Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins
So, one question - why .308? The various newfangled 6.5's seem to be all the rage these days. It's kind of tough to get a heavy, high ballistic coefficient .308 diameter bullet properly up to speed with the small-ish .308 case behind it. Most long range .30's these days are .300 Winchester or Norma magnums. Granted, there are proven bullets that will hold sufficient velocity from the .308 all the way to 1,000 yards, like the Sierra "Palma Match" bullet (and I'm sure plenty of others), but most guys are looking for a bit more powder capacity to drive heavier bullets.
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Sierra palma is able to shoot 1000, but it's not really great at it for a scoped rifle
It's very sensitive to wind at those ranges.. It's a compromise bullet for the Palma match regulations which originally was with service rifles , match sighs (no scope) and high twist rates (1:12 or 1:14)
It's for shooting matches with a high daily shot count so lower weight was good for barrel life and the all day long shoulder massage when shooting prone.
The bullet wind drift with a match sight some what less of an impact on the result then then the shooting position , sling vest, and aiming with the match sight is.
Target rings on such matches are huge..Not like you would shoot at with a scoped rifle
For a scoped rifle, most modern barrels have lower twist, eg 1:10 and can stabilize bigger pills.
the 175 SMK or the more recent TMK is muuuuuuch better then the 155 Palma at them ranges.
IF your barrel can stabilize 175's, then don't bother with 155 palma bullets you'll just waste your time.
I had a 26 inch 1:12 and they stabilized just fine for me .. shorter barrels will probably need 1:10
Why 308, well , many ranges won't allow higher energy calibers. They'll list 308 or 3006 as the upper limit.
which in many cases means normal ball load 308, 3006 .. modern hand load 308 or 3006 with modern powders can be much higher energy then normal ball and is often not compliant to those regs..
but those kind of things are hard to enforce at the firing point.