Light Loads for .308 Norma Magnum

[Gunsgobang88]

Hi all,

 

I have a friend who has a custom rifle in .308 Norma Magnum. It can be regarded as a forerunner to the .300 Win. Mag. with a little less case capacity. Due to advancing years and slight arthritis full house loads are uncomfortable. Does anyone have experience of light loads in the .300 Win. Mag. that we can use as a reference. We wish to achieve recoil reduction whilst not sacrificing accuracy, we are anticipating the use of a 150gr bullet at .308 Win. velocities. Any help would be much appreciated,

 

Alan

[Andrew]

Hi all,

 

I have a friend who has a custom rifle in .308 Norma Magnum. It can be regarded as a forerunner to the .300 Win. Mag. with a little less case capacity. Due to advancing years and slight arthritis full house loads are uncomfortable. Does anyone have experience of light loads in the .300 Win. Mag. that we can use as a reference. We wish to achieve recoil reduction whilst not sacrificing accuracy, we are anticipating the use of a 150gr bullet at .308 Win. velocities. Any help would be much appreciated,

 

Alan

 

Alan,

The powder of choice for reducing loads is (IMHO) Hodgdon's 4895. I have been contemplating fire-forming loads for my own 308 Norma and this was the powder I came up with. The charm of this powder is that you can safely reduce the charge to three fifths of listed maximum charge. The max charge for a Nosler 150 at Hodgdon's site is 62 grains @ 54K pressure. This means that you could probably go as low as 38 grains with no problems. Fifty-seven is listed as the min for the 308 Norma.~Andrew