new barrel/cartridge or buy componets?

[jerry shaw]

My two cents -
If your .308 barrel shoots good groups and is in otherwise good shape, use it. The big struggle is to learn to read wind. You will be forced to do that with a .308. The .308 can be made to shoot well at that distance - ask any Palma shooter. Don't worry so much about super bullets. There are several good makers. Find a good bullet that groups in the rifle and learn to make it shoot.
The .223 is just going to be painful at much past 600 yards. Yes, it can be done, but it's tough to keep those bullets moving fast enough to stay supersonic and fight the wind.
Sorry if this offends anyone - I'm just passing along what I observed as I learned to shoot a .308 Palma gun.

Good luck.

[squirrel_slayer]

My two cents -
If your .308 barrel shoots good groups and is in otherwise good shape, use it. The big struggle is to learn to read wind. You will be forced to do that with a .308. The .308 can be made to shoot well at that distance - ask any Palma shooter. Don't worry so much about super bullets. There are several good makers. Find a good bullet that groups in the rifle and learn to make it shoot.
The .223 is just going to be painful at much past 600 yards. Yes, it can be done, but it's tough to keep those bullets moving fast enough to stay supersonic and fight the wind.
Sorry if this offends anyone - I'm just passing along what I observed as I learned to shoot a .308 Palma gun.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. I've pretty much ruled out the .223ai. I'm likely going to put my .308 barrel on a long action I picked up that I was intending on building a 300 win mag on but I'm not ready for that much gun yet. I already find myself flinching after 50-60 rounds of .308 let alone a bruiser like a 300WM.

Longrange has me back on a 6mm but just muddy'd the waters with his 6 creedmoor! lol the 6br,6brx,dasher,ect setup for the heavies would be nice as they use the same powders that I already stock, but they have to be run hard where as the next class up 6x47 lapua, 6 creedmoor, 6xc will drive the same bullet a few 100ft/sec faster and like in longrange's case you could scale back and prolong case life(something that didn't cross my mind being a hotrodder by heart :rockon: )

my .308 barrel shoots very well (Jim/Apache Gun Works did a great job!). I had two loads with 155tmk's that If I sat down and practiced i'm sure it would be a one hole gun (I always pulled the 3rd shot) however i'm ditching the tmk's and sticking with the 168 amax's as I couldn't get enough velocity to justify the cost increase of the tmk's. my 168 amax load is still an honest 1/2moa load 3/4 on a bad day. My 208amax load is just under MOA but I went after the lower ES/SD as I only shoot it beyond 600yds. I need to put a brake on it as i'm sure that would help me concentrate especially after shooting alot of rounds.

[LongRange]

lapua brass is out now for the creedmoor...also nosler and norma both already have creedmoor brass on the market plus its pretty easy to make CM brass from 22/250 and 243 brass...that said if you want fast go with any of the larger case capacity 6mms and run 105g bergers or 107g SMKs out of an 8 twist with RL-17 and ill bet you could get up around 3200-3300fps...but again why its not gaining you enough to really make it worth running it that hard other than telling ppl "im running my 6mm at xxxxfps"