive to shoot in terms of brass and powder compared to the magnums. Not to mention easy on the shoulder. Not a bad place to start, you can always move on to something bigger later if you decide you need it.
 
A more useful all around caliber to concider is the .260 Remington. It gives about 100 inches LESS bullet drop at 1,000 yards (than the .308 Win) and will, of course, be flatter shooting on game (at reasonable ranges).

The .260 was originally a wildcat cartridge that was developed for 1,000 yard competition. It is, quite simply, a .308 Winchester that is necked-down to .264 inches. It is both accurate and easy on the shoulder (and barrel).

With lighter bullets (100 grain or less), you can shoot coyotes and praire dogs and launch these at over 3,300 fps. The Nosler Reloading Guide (5th Edition) shows the 100 grain Bal. Tip bullet can be pushed to 3,300 fps, which makes it "flatter" shooting than the 55 grain (.224 inch) Bal Tip, as from a .223 Remington.

For medium or large game, a 140 grain Nosler Partition bullet at 2,700 + fps will do the job. (Note: not a "Dangerous Game" Cartridge.)

This (above), is just a thought for you to concider.
 
Come on over to the dark side... and poke around a bit.

I don't think you could beat the Savage 10FP LE2B with the McMillan stock. It'll set you back something over 700 dollars, but it's well made and fully capable of outshooting anything Remington or Winchester is currently turning out (including the 40X's, by the way).

The military still uses the .308 for long range sniping--so it's still the round to beat for the overall purpose. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Dan
 
For a few years I shot Metalic silhouettes with a Savage 110S and a Lyman 10X scope quite accurate out to 500 meters. 165gr Sieras and Win. 748 if I remember right that was 20+ years ago.

AWS
 
With lighter bullets (100 grain or less), you can shoot coyotes and praire dogs and launch these at over 3,300 fps.

Karl...what are you launching at over 3,300 fps, the bullets or the coyotes/prairie dogs?

If you can launch a prairie dog at 3,300 fps, I want to be there! Especially if you can launch it at a coyote. Now I'd love to see the look on the coyote's face when it hits. Would love to see the look on the prairie dog's face too, but it'd probably be going a wee bit too fast. Wonder what its BC would be. I can guess at the splat effect. Prairie dog becomes V-Max. Hmmm. One of those big air cannons or something...
 
Is anyone out there winning nra highpower or the like with factory "match" ammo? The reason I ask is that while the cost of gun and glass is mentioned (I assume glass for $2500) nobody mentions the need to handload. I dont know much about it, but am studying and gearing up. There is a lot of "stuff" to buy, moreso when you are getting technical about it.
 
I have been shooting federal gold match 168gr in my 308, and it's very accurate. In fact, I don't think I can reload a more accurate bullet.
 
For a "starter" rifle without spending $2,500 to decide if you like it, would suggest looking at the remington 700 police LTR with 26" barrel, about $700.
 
Colorado Pete:

Many thanks for noticing my misplaced sentence structure. You are right about the air cannons. I think the only way to get a PD or coyote to a velocity of 3,300 fps is to make them very streamlined (perhaps shrink wrap would work for this). The PETA People would have a fit if they found out about such high performance animal commutes as those above described.

That said, rodents are far more aerodynamic than coyotes and would better fit a squeeze bore air cannon. I think that with the right sabot, the rodent can withstand a velocity greater than 4,000 fps. (Imagine the look of a live coyote as it is struck by a 4,000 fps shrink-wrapped and saboted PD.... Curious.)

Sorry about being so ridiculous, I just couldn't help myself. Reading Colorado Pete's comments reminded me about the chicken-launching air cannons used to test aircraft canopy and window structure.

Cheers,
 
You are right Karl, prairie dogs with their pointy faces do tend to have a certain spitzer look to them. I think the shrink wrap idea is good, though we could dip them in shellac or some sort of air-drying polymer (or maybe just load them up with hairspray?) to sort of stiffen them up a bit.

Or wait, maybe just apply lots of hair gel. This could act like bullet lube in the bore of the cannon. We do need to discuss the rifling spin rate though, prairie dogs tend to have fat bellies which would cause instability in flight. Unless we attach some fins to them, much like the Abrams smoothbore cannon round. Hhhmm, 120mm is almost 5", a young prairie dog with a set fins on a stick shoved up his butt, and tank to test it...I live only about 25 minutes from Fort Carson...this might be doable.
 
roflmao.gif
 
Jack is right about he .308. There are better 1000 yd rounds but there is a price to pay for using them. The .260 is good round as well. I have shoot about all the factory and custom versions of the .308 snipers and have found most of them to shoot very well with ammo they liked. In my opinion, custom is the only way to go but that is up too you. A good custom rifle will do 1/2" or better 10-shot group averages all day long and factory one's run about 3/4 to 1" with factory ammo. Big difference in my opinion.

As far as factory ammo shooting well, it depends on the rifle. For the average rifle, Lapua 167's, and PMC 168's seem to perfrom very well at long range. I have not found the Federal's particularly long range accurate except in a very few custom rifles.

As for scopes, the 10X military thing for snipers is a joke. The better you can see the better you can shoot. Shooting at a human for military/law enforcement reasons is much different than shooting for score. Score target is much smaller!
Our sniper rifles carry no less than Leupold 6.5-20x50 30mm long range models with some using 8.5-25's. I would use no less as they are about the best for the money. 10X is worthless in my book for longrange shooting. I can always go down if needed with my optic.
 
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