As Sturtle said, the rifling twist comes into play with the different bullet weights. Essentially, you need a faster twist to stabilize heavier/longer bullets. A 1 in 12 twist in a 308 is pretty much standard. You will probably be able to shoot up to 180gr bullets out of it fairly well. Heavier bullets might be a problem. I would stick to the 165 to 168gr bullet area for the best results. The Howa 1500 is a pretty good rifle. The 24" barrel might be a touch too long for the 308 cartridge, but won't hurt anything. You can get a barrel too long for the powder used and the powder burns out before the bullet leaves the end of the barrel. It doesn't hurt anything but you can lose a small amount of velocity. Slower burning powders can sometimes help with this, but if you get an accurate round, don't worry about this...Originally Posted by BigBear
If a round is made for a specific gun, it can in theory still be used in a different firearm as long as your headspace is still safe, the round chambers, and the chamber pressures are within limits. If you are looking at using reloaded ammo in two different guns, I would recommend fully resizing or a loose full resize till the round chambers in both guns, and then testing both chambers for optimum bullet seating depth of the shortest headspace. Then test in both guns. Option two is reload for both guns differently customizing the different reload for both guns individually. Trust me on this, after reloading for a while you will find making factory spec reloads as boring as kissing your sister.
You do save money reloading. With that said, it really depends on the amount you reload/shoot as to when the reloading starts paying for itself. For example, an average USPSA pistol competition shooter (20k to 30k rounds in a year) can essentially pay off their Dillon 550b reloader and accessories from the savings in ammo cost in 6 months. Someone who shoots maybe a 1000 rounds a year may have to reload for a couple of years before they see it pay for itself. Reloading, from a financial perspective, is an investiment into future savings. The savings is dependent on the shooters ammo consumption.
The other benefits to reloading is making your ammo with the exact components you want to suit the gun and use. Another pistol example; Winchester White Box (WWB) target ammo (115gr FMJ bullet) for 9mm is about $15 per 100 rounds. Out of a Glock 34, I get 138 power factor (pf) with this ammo. I can reload 9mm ammo with a 147gr bullet at a lower pf (130 pf) for about $10 to $12 per 100 rounds. My reloads are softer shooting, knock down steel targets better, and more accurate. This equals more points and faster times when shooting competitively. There's a slight financial benefit, but the resulting ammo benefits are worth much more than the money in this case.
When it comes to high quality rifle ammo, the savings is much higher per round. Reloading 168gr match grade ammo compared to buying it is a huge savings. I don't have exact numbers, but I would suspect it's at least half the price. I know I save an ass load (technical term) of money reloading for my 300 Win Mag for high end hunting ammo, and it's more accurate than any factory ammo I've tried. It's hard to compare prices directly since I use the components that I want, and doesn't necessarily correlate to the ammo that is offered by manufacturers.
Colorado AR-15 Shooters Club Discussion Forums
Welcome to the Colorado AR-15 Shooters Club Discussion Forums.
Reply With Quote
