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I’ve taken more big-game animals with the 308 Winchester than any other cartridge. Not because it’s my favorite, but because its compact design fits in the compact rifles I like to hunt with, because it is one of the most ballistically balanced cartridges ever engineered, and, more than anything, because I trust it. Faith in a cartridge is developed by watching it work on everything from feral hogs to moose, at spitting distance and out to 500 yards. Below are six 308 Winchester loads that can solve any problem a big-game hunter might encounter. In fact, I can’t imagine why you would ever need anything else. I’ve used every one of the loads here to take big-game animals all over the world. Forget advertising hype, these are field-proven.
1. Remington Core-Lokt 180-grain PSP RN
It was the day after Thanksgiving. I climbed to the top of a ridge line separating miles of timber from prime farmland. Just as the sun was shaking the frost from the mountains, a buck appeared, hot on the trail of a doe. I tracked him between wind-blown pines and when the reticle found the front of his chest, I touched the trigger, and a 12-point hill-country monster hit the dirt. Though the 308 Winchester is capable of long-range accuracy, this is not the load for reaching out there. It is what you need if you want to knock the grunts out of a rut-crazed whitetail cruising a timbered ridge. In 10-percent ordnance gelatin, this bullet will penetrate as deep as 2 feet, and the bullet will upset twice as large as its unfired diameter. It hits hard and makes deep, wide holes in critters.
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2. Hornady Precision Hunter 178-grain ELD-X
As they fondled their magnum cartridges, most of the hunters snickered when I told them I’d brought a 308 Winchester on a trophy elk hunt. But a bull elk has no idea what’s stamped on the head of a cartridge case, and with my friend and custom rifle builder Melvin Forbes peering over my shoulder, I lined up one of his rifles on the largest bull elk I’d ever seen, standing at 321 yards. On impact, the bull reared up like a mustang pony and collapsed into a cloud of New Mexico dust. At longer distances, this is the load. It was the load a group of fellow gun writers and I used during a Scout Rifle Safari in South Africa to take more than 50 big-game animals. Not only will these bullets deliver fantastic terminal performance near and far, but they will also cluster into bragging-size groups on paper or steel out of most rifles.
3. Buffalo Bore Supercharged 150-grain Barnes TTSX
Sometimes a hunter needs deep penetration as opposed to massive wound cavities. The best way to get that is generally with mono-metal bullets. However, most hunters make the mistake of selecting heavy mono-metal bullets. These projectiles thrive on velocity, and since they retain all their weight, they do not need extra mass to go deep. The 150-grain Tipped Triple Shock will push to 30 inches into 10-percent ordnance gelatin. Like the great professional-hunter-turned-gunwriter Finn Aggaard once said, “Given sufficient penetration, what does any additional bullet weight add to killing power? Nothing, absolutely nothing.” On my daughter’s first Africa safari, she was hunting with a 308 Winchester and to increase her opportunities I wanted a deep-penetrating bullet that would allow for shot angles other than perfectly broadside. She fired three shots using the Buffalo Bore load and took a gemsbok, a wildebeest, and a zebra, all at distances exceeding 200 yards and every bullet passed clean through.
Related: Best 30-30 Winchester Loads for Hunting
4. Federal Fusion 150-grain MSR
Several feral hogs were trotting across a cut in the Texas brush. I picked out the largest and rolled him. The others scattered, and one made the mistake of turning towards me. My second Fusion bullet put his nose in the dirt. With expansion exceeding ¾ of an inch, this bullet creates a huge wound cavity and penetrates to about 16 inches in gel. It is an excellent load for mid-size big-game animals out of any 308 Winchester, but specifically out of Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs). To properly cycle the action, MSR ammunition needs to generate a certain amount of port pressure to drive the direct impingement system. While it’s true that about any 308 Winchester load will run in an AR10, the problem is that some loads run the guns out of time. That’s not the case here, this load has been tuned—from the primer to the projectile—to deliver optimum MSR performance.
5. Hornady Custom Lite 125-grain SST
A top-line 308 Winchester load generates 16 or more foot-pounds of recoil from an 8-pound rifle. For new or small-framed shooters, this is a punch they don’t want to be hit with. Hornady’s Custom Lite 125-grain SST load generates 38 percent less recoil and still has a muzzle energy of more than 1800 foot-pounds, outperforming the best 30-30 Winchester loads while giving substantially better trajectory. My wife was apprehensive about using a 308 Winchester until she worked with this load on the range. A few weeks later, a whitetail buck came cruising by her stand looking for love. What he found was something entirely different. The little 125-grain bullet busted the buck’s shoulder, wrecked his lungs, and was recovered just under the hide on the off-side.
6. Nosler Custom 165-Grain AccuBond
We were trudging through a bog with water almost knee-deep when we spotted the bull at 160 yards. I dropped into a kneeling position and centered the reticle on the moose’s shoulder. When the AccuBond smacked him, it sounded like Cristiano Ronaldo had kicked a soccer ball. The bull thundered into the bog and piled up within 60 yards. I’ve taken whitetails, kudu, waterbuck, sable, and, yes, even moose, with this load. The results are always the same; the bullet pushes through the vitals, leaving a trail of destruction. If placed right, the beast generally collapses into a pile when hit. With some modern 308 Winchester rifles with very short barrels, the 150-grain AccuBond load will work, too, and may be better because of its faster muzzle velocity.
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How to Select the Best 308 Winchester Load
Though not a magnum, the 308 Winchester is a very powerful rifle cartridge capable of cleanly taking any non-dangerous big-game animal. I’ve used it with great success on feral hogs and deer and seen it work splendidly on eland, which can weigh as much as 200 pounds. For hogs and deer, just about any load/bullet will work, but when you get into larger critters and stretch the distance, like with any cartridge, bullet choice becomes very important.
For smaller big game at distances inside 300 yards, Remington Core-Lokts, Tipped Core-Lokts, Winchester Power Points, and Nosler Ballistic Tip bullets are ideal. With heavier, larger-boned animals, it can be a good idea to step up to a bonded bullet like the AccuBond or even a mono-metal bullet like the Barness Triple Shock or Hornady CX. Just remember, bonded bullets should impact animals at 1800 fps or faster and mono-metal bullets work best when impacting at speeds faster than 2000 fps.
The 308 Winchester can work well at distances beyond 300 yards, but at those ranges, bullet selection becomes even more important. Look to bullets with a high Ballistic coefficient to help them retain velocity. Bonded and mono-metal bullets can work, but be cognizant of their impact velocities. For the best performance beyond 300 yards, lead core bullets optimized for low-velocity impact like the Hornady ELD-X are ideal. The 172-grain Speer Impact bullet Remington uses in their Premier Long Range ammo line is a great option, too.
The great thing about the 308 Winchester is that there are more than 150 factory loads to choose from. This means you’re almost guaranteed to find a load that suits the hunting you’re going to do, and will also shoot well in your rifle.
