308 Winchester WIMP Loads ?

[Johnch]

LOL Not for me

But a 6 year old
Next week end I will be watching my Nieces 6 year old Son

He has camo and wants to go Goose hunting with me ( in a dry pit blind with ear and eye protection )

He also wants to shoot a big gun
I have a cut down stock for my Savage 10 in 308 Win that should be close

But I still need a lite load
Just needs to go Bang and kill pop cans and paper at 25 to 50 feet , with little to no recoil

I am thinking the 100 gr bullet I am casting for the 32 S&W would work

So how low can I go with Red Dot or Green Dot ?

Or is there a better choice ?

John

[reddog81]

There's lots of light loads for .30-06. I'd imagine any light .30-06 load would work just fine in .308. 5 grains of Bullseye is a pretty common load. I'm pretty sure I've seen Red Dot loads out there and hopefully someone can help.

[44Blam]

What about Trailboss?
The data for a win 308 150 grain bullet is:

BULLET WEIGHT
150 GR. NOS BT
Starting Loads Maximum Loads
Manufacturer Powder Bullet Diam.
C.O.L. Grs.
Vel. (ft/s)
Pressure
Grs.
Vel. (ft/s)
Pressure
Hodgdon Trail Boss .308" 2.800" 10.0 1,176 25,800 PSI 14.0 1,417 27,100 PSI

http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/rifle

So, 10 - 14 grain of trailboss ought to be a mouse fart poof.

[KVO]

I have used 5.0gr of Bullseye and an RCBS 98gr SWC in .308 Win for this exact same purpose. Shoots about 1.5" at 50yd, which is not too shabby considering the huge jump to the throat. Essentially no recoil. One warning about those short pistol boolits is that you may encounter feeding problems. The above load only feeds with 2 rounds in the magazine out of a Mauser '98. Depending on your action length and feeding characteristics you might have a single shot on your hands, which isn't necessarily a bad thing with a new and young shooter. My current preferred load for this activity is the Lee copy of the Harris boolit, 150gr spitzer with 7.5gr of Unique. Feeds fine and with gas checks will just about shoot a hole at 50yd with hardly any recoil.

[lightman]

When my Wife and Sons started shooting a 308 I loaded some of the Speer 100 grain half jacket plinkers over some BL-C2. I used odd military cases, not expecting to get them back! Probably won't cycle an auto but they were fairly accurate out of 3 different bolt guns. Good enough to hit a goose at 100 yards or so.

[SSGOldfart]

John if you have the cast bullets supplement no.1 there is a great article on reduced loads by CE.Harris. Great Read on this subject. I'm one that has to shot squib / gallery loads do to heath reasons( Doc said no recoil ). I've shot hundreds of 308's
With Lyman 311291without gas check and unsized using 2grs of
RedDot.

[Jniedbalski]

In my 308 axis I use the lee 90 to 100 gr pistole bullet cast with what ever scrap i have on hand.I have.i sized to .311. No gas check and use 3.2 grains of bullseye. Thay shoot great to (50yards haven’t tried them farther. They shoot like A big target 22 and very accurate. This is one of the better light loads I have tried

[Johnch]

Thanks
Now I have a place to start

John

[Mr_Sheesh]

I'd avoid using the cases you shoot reduced loads in for full power loads (you can get headspace issues in rimless cases - Mark them with a Sharpie or use a different headstamp on low power cases) and do expect the slower loads to have a different POI (at the right bullet weight / powder charge numbers, you can get close enough to the high powered load's trajectory for being able to use the same sight settings, you might have to mentally translate - not a problem if this is a dedicated mouse fart gun

[waco]

How bout the Lee soup can 113gr bullet with a dash of pistol powder?

[RU shooter]

How low can you go ? In a 30-06 24"barrel I've gone down to 3 grs of Bullseye with a 185gr Lee bullet I would bet a 100 gr at that same charge of Bullseye (3gr) would do ok in the slightly smaller 308 case .