Originally Posted by
Benny
Share the loads you are unhappy with, it may shed some light.
The load(s) I finally arrived at to use for hunting purposes in my Remington 750 in 308 with an 18" barrel may surprise you.
Everything, including factory ammo would give me a 2 1/2" group.
Of all things, I arrived at a load that gave me 3/4" groups at 100 yards using 150gr Remington PSPCL with 48.0gr of BL-C(2).
One of the most notorious short barrel semi/auto firearms reputed for jamming and poor groups using a so-so bullet with iffy powder is giving acceptable groups and function.
I tried the same powder/volume with 150gr Remington SP round nose and got the same groups but 1 1/4" higher and 1 3/4" left.
The short barrel "may" be a problem with certain powders. Not so much as to velocity loss but to even powder burn. BUT not necessarily needing a "fast burning" powder. Simply backing off of the volume may help dramatically.
My load is well below the max, I even dropped down near the minimum suggested (45.0gr) and still maintained the good groups.
By the way, the Remington 150gr PSPCL is published to have a muzzle velocity of 2820fps (probably in a 24" barrel). In my 18" barrel it averages 2630fps.
The same bullet with 48.0gr of BL-C(2) is averaging 2625fps, 45.0gr is averaging 2465fps.