0-300 yards 556
3-700 yards ???
700+ yards 300WM
What cartridge should I use to cover the middle ground?
6ARC, 6.5 Creedmore, 308.
This isn’t just for target shooting, would also be for protection innawoods against two or four legged animals
0-300 yards 556. 3-700 yards ??? 700+ yards 300WM. What cartridge should I use to cover the middle ground?
308 WINchester/7.62x51
Simple as
.308 win from 0-1,000m is solid choice. 180 grain is a good weight, in the middle on speed and energy.
for real. F Class Standard uses 308 for anything from 300 to 1000 meters and it works every time
30 inch barrel + single feeding super long OAL rounds with 200+ grain bullets is not realistic for 99% of 308 shooters and you’ll still get mogged in wind performance by most any 6 or 6.5 chambering loaded to short action magazine length.
0-700 yards 6ARC
700-1200 yards 6.5 sneed
1200-1500 yards .300NM
>1500 yards .50 BMG
You're welcome.
300 Norma doesn’t provide much vs 300winmag
>sneed
Kek, never change PrepHoleners
It provides another half inch of ogive space unless you're single loading your winmags. Also 10% more case capacity.
>6.5 Sneedmore
>6SHART
>308 WINchadster
wow, what a conundrum
Sneedmoore is like completely flat out to 400yds or something silly but you do need a long barrel
308, 30 06, and 6.5 all cover up to 1000m reliably.
308 will be the cheapest.
Eh 308 and 6.5 are both 80-120cpr. You arent using the cheap stuff for long range
flip a coin then. there's minor differences between them, but the result is all the same.
308 doesnt need a super long barrel and has better barrel life, but thats about it
308 is only reliable to 800 realistically even with good ammo
.308 past 700 yards is not the way to go
>300-700
>700-1000
You don't need something different for these ranges. 300wm is fine, or if you want something softer 6.5 or 7mm or whatever are all fine. People have done decent shooting with 308 even out to 1000 with handloads, might not be optimal but so what.
Of the newer stuff, 300prc is IMO the most promising one in awhile, damn good cartridge, but still a ways from mass coverage in terms of guns and ammo. Great fun reloading.
Over 1000-1200yd or so is getting into specialized and expensive territory and most don't even have anywhere to push that kind of range. Going 33cal or higher is a major cost in all aspects.
dedicated 500yd +- zone I'd stick with 308. commonality, availability, etc make it easier to own long term
guy wants to hit harder at 500, not poke with a pencil
mayhaps he does hogs or such at long range in particular spots
If he's running a bolt I don't see any real reason not to just use 300wm for that too if he also wants to go out further at his option. Yeah ammo is more expensive at 100-130cpr but not ludicrous 200+ territory, and it has the same commonality/availability advantages, can use the same good cans. It's 308 but "somewhat more", somewhat more power, somewhat more recoil.
Though for sure nothing wrong with using 308 or 6.5.
Looking for an gas gun for the intermediate ranges. For speed. My Bolt 300wm is for max stand-off, but game hunting out west and for 1k yard plinking.
Ah, well in that case yeah 308 or 6.5. I don't see any reason to go off the reservation at 500yd, both of those are good, readily available calibers that will have zero issues at that range. They're both about the same price at equivalent ammo quality, but 308 gives the option to buy cheapshit for training with. 6.5 has the edge if you wanted to push farther but since you've got a bolt for that whatever. 308 has more interesting BR options so maybe a consideration too if you ever wanted to add that into your mix.
7mm-08
>against two or four legged animals
>no provisions for six or eight legged animals
truly NGMI
Centaurs aren't that common in the wastelands. Even so, they can be reliably taken care of with .308.
A six-legged centaur would be truly frightening.
Only the magic from the 45-70 meme-cartridge would topple such a fiend.
>3-700+ yards
>protection
Just walk away homie
For 1000-1800 you should use 300PRC and not 300Win
More 5.56 if you're autistic.
More 300WM if you're based.
Here you go, OP.
7mm-08
.308 is fine, you can get cheaper ammo and train more. The barrels last longer than 6.5 mememore too.
Ol' .30-06 is all you'd ever need on 0-700 distance. Especially if you handload.
go shoot a durr, gramps.
6ARC is a good middle ground for what you talked about in a gasser, but the ammo is limited and expensive at the moment (thanks Hornady). Grendel has a larger selection of factory loadings, irrelevant if you handload. Plus side is you can just build out an upper and swap it with your 5.56. Better option would be .308 in a bolt or AR10 to cover beyond the limits of 5.56, it's cheap, plentiful, tons of projectile options, easy on barrels. It's not as flat at creedmore and the bullet BCs aren't great further out, but otherwise it's a fantastic option.
6ARC is super cool on paper and some of the concepts with poly 6arc in a quadstack and so on are damn neat. But as you say for the time being it's not really that practical.
Meanwhile a decent AR10 can do real tight groups. As you say the BC differences add up at real range but at 500yd they're not much.
the bullet drop isnt as important than tge wind drift. Wind drift needs skill or a bullet that reduce wind drift which will reduce error for lack of skill.
Wind drift and bullet drop are both correlated with bc, so yeah it's not identical but it's a decent proxy. Perfectly reasonable though that I should have posted a wind drift comparison instead I was just lazy and grabbed first thing I had. Zero disagreement that typical 6.5 slaughters typical 308 at 1000yd, or beyond 600-700 really. And even if we accepted high oal handloads in manual guns as a comparison I still think 6.5 is a better choice plus it's still going to be much lower recoil.
But the absolute differences shrink a lot as distance shortens, 6.5 always outperforms but in the 300-500 regime I don't think it really matters that much for most. And even at long distance it's at least somewhat subjective what matters. Like being real for where I live, 99% of hunting is <250yd. Hell, super majority is <100yd. There's near zero safe ethical shots further than that in forest or eastern forest+fields even, and it's really not hard to get within a couple hundred feet of an animal.
Ranges beyond that are paper and steel, which is fun or serious if comp but I think it's reasonable to come to different conclusions about what one is after at that point. For comp or if you just want to try for the absolute smallest groups technically possible sure optimize rounds. But it's also valid to get as good as you possibly can within the limits of any given round, if 308 makes it harder to hit the target that's not necessarily a bad thing because not like there is anything at stake beyond challenging yourself or buddies. It's easy to get caught up in specs and lose track of what you're after.
So I still think both are pretty valid choices in a semiauto short to medium range use like OP says. For a longer range bolt buying new yeah no contest, there's no great reason in 2024 imo to use 308 there, not even ammo cost. But 6.5 still doesn't have the same semi platform support.
Both are very good, the 7.62 will offer most performance needed when the range is limited. Yesterday I found out that my gunsmith shoots at a 100m range, which is rare. Gonna join his club and than im able to do good reloading for group size. But i dont like your chart, something looks kind of off. Let me do 2 very classic bullets and copy it. For the 6.5CM the 147gr factory ammo and for the 308Win handloads with 175SMK. Those 2 are common for lomg ramge or in military ammo (308)
Thats what I mean, that chart shouldbe very fair. Military spec M118LR that shoots the 175SMK vs the factory 147ELDM from Hornady both out of a 24". Im sure both might be handloaded faster but that doesnt matter. Both very heavy bullets are pretty much identical fast at the muzzle, Creedmoor only provides less recoil. Up to 300yards both pretty much perform identical but fromthere on the wind deflection on the 175gr SMK will reduce the probability to hit more and more.At 500yards I would say 7" more wind drift is pretty big . So yeah, the Creedmoor will pay for that by barrel life to get the performance and recoil. But the Creedmoor can do something that is a bit hard to do with the 308Win
If you wanna see what a 6.5CM really can do you need to compare a 24" 308Win with high BC bullets to a short 6.5CM with medium BC bullets. Im choosing lower weight bullets for a short barrel so the velocity wont be low like a stupid brick.
>24" M118LR at 2650fps with 175SMK
>18" 130gr ELDM at 2625 (DMR style)
You see a short 18" DMR will beat a 24"barrel sniper with around 15% less wind drift, drop is nearly identical.
https://www.recoilweb.com/baby-barrel-creedmoor-study-of-a-shorter-6-5-creedmoor-rifle-154581.html
6mm ARC is kind of limited in a gas gun
the Grendel bolt face in the AR15 does get nerfed down to 52k, that's true. something like the CMMG midsized stuff is interesting, you'd in theory get up to the CIP rating of 58k. But the appeal of those cartridges is their stanag compatibility, just a bolt barrel and mags. Regardless, they are limited in gassers, but by the time you're looking at a bolt gun, there's not much reason to stick with those rounds as opposed to something like 6GT/BR/Dasher etc or step up to the PRC rounds. For what OP is wanting to do, I'm not sure that makes sense. Could they work? Frick yeah they could. But there's definitely substantial cost that comes with it. Smart money is on a .308 - more trigger time.
is it possible to build a CMMG mutant or powerbolt style upper for 6mm ARC so you can run the bolt-gun only loads in it?
the AR-10 sized bolt head in an AR-15 frame seems like a good idea for that alone but I don't know if anybody actually makes parts anymore
Just shoot your 5.56 out to 700y.
>muh terminal buhlistics
Fine then shoot 308 battle rifle
>6ARC, 6.5 Creedmore, 308
you just named them plus there are dozens more. Why not just use your 300wm for everything. Why do you need more than one gun?
Maybe he wants to have something that doesn't dislocate your shoulder while shooting.
>Not just buying a Nemo .300WM AR and using it at all ranges
>Poorgay with weak shoulders
>300 wm gives my shoulders boo-boos
Do you need a maxipad for your pussy-tears?
I want speed in the mid range. Plus my wife hates the recoil of winmag so I need something that’s softer shooting for both of us
a) bullets matter more than head stamps
b) there is no 0.308" anything that can compete with its 0.243" or 0.264" or 0.284" peer
c) bullets that work great at long ranges work great as short ranges as well
You can get up a bunch of different rifles that you use for specific range increments if you like, or you can get one that does it all.
>b) there is no 0.308" anything that can compete with its 0.243" or 0.264" or 0.284" peer
Not sure what you mean by "peer" but I'd put 300prc with good 308 vld bullets up against any of those.
6.8 Western
? Another good one, though iirc made pretty directly in reaction to 6.5c. But I'm not sure what your point is either.
6.8 Western is a magnum cartridge like PRC, it's much more powerful than sneedmore. 7mm PRC is better than .300 PRC for anything you'd use VLDs for, and 6.8 Western is better than 7mm PRC since Hornady fudged the numbers for all their PRC loads.
By peer I mean cartridges with like or similar case volume and design.
The PRCs get longer and bigger as bullet diameter increases so they aren't comparable in the same way 308 Win and 7-08 Rem are, for example. But despite that, 7 PRC slaps 300 PRC silly due to 0.284" bullets being better than 0.308".
>But despite that, 7 PRC slaps 300 PRC silly due to 0.284" bullets being better than 0.308".
Sometimes it's hard to make clear one sincere not being a sarcastic gay in this place but do you have a source on that I could read and learn with? I'm certainly no expert but modern 308 vld rounds like those 241gr senecas seem from my limited shooting and everything I can find to offer pretty top tier of performance along with other quality stuff in the <33 category. I understood minor differences but not that it was "slapped silly".
I guess really I should just do the work myself and try a bunch of ballistics calculations to get a better feel for it. IIRC both cartridges are based of 375ruger. 7prc is definitely significantly lower recoil and I know .284 bullets have had a lot less wind drift then classic 30cal ones, and that arguably that's the most important factor since it's the one we have the least control over.
Anyway, thanks actually just writing this out has made me think about it a bit and set me on a better path.
Not him, here a chart with velocities i found online (not marketing box) with 24" barrels and the factory ammo (Hornady match). Not nearly like 308 vs 6.5CM, I guess it rather comes down to the recoil of both
>Not him, here a chart with velocities i found online (not marketing box) with 24" barrels
Thanks anon.
>and the factory ammo (Hornady match).
Fwiw one thing I have seen is that Hornady was loading their prc ammo slow and I don't quite understand why. Federal seems to do better.
But really these calibers probably call for handloads right now, they're surprisingly good with factory options for being so new but they're still really new and there isn't that much diversity yet. The 198gr senecas have a G1=0.840 and G7=0.421, the 212s are G1=0.95 and G7=0.461, and 241 are G1=1.15 and G7=0.555, though they call for a 1:7 twist. prc has a much better SAAMI specified COAL so you can take advantage of newer bullets like that to develop with. Dunno, just interesting if it starts pushing more general production of mags beyond the ancient 3.4" long recoil standard, stuff like that. I'm definitely not going to jump in myself for awhile yet, I don't tend to be an early adopter anymore, and when I do I'll think hard about 7prc too, but both are cool to have.
You can push them pretty easy to another +100fps, or using Bergers. Somehow in terms of price i would rather stick to the AMAX bullets than the Bergers. 230gr AMAX at 0.823 is extremly good and 0.838 for the 190gr also. But pushing to max pressure isnt always worth it, you still need to be lucky to find a group size+ES/SD so its rather common to get good loads at foctory velocity or above. I would rather get the 7mm PRC, recoil energy is way less and the recoil is also less sharp
If you really wanna shoot those extrem heavy bullets the 300 Norma would be better, thats gonna eat it better but at that point we talk about custom builds anyways. 7PRC and 300PRC with a stock Ruger or Bergara and factroy ammo is a pretty good combination for most shooters who cant even reload a 9mm
>241gr seneca
It depends on what a guy wants to do with a bullet. If you want to kill animals that one doesn't really fit the bill in any way. If you want to punch paper it might seem like it would, but consider how many top tier BR matches have been won with them. Or they might seem like a good fit for ringing distant steel, until you consider how many PRS winners shoot them.
A guy can turn whatever he likes out on a lathe and calculate whatever BC his model tells him, but I can pretty well assure you that an 0.308" projectile with a legit 1.15 G1 BC would find its way into the competition ranks if it flew at all, even if it had to be launched at pedestrian velocities. That is hasn't pretty well shines the light on it.
That's a completely fair gut check, although the asterisks around barrel requirements and coal might reasonably keep people away for awhile. But yeah totally if it's not showing up in top level comp after enough time has passed that's a bad sign for it since some pros must have tested it themselves and it didn't work IRL.
>hunting
Honestly I don't really consider that in most of these conversations because I just won't hunt it at ranges long enough for any of these to make a difference. All of them would work, and so does 308. Which I suppose itself would argue in favor of just picking a decent one with lower recoil.
7.62 x 51 effective from zero to 1,000 yards.
you should consider what ranges you have available for you to shoot at. I had a frick-off huge 6.5 rifle but decided it was overkill considering the nearby ranges only go to 300yds
Be happy you got 300m. My local ranges are 50m and near are 3x 100m lines, thats just enouth to make stuoid handloads so you drive 1000km to a 2000m range. Hard time for long range if somebody isnt rich ;_;
yeah the closest 1k range for me is about an hour and a half away.
where do you live?
columbus ohio
>steyr arms
Had some hopes to find a LR bruh close to germany ;_;
I have access to 1000yds
7mm prc is to 300 wm as 6.5 sneed is to 308
.308 is rated to 1,000 yards and 300 Win to 1 mile, a great deal depends on your skill and long range shooting is a very specific skill to develop.
If you are accurate at these ranges and the deer you are hunting is not or has a rifle with a weaker cartridge, then you can be deadly beyond their effective range.
Anon, just get a 308. It's more tolerant of various barrel lengths and proven at distance as long as you can do your part
Can anyone recommend a good optic for a 308 raifu for 300-800 yards? Feel free to post a range of options. I think I'd prefer a FFP over SFP but list them anyway.
What kind of budget are you thinking of? Any given level has a few major optics brands that all do very quality stuff so you really have to drill down yourself into specifics, what kind of reticle you like which is a really personal decision, stuff like that. There's lots of awesome options in MPVOs from $500-5000. If you're not really sure and/or can't check in person I'd lean towards something cheap first and run it for awhile so you can get a feel for what you're really after. If at all possible if getting something nice try to find a local store with it or at least the brand, or some folks in your local gun club or on the range or whatever, anything to look through it yourself in person.
Definitely would like to get my eye behind a few of the more expensive scopes I've seen online. I am in the range of maybe 800 - 1600 (id push 2k or so if there was a nice used one).
reticles are definitely tricky I just dont want a bunch of busy bullshit on it.
Not even sure what magnification would be ideal for the ranges I'll be seeing most often.
I'd be willing to get into a cheaper optic to feel out and nail down a 'buy once cry once' optic.
Arken 6-24 while you save up for an ATACR
Trijicon tenmile 3-18 has been going on sale for sub 1k lately, LOW japanese glass, really good long term durability test on rokslide
>really good long term durability test on rokslide
Is that from lying ass formidilosus?
Old advice was 1x per 100yd but for precision shooting I think that's too low which also now seems the more general opinion. Nowadays you can also get much bigger multiplier ranges, but keep in mind the highest mags often to get VERY narrow on fov, restrictive on eyebox, may darken or get trickier to focus as well and just in general struggle more, leaving you more using the lower 75%. Also high multipliers tend to cost a lot more, though prices have been falling. 1x-4x is poverty tier at this point, 1x-8x or 1x-10x the very high end, but 1-5x or 1-6x is a pretty decent range with decent pricing. So that translates to 3-18, 4.5-27, 5-25, 5-30, that sort of thing. That's usually a pretty good range for usage out to 1000yd, and will have lots of solid options.
All the good brands are solid and have fans, I started to write a bunch of stuff on my favorites but then deleted it all I don't want to bias or shill to you since it's not like I've owned every single one. I would definitely though look through or do some real research with owners, like at arfcom or snipershide or something. Pay attention to stuff like whether it's finicky wrt parallax, what people say about the eyebox or if it has mediocre fov/dof, how easy it is to get behind. Super expensive ultra top tier glass costs, but diminishing gains are real and the extra IQ may not translate into a better experience getting behind it. Don't just assume either that bigger objective is better, bigger objective gathers more light for higher iq at top mag, but worse depth of field and of course is just plain heavier. Also pay attention to mechanical aspects like "how are the turrets", that's sort of the UX of how you actually run your scope. If adjustments are stiff or unsatisfying or finicky or whatever that'll be something you have to deal with constantly.
Thanks, this is more or less what I've needed someone to summarize for me.
I would be willing to be hear some shilling about brands / specific scopes if, at the very least, it gives me something with baseline qualities to look for in another scope.
If you like *product* because it has X Y and Z and this is why they are useful, I can get a good idea for what to look for.
But definitely tricky to be 100% sure on a product, even if it has the specifications I'm looking for on paper, to buy one without actually seeing how it looks/operates in person.
Listen here, sonny boy, you don't need no fancy nu cartridge. 308 has been good enough for decades.
308. Are you new? If so nbd. 308 has been doing that job for civilians and military since the 50s and nothing better enough has come along to dethrone it. I love my 308.
just use the .300 for 300 yards and out
.30 Suck & Frick for everything.
Same length as .308, same case capacity as .30-06.
It's the best.
0-6 yards 3006
7-708 yards 7mm08
709-950 yards yards 950 jdj
Thanks for the input gays, I’ll be going with the 308 for the middle ground
that's neither 7mm-08 for short action nor 6mm ARC for intermediate length action
>6mm ARC for intermediate length action
Intermediate between what? It's shorter than short action.
yeah, AR-15 length magwells are called intermediate length actions because it's midway between a short rifle action and a pistol length action
They're called Mini length by the only company that makes them.
>0-300y
308 Win
>300-600y
300 Win Mag
>600- 1000
28 Nosler
>1000y+
416 Barrett
>0-2000y
338 Lapua
Why do you want to shoot people 700m away?
what if there's somebody 700m away who needs shooting?
if op is still here might want to do a dedicated optic thread for mpvo/hpvo advice, op post doesn't really hint at that
Grendel for more energy than 308 past 500 and going transonic later (1000)