Re: Best overall SA 308 bolt face competition caliber?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: bohem</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I recently looked at this considering that I've been shooting the 6.5CM and 260's for a couple of years and more than several barrels. A good friend and extremely capable match shooter buddy has been rocking the 243 in comps for ages and it's an awesome competitor in our game. He shoots Mr. Tubb's DTAC coated in HBN @ 3080fps
I put data in there that I've seen first hand and all the values are using the (Litz) options in JBM all at 0'DA with identical HoB, Zero, etc etc inputs.
208 Amax @ 2750 from my 26" 30-06 (not a short action but the plots were already made)
162 Amax from a friend's 26" 7mm CM that has been SBN'd
140 Amax from my 22.5" 6.5CM
115 DTAC from another friend's 24" 243 Win
Note that where the 243 rocks everything in drop due to good BC and excellent speed the wind is where the money is made and the lowly 30-06 quickly separates itself from the rest of the pack.
My $0.02, is that the 6.5CM/260/6.5x47L or a 7CM/7GPC/7-08 is the ticket to balance the following considerations:
Solid trajectory for KD and UKD applications
Powder use/burn is appreciably the same across all the SA's in the size of a 308
Wind performance is negligibly different at 1000yd and for this game, most shots don't go over 800 let alone 1000yd. Very very very few break into the 4 digits.
Barrel life
Projectile and brass cost
Overall cost of ownership is
Powder use: Wash
Barrel life: 7's, then 6.5's, then the 6's
Bullet cost: Hornady 6/6.5's cost effectively the same, 7's are slightly more expensive to tie with the DTAC but they're all within $0.05/bullet of each other
So, it comes down to what you really need the rifle to do, any of them make great platforms to compete with but for someone that can't saddle the extra cost of a barrel installation every 12-18 months (for most competitive 243 shooters, some much more often than that) then the 6.5 family makes a lot of sense and the short action 7's do even better.
I <span style="font-style: italic">WAS</span> considering a 6mm of some flavor until I ran the numbers shown in the plots below only to realize that I"m not buying anything except more time in the shop barreling up 6mm barrels instead of shooting on a Saturday afternoon.
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Drop</span></span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Wind</span></span>
I would be remiss if I did not put the obligatory disclaimer in here though:
A guy that shoots out 308 barrels every year and practices all the time with it will almost assuredly beat the guy who has a Xmm whiz-bang super round but doesn't shoot it often enough to be really proficient with it.
Case in Point:
SubMOA on here was regularly placing in the top 5 or fighting for the top spot at many matches with a 308 when his competition were running 260's, 7-08's, 7 short mag family and 243's. He shoots extremely well, and when he moved to the 6x47L I knew that the competition had just gotten even tighter.</div></div>
This is an excellent post.
