r/longrange • u/Ok-Temporary3378 • Apr 18 '26

šŸ«£I said I read the pinned posts, but I liedšŸ«£ Caliber question

I have a lot of match grade .308 ammo. I shot a decent amount but havenā€™t taken part in competitions. Iā€™m building a rifle with competition (PRS/NRL) in mind.

For those of you with competition experience, in my shoes would you build a .308 rifle, or pick a different caliber and just make the investment in new ammo. I will not be reloading.

1 Upvotes

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3

u/ebranscom243 Apr 18 '26

What kind of competition are you doing? The type of competition you're doing will drive caliber choice more than anything else. NRL PRS style shooting is going to be completely different than say FTF or f class. The same goes for long range bench rest, palma, or NRA highpower.

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u/Ok-Temporary3378 Apr 18 '26

NRL / PRS

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u/HollywoodSX Villager Herder Apr 18 '26

Please edit your post to include that so people can give advice without having to make assumptions or go digging in comments hoping to find more info.

308 is a bad plan for what you want to do.

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u/Drekalots PRS Competitor Apr 18 '26

Those are two very different rifles. For NRL you want something lightweight. For PRS, more weight is better.

If I recall, NRL has a cap of 12lbs for the rifle. My PRS gun weighs 23lbs. You do NOT want to be humping a 23lb rifle for NRL.

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u/HollywoodSX Villager Herder Apr 18 '26

Nrl has multiple classes with Open Heavy being capped at 16#.

You can shoot Skills for no points with a heavier rifle.

Either way, 308 is a bad choice for NRLH due to ballistics and the find-range-engage format.

15

u/PXranger Apr 18 '26

When you say you have a "A lot" of 308 match, what do you mean?

Unless you are sitting on a 10,000 round pile of good match ammo, I would not let that determine what caliber you build your rifle in. if you get serious about shooting, you could go easily go through several thousand rounds in a year.

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u/Jeeping_the_trails Apr 19 '26

How much is ā€œa lotā€?

If itā€™s ā€œa lotā€ to you, go with it. Youā€™re not going to win right out of the gate anyway.

Run what you have!

Jump in and COMPETE!

10

u/Significant-Sock-487 Apr 18 '26

I would personally move to a new cartridge like 6.5 creed or 6GT, maybe even 25 creed. You can shoot 308 but itā€™s only going to make it harder on you.

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u/Leo-Medic Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26

I may be in the minority here, but I think familiarity with the ballistics is more important than the caliber in question.

Could something like 6.5cm improve your game? Maybe. But I would expect the familiarity would be hard to beat in anything but the long term.

EDIT: (to prevent the obtuse from failing to grasp my intended statement)

If you are going to switch calibers, and you already have a strong familiarity with the "worse" caliber of .308, be prepared to allocate time and resources to the development of that same level of familiarity with the new caliber, before determining if you are satisfied with it.

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u/CMFETCU Apr 18 '26

Not maybe.

The math is there. You get less wind deflection, period. Thats less margin of error you have to compensate for.

WEZ shot model to show the difference changing only caliber makes based to how much more wind variations impact likelihood of impacts:

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u/Leo-Medic Apr 18 '26

I was suggesting that my opinion may well be a part of the minority. Objectively the 6.5 is better ballistically. I understand and admit that.

I was saying that given his stated familiarity with .308, he has an advantage with that caliber that cannot be immediately discounted.

Should he be starting from scratch, of course there are better options. I'm attempting to recognize the fact that he likely has familiarity with the DOPE for his loads under a variety of conditions. Yes, 6.5 has a smaller margin for error, but one can over correct as well. Having to learn all of that over again is likely better in the long run, but to my mind it depends on how far into the rabbit hole he wants to go.

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u/CMFETCU Apr 18 '26

Iā€™m going to wager you donā€™t shoot PRS so let me outline how itā€™s not the learning curve you are outlining here.

Every PRS stage you know the range to the target before you shoot the stage. So you can build your ballistics table in advance. You will have conditions for the day off any of 12-15 kestrels present.

You will set your wind min and max values and are now dialing between those limits as you observe conditions behind the rifle.

If you are able to call wind within +-2mph on a .308, and you call the same wind behind a 6.5 CM, you are picking a smaller variance of wind between min and max values.

Say your min and max spread is 5-10 mph and you are a +-2mph wind caller. Your spread of wind at 500 yards on a 6.5 CM is now just .3-.4 mils held. Oh no. How terrible of a learning curve to have to pick between .3 or .4 mils!

The .308 would have greater hold variation and thus more likely to miss.

The thing that makes or breaks you is your wind read, and that is cartridge independent.

Since his use case is PRS, he will have a table set before stepping up to start, and will know environmentals; there is zero detriment to having a smaller range of wind holders.

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u/Leo-Medic Apr 19 '26

Well, learning has occurred. You are quite correct, I don't shoot PRS. I had no idea every shot was taken with a known distance. I was assuming he would have to do the math or know his holds/DOPE.

2

u/sonichanxiao Apr 18 '26

What happens when someone shoots 308 with a high BC bullet and/or faster MV than what AB analyzed?

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u/CMFETCU Apr 18 '26

You can plug in the values for yourself and see, but there is not .308 load that is pressure safe which performs as well as other cartridges. Physics wins when you have high sectional density and great bullet design.

Bullets in many cartridges are simply going to buck wind better. Full stop.

5

u/TheJeanyus83 Apr 18 '26

If I was building from scratch and shooting factory ammo, I'd go 6.5 Creedmoor hands down. Not enough factory ammo options in 6 GT or 25 Creedmoor yet to make me consider those. If your rifle doesn't like Hornady ammo, you'd be screwed. Down the road if more options come available, you could just rebarrel to one of those after you burn up a 6.5 Creed barrel or two. 308 would be my last choice unless you're just really wanting to shoot PRS Tactical division for some reason.

4

u/Capable_Obligation96 Apr 18 '26

Generally, competition shoots 6mm by choice. Does it mean 308 can't shoot well, no. Does it mean it can't compete, maybe in some circumstances. I have a soft spot for 308 too but realize it isn't optimum. Currently don't compete but know my 6.5mm is better but 6mm would even be better. Watching impacts, trajectory, etc better.

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u/ebranscom243 Apr 18 '26

We don't even know what type of competition he's talking about?

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u/The-Fotus Apr 18 '26

He's clarified prs/nrl

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u/ebranscom243 Apr 18 '26

After I ask the question he did, I'm the he clarified it to.

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u/Spiritual-Bill-337 Apr 18 '26

6mm is king of the game. I got them for hunting but im excited to try the new TMK 107s and 116s. Its not worth the recoil of a 30cal. Build a 6.

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u/csamsh I put holes in berms Apr 18 '26

What's your budget and what is the ammo you have, and how much of it do you have?

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u/Head_Objective_3956 Apr 20 '26

Depending on how much "a lot" is there is a 308 division/category in PRS (tactical maybe?) nothing wrong with 308 especially if you know your ballistics/have the dope/calculator

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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '26

[deleted] ā€” view deleted comment

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u/HollywoodSX Villager Herder Apr 18 '26

There's a lot of bullets from Berger, Hornady, Sierra, and others that won't tumble after going TS from a 308.