308Nut

$400 in anchorage to cut, thread, chamber, crown and bead blast. $100 is a steal!!

I must agree with STOMP on this. I've just never had the smashing success with VARGET that everybody else has. While I always keep a supply on hand and develop loads with it in new barrels I never seem to get the results I'm looking for. IMR4064 is a great powder for the 308. I always keep some in hand and use it for some loads. 2 of the most overlooked powders for the 308 are H4895 and IMR4320. These can be great. It is quite possible that my all time favorate 308 powder is RL15. I've had more success with it in more barrels than any other. I've never figured out why I read so much about temperature sensitive it is. I've shot the same loads over the chrony at -20F. and +120F. The velocities have been surprisingly close. If my memory serves me right, 50ish'sec. Noteworthy powders: RL15, RL17, H4895, BENCHMARK, VARGET, H4350, IMR4320, 4064, VV N135, N140, N540, N550.

Crappy stocks and poor bedding won't cause 4-6" groups at 50 yards. There is a major problem somewhere and it's likely a scope or mounting issue.

As far as the 26 nosler, my opinion is simple. It would have been a decent option before the era of affordable laser range finders. It's only real quality is a ultra flat trajectory, which is of much less importance today than it was 25 years ago. Now with reliable rangefinding, it's better to have better throat/bore stability/consistency for more quality trigger time and less load adjustment and time waiting on new barrels. Sure with heavier than 130 grain pills windage can be improved but a few less inches at a grand doesn't take the place of quality, consistent trigger time. I'm sure it's life is shorter than many think. My guess would be that you would develop a load and enjoy it for a couple hundred rounds at best before you noticed pressures going up due to a very heat checked and eroded throat. Time to set back and make load adjustments. Enjoy for another 100-200 rounds at best. Repeat. Then it'll start happening every 50 rounds...sure we can milk it for 1000+ rounds but not without additional headaches, expenses and down time. For a 26 cal, run with a 6.5x47L up to 6.5-06 and be happy, the 26 nosler will make you miserable if you're serious about shooting and practicing. For the guy going to buy 4 boxes of ammo, sight in, check the zero once a year and hunt a few times a year, it could be an ok choice. That said, this is a long range section and that kind of trigger time and long range shooting don't go hand in hand. Just my opinion, M

Lance, Please run the numbers again. The energy values are way off...Referring to post 29

Every barrel is unique. Breaking barrels in means different things to different shooters. When I 'break in' a barrel, I'm just trying to burnish the metal. I'm not trying to 'smooth' anything out.

If you have your heart set on a 300+ bull, by all means hold out for one. If you're happy with a meat bull then you better take one if you have a good clean opportunity. There is no shame in either choice. I had my first elk tag at age 19. Back then I had very few animals under my belt and was hungry for success. I pursued every bull I saw. Even spikes. I had encounters with spikes all the way to 390 bulls and everything in between. In the end I had tag soup. It was an archery hunt and I just couldn't get it done. Would I have been happy with a spike? Absolutely!! Would I have been happier with a 390 bull? Absolutely!! Who wouldn't be. The moral of the story is that one can be in pursuit of a meat bull and success while also having opportunities for something great. Let us know what you decide and how the hunt turns out regardless of the outcome. I know how impossible it is for an 18 year old to grasp how he has the rest of his life to get a big bull but the best hunting years of your life are yet to come. Be patient and keep applying for elk tags, put your time in and good bulls will come. Ever since that first hunt I've desired a 350+ bull in the worst way. On every elk hunt I've been on (5) I've been on 350-390 bulls. I turned 39 this year and I just got a bull a little over a week ago that hit the 352 and change mark. Am I happy? You bet. Would I have rather got him when I was 19? Absolutely, but wine gets better with time. I was so happy and emotional that I cried. Twice. I doubt I would have had such tears of joy at 19. Tears never felt so good. M

You say maybe even a moose. Are you talking about shiras, Canadian, or Alaska/Yukon moose? While you don't need a super magnum or any magnum for big arctic bulls, you do need mass and material. Raw Sectional density is very important but having a good amount of weight and mass is also very useful. IMHO, a 30 cal is more comfortable for big bulls than smaller calibers. Can you kill a big bull with the smaller calibers? Sure can. 30s with heavier pills are just more forgiving when shoulder bones are concerned. If you do go with .26, .277 or .284, I'd recommend taking ONLY broadside shots through ribs only. That's not a bad policy anyway but sometimes all you get is a shoulder for a target. IMHO, the 284 win or 280AI is about as good a balance as you can get between coyotes and elk and everything in between. In a pinch, will do fair on a mature arctic bull. If you think you 'might' hunt moose someday, I certainly wouldn't build a gun based on moose unless I planed on hunting them regularly, which I do. Hence the reason I have a 300 win mag and a 308 win. They're very forgiving but my buddy's 338 flat unplugs them. Not saying go 338. Like many, I hate recoil too. I only shoot the 300 win when I have to and spend most of my time behind the 308 which tackles them with ease. Even through shoulders.

The story for this would take forever to read and longer to write so I'll keep it short. Wyoming Yellowstone National Park migratory bull. Taken November 4th 25 miles from the park. Horseback wilderness. 598 yards, 210 ABLR high shoulder/spine drop. Haven't put a tape to him but he's got good length everywhere and has a drop tine near his left ear, devil points on his brows. With the back tine cluster, long sharp brows and extras, he just looked flat out wicked.

IMHO carbon fiber and steel just do not have a relationship that begets good performance where rifle barrels are concerned. Better to have a smaller contour all steel barrel than a heavy hybrid. As far as cartridges, my vote goes to: 260rem, 284 win, 308 win. All make great coues cartridges and work well with 'lighter' rifles.

I'm assuming you're referring to the 308 win? Anyway that's a great combo. 42-46 grains should offer you a stellar load.

Very nice!

I'm with DB on this. It's a bit late in the game to be trying to make this work. As far as temp and altitude (pressure), at 500 yards, the difference between 3000' and average temp swings has negligible. More noticeable at 600 and by 800 you'd better have accurate measurements. As far as reading pressure, you can use a pocket weather station such as a kestrel or brunton adc.

I'd say it did great. Perfect mushroom. Through both scapula and spine (dead center spine). It definately hit as much bone as it did meat and held up well. It did loose quite a bit of weight but I guess you'd expect that from hitting heavy bone. There was no indication of an explosion. The hide on the offside caught the bullet. That's expected of a bullet that expends it's energy with expansion. He scored (official SCI) 352-2/8"

I also 'bump' my shoulders for reliable feed and function but also to try and aid in load consistency. I try and keep it slightly less than .001 but it's dang hard to set up and measure so I call it .001". Setting it back too much can and will cause head separation. Gotta keep that base close to the bolt face.

Absolutely there are advantages. Regardless of whether or not you turn neck: 1: you can set your neck tension to however much you want. 2: it eliminates the need for an expander ball. I used to neck turn but have never noticed any difference. Then again, some of today's brass is very consistent. Willhunt hit the nail on the head regarding the correct temp. The necks really need to be heated properly or they don't anneal at all or they get too soft. Better to have them a bit too hard than too soft. It's important to know that brass is vastly different than steel regarding tempering. You hear often times of cooling freshly annealed brass in water, and it's common thought that this will harden the necks. With brass this is not the case. Air cool or water cool makes no difference to the brass. When I order reamers, I get 'tight, no turn neck' reamers. The necks barely change size during firing and reloading which eliminates the need to anneal often. It's the expansion and resizing actions that work harden the necks. Eliminate the expansion and resizing action and this keeps the brass very consistent. It's impossible to eliminate it but it's possible to get movement to .001 or even less. When I take a fired case from my chambers, I cannot push a bullet in the neck without a press. They virtually don't need sizing but I do it. M

280AI is a cool cartridge. The kimber MA is a good looking rifle but you need to get the serial# from the rifle and go to google to search kimber rifle recall. You'll get a link to their list of mountain ascent recalled serial numbers. Make sure it's not a recalled rifle. All that said I've heard other quality horror stories. My best friend has one on layaway in 308. The first one he had on layaway got recalled. I have seen some where the flutes weren't timed with the action and one that wasn't bedded like it was suppose to be. I'm not trying to steer you away, just maybe proceed with caution. M

Very nice. If you don't find the accuracy you're looking for with retumbo, try H1000. If that doesn't work try IMR7828. You're sure to find a good load with one of those 3.

Truing is squaring up the bolt face, receiver face, bolt lugs, receiver lugs etc...IMHO, unless something is clearly wrong, truing a 700 is not necessary. They're pretty straight and square from the factory. Can't vouch for the savage. Floating is keeping a gap between the barrel and stock. This allows the barrel to vibrate the way it needs to without outside influence. You'll hear the term 'barrel harmonics'. Free floating allows uninterrupted harmonics. Bedding is mating the action to the stock with some type of compound such as epoxy. This helps keep the action stress free. Stress in the action hurts your accuracy potential be it from improper bedding or improper scope mounting. By mating I don't mean permanently gluing them together. A releasing compound is used so they can still be separated but it allows the stock to be molded to the action for a perfect fit. It also ensures that when things get put back together that it all goes back exactly the same. Pillars are commonly used between the bottom metal and action at the action screw locations to prevent the stock from crushing when the screws are torqued. Proper and even torque is needed. As far as barrels, Krieger, Brux and Bartlein lead the way in the match world. Others are excellent as well. Lilja, Hart, Schneider, Rock Creek are all great barrels. Triggers: I like jewel but I also prefer trigger pulls in the ounces. If you want pounds, a cheaper make can suffice. My cousin uses a shilen and likes it. Timney are popular as well. As far as the 6.5-284, it is a solid round. I'd try and steer a noobee towards something that has a bit more longevity such as the 284 win. Same case, bigger bore. Barrels hold up a lot more on the 284. I'm shooting with guys at matches using the 284s and they're in the thousands on round count and still pounding the x ring. 6.5-284s will get you about 1000 if you're lucky and 1200 if you're super lucky. For a noobee, you'll need trigger time. No point in getting 1/2 way through your learning curve and have to wait on another barrel and wait on a smith to cut it. Besides, whatever the 6.5 version can do, the 284 does it better in every category except recoil.

Remington or savage are great choices for LR platforms. Ruger scope mounting leaves a lot to be desired. Good solid mounting is a must for consistency. You will need as much consistency as possible for the ranges you want to get into. As far as calibers and cartridges, if you draw the line at 500-600 yards, you have a lot more options. 260, 708, 308, 6.5-284, 284 are all great choices. Even if 800-1000 yard coues were on the menu, they are all capable with the right bullets. All are easy to load for and find good loads for. All have tolerable recoil. Sure you can go 7mag or 300 mag but a coues will fold at 600 just as easy with the smaller cartridges. Why beat yourself up and waste all that powder? Now if you're looking for 1K elk, that's another story. If you're new to this, you will be firing a lot of rounds. Barrel life may be a consideration. The 708, 308 will lead the way for the best longevity. Though the 260 rem and 284 aren't horrible either. Choosing high BC offerings for a given caliber helps a lot. The less wind drift, the easier it is to make good hits. 140s for the 6.5s, 162-180 for the 7mms and 190-215 for the 30 cals are examples of weights that typically have better BCs so long as they're the right type. A 140 6.5 amax or vld will blow the doors off the 140 accubond for example. For coues, softer more frangible bullets work well. Amax, ABLR and VLD work well on lighter game. Again for elk, that's another story.

Just curious, what are feeding your varget (should you find it) in?

http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/rifle They don't list the 168 specifically but do list the 162 and 170. That should get you started

Looking at various polls and match results it is obvious that Krieger is the most popular, Brux 2nd and Bartlein a close third. I just ordered my 1st Brux in fluted Sendero. Currently running Lilja and Bartlein. The Lilja seems like the steel is a bit softer than others and it has not held up as well as I'd hoped it would have. The Brux is replacing this Lilja currently chambered in 6.5-284 and will become a straight 284 win. My Bartlein isn't quite as accurate as I'd like but it's still a very accurate barrel. I'm looking for .2s and .3s and this one is a solid .4-.5 with the heavies (210-215s in the 308). In the very near future I'm going to also try a Schneider barrel. Not sure what chambering. Maybe 300 win mag. Let us know what you decide. M

An accurate BC is needed for a long range hunter. They need to know how much impact velocity there is for two reasons. Energy and expansion. All hunting bullets have a minimum velocity expansion threshold. We need to know what them minimum is and what our impact velocity will be so we can draw a line or close to it as to whether or not a shot is within our rifles capability even if it is within our shooting capability.

I use the double chronograph method. It takes a bit of time to get set up accurately. I set them exactly 600' apart. Document the ambient air temp, pressure and humidity and make notes of the near and far velocities. Then you can compare the averages with JBM or other shooting apps. You basically adjust your BC until the near and far velocities match. This isn't the best method for 1k shooting and beyond but is scary accurate to 700 yards and it'll get you real close at 1k. Then you can adjust as needed from drop tests. You'll know really quick if you're doing something wrong if your drops based on your calculated BC don't match your app. Best to get those ironed out before you settle on the final BC from chrony and drop tests. Drop tests alone aren't always conclusive because it only takes minor mistakes to generate either an over or under estimate. Near and far velocities are bullet proof assuming your chronographs are accurate. Then if your dials don't match, either you're doing something wrong or your scope dials aren't precise or both but at least you'll have a clearer idea of your down range impact velocity. Berger bullets does a pretty good job of getting their BCs pretty close. Sierra also does a great job for most of their bullets as does hornady. Hornady doesn't test them over as many velocity ranges as the other 2 but out to 600-700 hornady numbers will be very close. Nosler has always been a bit on the high side but with their new ABLR they're WAY on the high side. At least with the 210 thirty cal. Berger bases their G1 BCs on an average where Sierra gives you multiple G1 BC values over several velocity ranges since BC changes with velocity. Use of the G7 model cuts down on the sensitivity but like every thing else, isn't fool proof. In short, you have to get an accurate distance between chronies and you have to have atmospheric data that is spot on to make it work right. I have compared my tests against other known, trusted sources and have been less than 1% off almost every time. Less than 2% the other times. Usually .5%.