pj: my younger brother hunts with a 15" 308 encore and loves it. He has taken whitetail and hog with it. He used to use name brand (and expensive) hunting ammo but found that the 150 grainers busted up on whitetail bone structures, leaving lots of bone and bullet fragments and not necessarily bringing down the deer when and where he wanted it down. He also felt those loads were too light for hog.
I used load data from the Lyman 43rd and 45th editions to load up some 150 and 180 grain Hornaday bullets. At the ranges he shoots, under 200 yds, neither of us felt he needed a more expensive bullet, and we were right.
The 150s were spitzers the 180s round nosed. The 150s clocked out at better than 2800'/sec I believe but the 180s were much slower, around 2450. The Hornaday 150s would bust bone and penetrate but would leave lots of bone fragements. The 180s, even much slower, would just bust on through and drop the animal. Both were listed accuracy loads and were as accurate as the manuals predicted. Each load clustered under an inch at 100 yds. He prefers the 150s so he doesn't have to worry about point of impact changes between the two loads while using a red dot scope configuration. I simply tell him he needs to shoot more often. Ahhh, whatcha gonna do with a younger brother. Hope this helps. Mikey.
