Short barrel 308?

[kowalski]

Going to be using my mossberg mvp patrol for next year's deer season. Planning on using 130 grain Barnes through the 16" barrel. Guessing I should be reaching about 2800fps out the muzzle. Think I'll be fine for shots under 350 yards?

Anyone else hunting with short barrel 308's?

 

[Skyewalker]

I’ve shot and anchored mule deer with 16” throwing 178eldx at 700yds, you may wanna go up in grain weight but you’ll be fine either way.


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[hodgeman]

I've shot a pile of stuff with .308s sporting carbine length barrels. My favorite is a Steyr with a 19" tube. A short barrel often shoots better than longer barrels and are much handier.

I've had 6.5CM, 7-08, and .308s- all with barrels between 16 and 20 inches. They left no survivors.

 

[kowalski]

Gotta stick with non lead ammo in commie California, kinda worried that a higher weight Barnes would not open up at slower speeds from the shorter barrel.

 

[amassi]

The added bc of the 150 might offset the loss of velocity compared to the 130. Either will work just fine for California deer so long as you still have the minimum impact velocity

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[MTSasquatch]

I’ve shot mountain goats and mule deer with my Adirondack .308. Using 178 eldx I didn’t even get a full pass through at 80 yards on a goat. I lose around 200-250 FPS on the shorter barrel, so my energies drop significantly beyond 400 yards. I don’t like shooting at animals with impact energies lower than around 1500-1600 lb ft. Just my opinion and thoughts, but if I can’t get closer than 400 yards to that animal, I don’t deserve to shoot it. Just how I roll. If I could go back, I would've gotten the longer barrel for such an expensive rifle.

 

[Randonee]

One thing to consider with Barnes is the minimum velocity for expected good performance, and that varies, sometimes, between their factory loads and component bullets for handloads. For example, I use the ttsx 150 grain bullets in my 20” 308, and the component bullets in 308 150 are different than the factory loaded bullets. The factory loaded bullets supposedly expand down to 1500 fps, while the component bullets require 300-400 more fps. I recently found this out via a phone call to Barnes. I went out and bought a box of the factory ammo and sure enough the bullets used are very and clearly different in shape from the components 150’s I’ve been using for handloads. I was told they don’t sell the lower fps expanding 150’s as components to handloaders because someone will likely use them in a 30-06 or 300WM and shoot them at too high of a velocity. For factory ammo they can custom tune the bullets for a specific cartridge. I don’t know how often that is done across the range of their ammo. It would be good to know and I wish they’d publish that info.

Nevertheless, I’ve found the Barnes folks to be very informative and helpful if you call them. I’ve done this many times. My big conclusion from this last call is to assume nothing and check with the bullet manuafactures about specific questions. I,e., it never occurred to me that the 150 grain bullets would be different. I’d recommend the OP give Barnes a call and ask about 130 vs 150 min velocity, and whether that is the same for factory ammo vs handloads.

 

[ebubedike]

I can't speak to the short barrel but I can speak to your choice of the 165 gr. Sierra GK bullet. I've hunted for years and reloaded Sierra bullets in a couple of 30/06 rifles I own and haven't lost any game yet using the 165 SGK bullet. There are better bullets for long range past 500 yards but I don't shoot that far so Sierra bullets work good for me.

 

[wildwilderness]

I would go with the 130gr and shoot them fast. BC doesn’t help unless you are shooting 600yds+

 

[amassi]

I would go with the 130gr and shoot them fast. BC doesn’t help unless you are shooting 600yds+

Until your talking about minimum impact velocity of a mono. It could very well be the difference between a bullet expanding or penciling through at much shorter ranges than 600 yards
In the case of the ttsx in question, even with the lower velocity the 150 ttsx has over 100 yards more lethality than the 130
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[kowalski]

Pretty sure I'm going to stick with 130s as 150s out of a 16" tube will be way to slow for shots past 150 yards or so.

 

[amassi]

Until you shoot both through a chrono you'll really have no idea. The .350 bc on the 130 is going to make that bullet fall on its face pretty fast. Remember your lead free velocity threshold is 2000 fps+/- so not alot of room to play with

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[kowalski]

Hit about 2800 last time through a chrono.

 

[Dos Perros]

I have a Tikka T3x Lite Stainless in .308 and I'm considering lopping the barrel shorter and threading the barrel for who knows what reason. It's ~22.4 inches now. How short could I go and still take shots on elk you think? I've killed elk and mule deer at 350 and 315 yards respectively, don't think I'd like to go much further than that.

 

[Ndbowhunter]

I would go with the 130gr and shoot them fast. BC doesn’t help unless you are shooting 600yds+

This is dum.

 

[kowalski]

I really don't plan on shooting past 400 yards or so. Guess I'll have to load up some compressed 150 gr loads and see how they do accuracy wise against the 130s.

 

[forestpaper223]

I know *generally* the shorter barrel requires a faster twist. The example I am aware of is the little AK74 with the 10" barrel has a faster twist than the standard infantry rifle in order to stabilize the 5.45 round.
As to how fast the twist needs to be for your short 308, I don't know.

 

[Formidilosus]

I have a Tikka T3x Lite Stainless in .308 and I'm considering lopping the barrel shorter and threading the barrel for who knows what reason. It's ~22.4 inches now. How short could I go and still take shots on elk you think? I've killed elk and mule deer at 350 and 315 yards respectively, don't think I'd like to go much further than that.

Look at the post directly above yours.

 

[Dos Perros]

Look at the post directly above yours.

The OP was asking about a deer rifle so I wasn't sure if anything posted was also relevant to elk. I'm still not sure if it is. I've only ever shot 1 elk with a rifle so pretty inexperienced there.

 

[amassi]

The OP was asking about a deer rifle so I wasn't sure if anything posted was also relevant to elk. I'm still not sure if it is. I've only ever shot 1 elk with a rifle so pretty inexperienced there.

Yes- you could go as short as 16.1" and still have a capable elk harvester

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