I've heard people say 308 isn't enough rifle

I used to shoot railroad tie base plates bolted to a 1/2" plate and 7.62x51 tore them up at 200 yds.



I've since gone to 1/2" AR500 plates and don't have that issue anymore.

mongoslow said:

really question what they are trying to kill and from how far they are trying to kill it
150 yards on a half inch thick plate ,( I'm blaming the low right hit on me) all the other hits are 145gr fmj from my 350L, barely left a divot , that 165gr interlock almost got through, looks like plenty of gun to me

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on paper with me shooting off the stick that shot against the bullseye is good enough for meat in the freezer, I pulled that steel shot pretty bad though kneeling and off the stick but still that much damage out of a 16" barrel is impressive, a 20-22" barrel and a solid hit will punch through the plate, so when is the 308 not good enough

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On African Dangerous Game and Kodiak Bears . Just MY opinion and some observations from actually hunting in Africa as well as Alaska .

90% of the time a WELL PLACED shot trumps cartridge caliber ,until it DOESN'T I personally use a 7mm RM and believe along the lines of
Karamoja Bell aka Walter Bell . He shot 90% of everything in Africa with a 7mm Mauser ,including Elephants . Reportedly he was also close enough too spit on 80 % of them ,from what I've read . I hunted arguably one of the most dangerous animals lb. for lb. in the wrong place at the wrong time and wish I'd had a machine gun . Last pic . IF anyone thinks differently put yourself between their meal and watch how fast they can cover ground in DEEP SNOW ,no wonder Bears and Wolf's leave them alone !.

Buckaroo Banzai! Consider this stolen.

citizenconn said:

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Obviously they haven't shot a 25rd mag of M80 ball through a Franklin Armory binary trigger equipped 308 AR! About as much fun as you can have with your boots on! My Frankenstein conglomeration DPMS pattern 308 is pretty fun to shoot and is decently accurate to boot. 20in 1-10 twist medium profile (Midway USA special) barrel. I had to get a different gas tube as the first one I got was faulty.

There is plenty of magnum enthusiasm in some hunting circles. I personally know a couple guys who hunt with 300 RUM and 338 WM because they lost deer with "small" rounds like 270 and 7RM. I cannot say their rifles don't work, but they really don't kill deer any deader than the 243 their spouses and kids use so... well, ya know.

185gn Berger Juggernauts, 20 shots at 200 yards

Apparently the chambering seemed to be popular with some American Desig. Marksmen in Afghanistan.

And with a number of NATO countries for quite a while. It speaks for itself, as the cartridge intended to go against Warsaw Pact forces near the Fulda Gap in a possible skirmish called World War 3…..

I find it odd that this debate keeps popping up. It's coming up 70 years that this cartridge/chambering has been around.

Really heavy game or dangerous game may require more power / more momentum, sure, duh! Everybody knows this. For the smaller white tail deer east of the Mississippi, one could make the argument that the .308 is too powerful.

The .308 is used in match competitions, so we're certainly not talking any accuracy issues.

It's great to have a rifle that chambers surplus military ammunition ... fun range-blasting practice and all.

There's stacks of misinformation about the .308. Some people believe the Earth is flat. Maybe space aliens are talking trash about the .308.

Again, I don't know why any debate continues. What hasn't been said about the .308 that hasn't already been said dozens upon dozens of times before?!
.

.308 ain't enough for what exactly I wonder? It will pretty much handily stop every creeping thing that creepeth, if I needed one hunting rifle to do it all .308 probably wouldn't be a bad choice, a nice classy looking bolt action pairs nicely with a .308/7.62 battle/defensive rifle too.

I have a 7-08, never used it or .308 on game but something tells me there isn't much I'd likely encounter that would go very far after getting drilled with 150gr projectile going almost 3k/fps. It's weird, I've heard idiots talking before, they say something like ".308 is trash, .270 is trash, 30-30 trash, etc..... just ready to completely write off some of the most popular and effective cartridges because of a bad shot or some anomalous event.

I shut down and stop listening to people when they talk like that, there are some cartridges I just flat out don't want anything to do with ans don't interest me at all, but I won't call em trash because it's pretty universal, a fast moving chunk of lead kills. Some a lil more efficiently than others...

Also, @mongoslow, nice plate. You run a carriage bolt through the front and use a nut/washer/spring in the back? I wish smacking steel at varying ranges was my job, I could do it all day. I can't wait til I can get back to that.

The 308 is common and boring so some folks just like to pump up their favorite niche cartridge by disparaging an old workhorse.

Are these the same people who then say .223 if fine for deer?

Old Hobo said:

The .308 is used in match competitions, so we're certainly not talking any accuracy issues.

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But also acknowledging here - almost all of these competitions have some handicap class which isolates the 308 or 308 and 5.56/223 together, away from other higher performing cartridges. F/TR and Palma in F-class competition, Heavy Metal in 3 Gun, Tac class in PRS, as examples - these handicap classes exist to acknowledge the performance gap of the 308 behind other options.

Of all the deer I have taken I think only one or two have been taken with a cartridge most would consider superior to 308 in anyway. Most of my deer have been taken with cartridges significantly less capable, in some way, than 308 Win.

Without a doubt the .308Win is a great cartridge.

My problem with the .308, is that it's too much for about 80% of the hunting I do, then it's not enough for the other 20% that I do (IMHO).

The majority of my big game hunting is on whitetails ranging from blinds/stands to open country. I can cover most of that with a .260 and 120 grain bullets. For the times I head west, I like a faster flatter shooting cartridge that does better in the wind.

For the other 20% of my hunting, I prefer to go with a 300Win. Yes the .308W will work, but I can launch a a heavier, higher BC bullet faster. I don't sweat range/elevation as much as I do wind. Distance can be lased and dialed, wind is a PITA.

For competitions, the .308 is about dead, except for those classes that it's regulated to. The 6.5s and 6mms have pretty much eclipsed it. I can shoot my 6mmSLR against a friend of mine with his .308 win and either 168s or 175s and I'm using a little less than half of the windage he is. I can also see my impacts as I'm dealing with a lot less recoil. For ringing steel, why would I want to deal with a 168-175 grain when I can do the same thing with a 105-140?

Chuck R. said:

For competitions, the .308 is about dead, except for those classes that it's regulated to. The 6.5s and 6mms have pretty much eclipsed it. I can shoot my 6mmSLR against a friend of mine with his .308 win and either 168s or 175s and I'm using a little less than half of the windage he is. I can also see my impacts as I'm dealing with a lot less recoil. For ringing steel, why would I want to deal with a 168-175 grain when I can do the same thing with a 105-140?

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I love it. As the world moves away from where I want to be, I see more room for me.

I've killed a good many animals
with 30/30's and arrows and
patched round balls over real
black powder and lots of other
"obsolete " things that people
say and think are inadequate
to use for killing game.
But then again, I know how to
shoot and hunt, and can properly
cut up and cook whatever I
kill with no difficulty
Lots of people are screwed
right out of the gate because
they never put in the work
necessary to gain skills and
become proficient at them in
the real world

I've shot the 308 in various forms of competition and Deer hunted with it for over 4 decades. I've never found it to be lacking. Sure, some of the 6 and 6.5mm's shoot a little flatter and may even buck the wind better. It seems like people either love it or hate it?

illinoisburt said:

There is plenty of magnum enthusiasm in some hunting circles. I personally know a couple guys who hunt with 300 RUM and 338 WM because they lost deer with "small" rounds like 270 and 7RM. I cannot say their rifles don't work, but they really don't kill deer any deader than the 243 their spouses and kids use so... well, ya know.

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Matters more where you put the bullet than what you shoot it with in most cases.

The 308 win is not the best choice for Cape Buffalo. For North American it will get the job done

For me the .308 has been plenty for anything I've ever hunted or ever will hunt just as it will be for most of us that hunt in the lower 48.
As for me I own 7 rifles in .308 and 1 in 30-06.

Chuck R above discussed the key element of the "enough gun" arguments that most people tend to ignore. It is really about shot placement considerations and maximum effective range. In these type of discussions, shot placement capability is normally limiting for maximum effective range, not bullet performance on the animal.

The vast majority of hunters never try to use their guns to make ethical shots at anywhere near what the rifle is capable of. For many there is just no real opportunity. If you never need to shoot past "up close" (lets just say 150 yards), good shot placement is normally just a case of adequate gun accuracy combined with shooter ability to pull the trigger with the sights pointing at the right spot inside the kill zone. For this type of hunting, most all commonly used guns have plenty of available choices for bullets that do their part of the job just fine for big deer or slightly larger game.

Field accuracy gets a little more tricky when discussing shots where the shooter must account for bullet drop and wind drift. For those that do hunt in situations where there is a real need for dealing with both bullet drop and wind drift, "more gun" can help. It either extends the range that allows the shooter to make little if any correction for drop or the wind (the typical case for a less dedicated or less skilled shooter), or it reduces the error associated with estimating the expected drift (the case for a more skilled shooter). In this context "more gun" does not have to be a bigger cartridge, it may just be a gun optimized for less drift by using a smaller diameter but better BC bullet and the right twist rate.

On the flip side of the discussion , IF someone feels the 7.62X51mm isn't enough ; Perhaps you simply need to send additional rounds down stream

BushMaster-15 said:

On the flip side of the discussion , IF someone feels the 7.62X51mm isn't enough ; Perhaps you simply need to send additional rounds down stream

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Yes, my franklin armory binary trigger equipped 308 DPMS AR is fun as heck to shoot! 25rd pmags go quick, lol. Edit, the first time I shot it I thought it literally went full auto it was cycling so fast, so dad, who's a army vet and knows how to function check an M16 like the back of his hand, showed me that it works as designed and is not full auto. It's just that darn quick!!
Edit, I am sorry to derail your thread. I just thought it would be worthwhile to show that if a grizzly bear is attacking you and you think 308 isn't enough then you simply need more firepower through volume!