Subsonic 308?

[AxeHandle]

Subsonic 308? Saw some commercially loaded subsonic 308 ammo with 175 grain bullets this morning. Shooter planned to run them through a suppressed 12 twist 308 rifle. I'm thinking they will be better than throwing rocks but..... You guys loading and shooting any?

[alukban]

I probably shoot >95% subsonic handloads using cast bullets, just plinking at steel and paper - testing myself and relaxing. I don't need to shoot full power loads very often at all, just when hunting and zeroing.

I like to small game hunt with my .308

It's much cheaper to shoot, stretches my loading supplies to ridiculous levels, the neighbors like it (though they never complain anyway), and I get to put in a lot of trigger time without feeling guilty

[sixshot]

Nobody had a chronograph back in the 60's but my load of 15 grs. of RL7 & the #311291 cast bullet with a pinch of Kapok in between caused a lot of Texas turkeys to die of a broken heart from my pre 64 308. I'd shoot a couple white tails first with jacketed handloads then switch to the cast for turkeys, fun stuff, never have killed a turkey with a shotgun.

Dick

[AxeHandle]

Found some subsonic loads with 8 grains of Clays and Titegroup with the Sierra 168 grain HPBTMK.. Data attributed to Hodgdon but it doesn't sound like a good idea in a 308 case to me.. Hear some rumblings about using Trailboss... FWIW I think these people may be loading noisemakers... I'm looking for accuracy...

[alukban]

I pretty much use Unique for all my handgun and subsonic rifle loads (maybe out to 1400 fps max for .308). I shoot subsonic probably 99.9% of the time so it was an easy decision to stack Unique deeeeep.

For a Ruger GSR with iron sights zeroed at 50y with ball ammo, I have found that 5.2 gr of Unique with ANY projectile (from ~50gr round balls, 110gr Speer Plinker to 200gr cast) will shoot pretty flat out to 50y, where it is still within about +/- an 1 to 2 inches, or so.

What I have settled on for accuracy, efficient use of lead, and ultimate smack down power is the 165 gr Ranch Dog bullet. It is as much meplat as one could hope to eke out of a .308 and I have a 5 cavity mold from NOE that lets me easily churn out 500 bullets in half an hour at a rate of about 2 drops per minute.

The Lee 0.7 cc dipper is about that 5.2 gr of Unique and also corresponds to my standard .45 ACP load under a 255gr SWC.

[bradshaw]

Stan.... hardly subsonic, a couple of loads for accuracy from the .308 Winchester at recoil sustainable for long strings of fire from a bolt action pistol:

Somewhere between the last of the 1970’s and first of the 80’s, Roy Weatherby made, he said, 25 compact Mark V’s in .22-250 and .308. Without doubt thanks to IHMSA president Elgin Gates, on whom Roy lavished serious respect. Elgin sent me one of these little MK V’s in .308, and I put it to work for a write-up in Shooting Times. I asked fellow IHMSA All-American Bob Thomas what he loaded in his Wichita .308 Unlimited pistol. Thomas and this shooter hit a few of the Texas matches together in those days. Stroking his Bonanza Co-Axial press, Bob Thomas seated the Speer 180 Spitzer over 30 grains/4895[/b][/u]. Don’t recall whether IMR or Hodgdon. I tried both without discernible difference @ 200 meters. Thomas had tried the Hornady 180 Spire Point but found the Speer 180 grouped tighter in his Wichita. I repeated his review in the Weatherby MK V, likewise preferring the Speer. Velocity over the Ken Oehler Model 33 chronograph averaged 1,800 fps from the Wichita 15” barrel, likewise from the MK V.

Although Roy Weatherby wasn’t tuned into silhouette, the MK V his .308 pistol conformed to IHMSA rules for the Unlimited category, limiting barrel & sight radius to 15”, and weight of 4.5 lbs. Memory conjures a Williams Foolproof aperture rear, with Lyman 17A globe front, neither to my liking. Bob Thomas shot the same little Lyman on his Wichita, substituting a tiny dimple drilled in clear plexiglass for for sight. He gave me one of his for the Weatherby, as I could not abide the Lyman aperture and post inserts. The arrangement made me crazy, the flowing poison compounding my distrust of the Williams “micro” adjustments.

The MK V had a figured Claro walnut center-grip stock, copied from George Petersen’s record-setting thumbhole (Western Gunstock). Hell, Petersen may have made the stocks for Roy.

I took the Weatherby MK V to an IHMSA match somewhere in Central Texas, where, to the delight of Roy and Elgin, and the delight of this shooter, it cleaned the course, 40x40. I adopted this 180 seated over 30/4895 for practice in my Remington M6 .308 pump[ carbine with 16.8-inch barrel, where it bags about 1” @ 100 yards. Charges of 4895 should not be lighter than those listed below. Otherwise, Extreme Spread will increase, and accuracy suffer. To load lighter introduces a graphic correlation between accelerated velocity spread and inaccuracy.

Minimum .308 loads with 4895 for accuracy and consistency
* 180 jacketed over 30/4895.
* 165 jacketed over 32/4895
* 150 jacketed over 34/4895

Now, Axehandle, is that hijack enough?
David Bradshaw

[AxeHandle]

HiJack for sure I'm going to drag out the old Wichita 308 pistol and get busy..

[AxeHandle]

The more I think the subsonic rifle thing I'm thinking I need one of the off the shelf Remington 700s in 300 BO with a 7 twist barrel out of the box..

[bradshaw]

Stan.... alukban’s load may be closer to subsonic than sixshot’s load of yore. Both stating they chose cast bullets for pipsqueak loads in the .308, the prudent path to revolver velocity from a single shot. I would think the risk of sticking a squib in the bore HIGH with jacketed bullets. A necked-up .221 Fireball sounds a much safer path to mouse velocity. A .308 silhouette load with 180 @ 1,800 fps is only 450 fps slower than a factory .308 Winchester with 180 bullet fps). from the 16.8-inch carbine (2,250 fps). The 1:10” twist in your Wichita pistol will stabilize any normal .308 on down to silhouette loads. You might at least try 200 grain cast on crutches in the Wichita before digging deep for a Blackout. Speaking of which, the IHMSA’s Braud Brothers out of Louisiana know something of .308/.221’s in the steel game----these wildcats utterly predate the so-called Blackout, as does JD Jones Whisper.
David Bradshaw

[smirker]

i think 10grs. of Trail Boss is what people have been using for Sub-Sonic .308 with 175gr. Sierra HPBT Match BB

[2 Dogs]

Nov 26, 2016 20:00:13 GMT -5 smirker said:

i think 10grs. of Trail Boss is what people have been using for Sub-Sonic .308 with 175gr. Sierra HPBT Match BB

That's the load the guys down here shoot. I have a couple rifles dedicated to suppressor work but they are some ungainly in the blind and although the rifle is indeed less loud the bullet still arrives and says SLAP when it hits meat.

[2 Dogs]

Nov 24, 2016 19:12:50 GMT -5 bradshaw said:

Stan.... alukban’s load may be closer to subsonic than sixshot’s load of yore. Both stating they chose cast bullets for pipsqueak loads in the .308, the prudent path to revolver velocity from a single shot. I would think the risk of sticking a squib in the bore HIGH with jacketed bullets. A necked-up .221 Fireball sounds a much safer path to mouse velocity. A .308 silhouette load with 180 @ 1,800 fps is only 450 fps slower than a factory .308 Winchester with 180 bullet fps). from the 16.8-inch carbine (2,250 fps). The 1:10” twist in your Wichita pistol will stabilize any normal .308 on down to silhouette loads. You might at least try 200 grain cast on crutches in the Wichita before digging deep for a Blackout. Speaking of which, the IHMSA’s Braud Brothers out of Louisiana know something of .308/.221’s in the steel game----these wildcats utterly predate the so-called Blackout, as does JD Jones Whisper.
David Bradshaw

Stan, sticking a jacketed bullet in the bore is best avoided by working your powder charge DOWN to your target speed.

[bigbrowndog]

When building Sub loads in a rifle cartridge designed for super loads, it's always a good idea to take a stout squib rod to the range with you.
When developing loads for my 6.5x55, I tried 100/120/140/160 gr bullets, one of the 160s chrono'd 973 and the next 76 fps, needless to say I stopped shooting that load immediately.

Trapr

[alukban]

+1 on having a good brass rod handy for stuck bullets

In general, I found that I used about 40% more Trail Boss to get the same velocity from Unique for the same bullet. Trail Boss also costs more per pound by me so... I stopped using Trail Boss.

For my Ruger GSR, I can pretty accurately predict how much Unique I need to get what velocity for various cast bullets.

[Aggie01]

I see no reason to run subsonic .308. I have a .300 BO. More efficient case, significantly lighter gun.
Of course, I have a a few AR lowers and an Encore. Very easy (probably too easy) for me to just pick up another caliber.
I tend to the "one gun, one load" school of thought. I find the load that does what I want for that gun and that is all it ever sees again.
I also shoot for greater than 80% case fill when I reload. If you double charge, you will know because you dump powder everywhere.