208 A-max in 308

Bought a box of these a while back but have been so happy with the 178's havent gotten around to them until tonight. Went to load some up and could not find a lot of data on them for the 308 especially in the 2.900 OAL area. Settled on 40 Grains of Varget as a starting load and seated them to OAL of 2.900 so they would fit in DBM. After I seated the first one, using an arbor press and LE Wilson seating die, there was a significat Ring around the nose of the bullet, the bullet was also significantly harder to seat. I have gotten slight marks with the 178's but this was about twice or three times as bad.

Anyone had a similar experience?

Also looking for any load data on the 208's for .308 in the 2.900 OAL area. Rifle is a Savage 10 FCP

Thanks in advance for any help.

Doug

I load, for 22" barrel (travel length 21.75)
Powder: Hodgdon H414 (same as Win 760) at46.1g, 98.8% fill, Chamber Pressure 53,829psi = calculated MV 2424fps
OAL 2.900

Down Range at 1000yds = 1388.42fps / 788 ft/lbs

Do This at your own risk!

All my Wilson dies leave their mark; it's a sign of quality! You are likely going to want to use a slower burn rate powder for those 208's. There's several lengthy threads on the 'hide about RL17 and 208's in both 308 and 30-06. You are likely going to have to lengthen your OAL to get enough powder in there to make the 208's efficient. There is a guy there called MontanaMarine who had done quite a bit of testing, and the results are amazing. I wished my staggerfeed would go out to 3.00" OAL, cause I'd be all over it based on his results; they are that good.

HTH,

Kevin