I am getting a tikka 308 shortened to 16.5" by Morgan and I'd like to make a special hunting round for it. For this conversation I am limiting hunting to about < 200yds on deer and hogs. If it makes a difference, the intent is to hunt with a suppressor on this particular setup.
In my head, since it's 308 and shorter barrel then I should lean towards a lighter bullet and drive it as fast as I can. I have some Starline brass that I am allocating for this and good ole cci 200 for primers. Looking for suggestions on bullets and powder selection. Regardless I will be trying to hit the fastest load that is on an accuracy node.

Bullets:
I have the following bullets at the house I am considering. Looking for opinions on which one of these are the best or if there is another bullet that "really does the trick" in a 308.
Lapua 155gr scenar (I believe Judd hunts with this match bullet)
Hornady 168gr A-max
Speer 150gr btsp
I'm very open to getting a nice bullet specifically designed for hunting but some are very expensive (like the TTSX) so I'm a bit hesitant.
Hornady 150gr SST - don't have but I like the price BUT read bad reviews online about its performance on game
Berger 168gr Classic Hunter - don't have but I've had good luck with Berger 30cal bullets and price it not too bad.

Powder:
Shooters World Match rifle (my current choice)
SW Precision
Varget
Tac

Any and all thoughts are welcomed. Other than brass and primer, I am very open.

I also run a 16" 308 as my primary hunting rifle. I like the 150/155's at 2750 fps in my rifle. I have been using the 150 grain Hornady SP and 155 ELDM last season. I'll be using the 155 ELDM this season, as I already have the ammo set aside for it. I shot several with the 155 ELDM and it worked great. I have also used the 168 A-max/ELDM, with good success. The 150 SST would work well for you at the speeds you are looking at. It has always performed good for me in multiple calibers. The Speer 150 grain would do well. I've never hunted with the Scenars, but I know multiple people who do with good success.

Powder wise, SW Match, Varget, and TAC would be good choices. You'll get a little more speed with TAC or SWM. They are double base ball powders and will yield a little bit more velocity over Varget. Something in the 45.5 to 46.5 grains with the 150/155 bullets with any of those 3 would be the cats meow!

165 gr SGK
165 gr TGK
168 gr Classic Hunter
155 gr TMK (what I run)
155 gr VLD-H

I've loaded all those, and got great feedback from hunters on all of them.

H-Varget is great if the barrel is over 18" long
IMR-8208 will get you more velocity in the 16" barrel.

The grandson’s bolt gun shoots 150 gr SSTs. Never lost a deer - so far. He has that short barreled Ruger tang safety with the full length stock.

Tagging in on this discussion as I want to get a short barreled (16-17 inch), suppressed rifle in the future as well. .308 and 7mm-08 are two calibers on top of my list for such a setup. I can't give any advice on developing a load for a short barreled 308, as I don't have any experience doing so. I do, however like the SST bullets. They work fantastic in 300blk at 2200fps. I also recently switched from 150 gr accubonds to 150 gr SST in my 22" barreled 308, due to availability. So far, I have had no issues with the SST's in 308. IMO, they are a solid choice.

Yes, you know my answer...I've shot that scenar out of a 16" 308 AR and it was a hammer on whitetail, just checked my shooter app and I was pushing it 2710 out of it. I was using 8208 but anything in that Varget burn rate area would work or a tiny bit faster...H4895 jumped in my head first.

If I just didn't want to shoot those or wanted faster, I'd look for 125 TNT's or 125 ballistic tips...both would be awesome for the environment you describe.

Hi Korean Redneck…

I run 7mm-08 with Barnes TTSX, light for caliber.
They hammer the game. Don’t be afraid of the cost unless you’re shooting 200-300 per season.

I’d say look for 130-140 grain range.
Varget, IMR-4064 or others would give good results.
Pick up the Barnes reloading manual.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Kris
Cajun in TX

Just checked Barnes Bullets website, lots of 308 load data online.

Took the wife's new Weatherby today to test for best load. 20 in barrel. Best was 48 grains of H380 and Nosler 125 Accubond. Didn't Chrono the load but my guess 2800. Gonna load another group for her deer hunting in about 3 weeks..

I’d probably try a 150 grain Sierra ProHunter a try they have always been good for me. If you wanted to go all out Ricky Bobby give the 125’s a try.

My favorite deer hunting rig before I switched to 6.8 SPC was a Rem Mod 7 with 16 1/2" barrel .308 shooting the Nos BT (hunting) in 125 gr. It is an absolute deer hammer. I also shot the Barnes 130 gr TTSX with the same powder charge and same poi. My powder of choice was Winchester 748.

I’ve always used Varget or TAC in my 308.

Any of those bullets will work. I’ve killed about a dozen different animals with 150 or 165 Nosler Ballistic Tips.

I was pleasantly surprised i was able to get 2675 fps from a 16” suppressed barrel with 165s over 46 gr of Varget.

I’ve only shot one animal with a 125 nbt’s out of a reduced load 30-06 about 2700 fps. It didn’t exit a javalina. Not sure how much faith I’d have
in them.

Barnes 130gr TTSX over a load of TAC for the win. Once you get your velocity, adjust your length to give it a little jump to the rifling to get your groups to tighten up. Some rifles require more or less jump then others. The Sierra 125's may perform at velocity, but they suck at 300BO velocity.

The other projectile if you can find it is the Speer Gold Dot in .30 caliber you will find them in 150gr. I have shot several deer with it and haven't been able to find the slug, yet. I have good luck with the Grand Slam line as well.

Good Luck!

I'd shoot 150 SSTs over your most accurate node of Varget. My .308 with a 20" Hart bull barrel shoots those 150s over 43.9 gr Varget. Not the hottest load, but it shoots lights out and had no issues bang-flopping a nice buck at over 230 yards last year.

As usual, I really appreciate all the responses. I just got the action back from Morgan. Haven't shot the work he's done for me but does sure turn around work real fast. My main conclusion is that I should buy more brass. With my life, I'll probably shoot more than I hunt this year so I can make a couple recipes.

Going to start with the SW Match Rifle and 155 Scenar only because I had such good luck it and the 155 vld in my 26" 308. Both bullets with a bunch of Tac was amazing at 300yds at least but I kept ruining brass. If it's reasonable to hunt with then I'll keep loading since i got a bunch of these. I'll try on some piggies first.

Yall have convinced this cheapo, I will look into a more custom hunting bullet regardless of price. Currently going to decide between the 150sst, 155 vld hunter, 130 ttsx, 125/150 bt. I will certainly ricky bobby this one too, but within the lessons learned from before. Not gonna lie, going for a cool factor too. The nosler bt seems pretty cool to me at first thought.

JG, in regards to the comment about Varget in 18" or > barrels, just curious is there a particular reason?

Any thoughts on using IMR 4895 for this purpose? Let's say for a 150/155gr bullet. I got an 8lb jug for a good price when powder was scarce but not sure what to do with it. It appears in both Hodgdon and Nosler websites' load data for the bt bullet.

KR,

ten or more years ago, I worked up a .308 load with the 130 TTSX for the wife and nephews. Turns out it is as effective as it is pleasant to shoot. Now I use it as my main hunting bullet. Our deer average 225 on the scales and a few will push 245+ every year. Pigs go up to about the same size. The 130 TTSX works well even when the kids shoot the pigs in the shoulder. Varget works well, but the .308 is not picky. 0.010” off the lands is my default for TTSX’s, which works well.

Here are a few examples with the 130 TTSX:

Jeff, great videos. I'm actually making some 556 with a 62gr tsx. These all copper bullets definitely have a cool factor to me so I'm still thinking. I really need to make time to go the range at least.

I'd ditch the high BC bullets for shots no longer than 200 yds. Scenar's would be my first choice of what you mentioned, but I'd look for some accubond, ballistic tip, or TTSX instead.

KR,

TSX’s were inconsistent in terminal performance for me, which caused me to quit Barnes and monos for awhile. Around 2011, I tried the TTSX and have completely changed over to them for hunting in all of my rifles. They perform very consistently, conservatively on hundreds of animals at this point if pigs are included. So the point is there are as many performance differences between monos as there are differences between lead core bullets. The LRX’s perform well too, but I’ve only used those less than ten times on animals as most of my hunting now is in the Brush Country.

The other bullet I used a lot in .308 is the 175 SMK. I used to fill the back of pickups full with does with that bullet helping one ranch finish their MLD tags at year end to comply with their management plan. It is accurate and penetrates well, usually tumbling through with dramatic wound channels. It is accurate enough to reliably make brain shots depending on the shot presented. I tried the 168 Amax, the predecessor to the ELD, and quickly quit it as it would not exit most of the time even on small does.

Good hunting.

I'm down to the 150 Nosler Ballistic Tip or the 130 Barnes TTSX. Honestly, I narrowed it down mostly based on the tip, meaning these 2 have tips that make the bullet easy to ID really quickly. Stupid reasoning but hey at least I'll be able to tell what it's loaded with with based on the tip, brass and my notebook. I have about 5-off 308 recipes already.

KR, both excellent choices. Good luck!

From what I have seen, going to a faster burn rate powder will generate more velocity. You can load H-Varget for a medium to short barrel, and get the load to shoot tight. But, if velocity matters to you, there are some potentially better options of powder.

And H-Varget is a staple powder of mine. It is one of my favorite powders produced.

Have also heard of many loading the 110 grain Barnes tactx (spelling) designed for the 300 BO in 308/30-06 with good results. I figure it suppose to expand at BO velocity they surely would in a 308.

Might look at the 160 gr FTX (30/30 or 308MX). SIL busted a large hog with 308MX real bad (completely took out spine). Either work in 308W, supposedly 30/30 version would open up at slower fps. I reloaded mx with 30/30 and SIL did real cloverleaf @ 100, LeverE powder. I couldn't get the 'leaves' to touch with Marlin 336 30/30. But I only paid 300$ for the rifle.