Howa 1500 308 COAL

[ColbyJack308]

I’m chasing better accuracy in my Howa 1500 308 with no luck. My loads are around 1 moa but I need something around 1/2 moa if possible before I throw a new barrel on it. I understand these barrels can be hit and miss but I’ve done well in the past loading for factory Remington barrels easily shooting 1/2 moa. I’m using Norma brass with RL15 and 175 smk’s in a 20” factory Howa barrel. I understand they have long throats from the factory. Is there a magic seating depth that most of y’all are seeing with these barrels? I normally have more range time to determine this but I just had my 2nd youngin and time has been very short lately. Any help is appreciated.

 

[jcmullis2]

Try a 168 a-max with 42 grains of RL15. I’ve heard of others having problems but the one I have shoots around 1/2 moa. You might have a bad one but not likely.

 

[celltech]

My Howa .308 shoots sub 1/2" with 168 ELD-Ms 35 thou off the lands on top of 42.9 grains of H4895.

 

[mheimer_45]

My 24” 308 howa hated everything I put in it. Fgmm was 2 moa and hornady match was about the same. Picked up a few boxes of fgmm with 185’s and she grouped those beautifully. Now my 6.5 howa does prefer the eld over the smks.

 

[ColbyJack308]

I have a few boxes of eld’s. I will give those a shot.

 

[CK1.0]

Howa's, not unlike many factory rifles, come with "long throats" aka longish freebore's (at least SAAMI or SAAMI plus) in order to make them more forgiving with lots of different types of factory ammo (and different seating depths). SAAMI max COAL for .308W is 2.81"

Just guessing, but if you're like most guys you probably started around SAAMI max or thereabouts (2.8"ish), and started looking at seating depths by making your COAL longer... It might sound counter-intuitive, but you might see better results by going the other way and actually adding more jump, making your COAL shorter (after all, that's what they had in mind). I'd be surprised if you couldn't find something pretty good in the 2.7"-2.8" range.

It's funny, in some circles, running a bigger bullet-jump is a reloading ethos that has sort of become a trend these days and is considered "new", kind of an "anti chase the lands" ethos... but in reality, the cat's been out of the bag forever; the factories figured out a long time ago that: more jump = more forgiving = less rifles making a return trip back to HQ because they won't shoot.

Worth a try...

 

[rico4prez007]

I get sub moa with Hornady Superformance Match 308 Winchester Ammo 168 Grain ELD Match out of my howa 1500 .308 22" 1/10 twist. Also the 150 grain whitetails shoot awesome as well and a bit less expensive. What are you running for a stock ? Are you running a break ?
I would try a break then a stock/ chassis.