THE HANDLOADING BENCH
308 Winchester Rides Again Part 3 By Laurie Holland
Hannams and Norman Clark. I’ve long liked 175gn bullets in .308 Win and often use the Sierra MatchKing version for such jobs as basic accuracy testing, barrel run-in, scope sight-in, and short-range competition. So, giving the ballistically more efficient, if much more expensive, Berger a try seemed a good idea.
0.308” 175gn match bullets. Left to right: Sierra MK, Berger VLD, Berger BTLR, new Berger OTM Tactical designed for long-range shooting from shorter barrels with lower MVs.
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First off, I loaded the bullet over H4895, a superbly efficient and flexible powder in .308 Win, but very much overshadowed by its slower burning VarGet stablemate. (Reigning F/TR World and GB league champion Russell Simmonds is one of the few top GB F/TR shooters to use H4895, in his case paired with the 155.5gn Berger BT, which must say something good about it in this cartridge!) Running a near three-grain range of charge weights in three-round batches showed that this 175 shot very well in my Barnard and its 1-10” Broughton, the top load alone of eight exceeding 0.4”, so the combination seemed a
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