Winning Recipes

For a control load I went with Winchester White Box 123-gr. FMJ. These clocked out at 2,230 fps and group 4 shots in 1-3/4" at 100 yards. Many of my reloads proved to be more accurate — with some cutting the factory Winchester groups in half. With this particular test segment I loaded seven different combinations using .310/.311 diameter bullets and 12 using the smaller .308’s. Generally speaking, the latter bullets shot more accurately with the powder combinations chosen but some of the .310/.311 loads were very close to the smaller bullets in accuracy.

My most accurate loads all came with Hodgdon’s H322 powder. The two most accurate loads, each placing four shots in 7/8" at 100 yards were the Sierra 125-gr. SP (.308) over 28.5 grains of H322 (2,188 fps) and the Speer 130-gr. JHP (.308) over 27.5 grains (2,154 fps). Either would be excellent for whitetail-sized game species.

Two other loads came in with four-shot groups of 1-1/8". These also used H322. The Sierra 125-gr. SP (.311) clocked out at 2,214 fps while the Sierra 110-gr. RN (.308) .30 Carbine bullet (2,200 fps) also showed the same excellent accuracy. The positive performance of the little .30 Carbine bullet really surprised me.