apparantly you don't compete in FTR
Nope,never said I did. My eyes are bad. What I know about FTR is what FTR shooters have told me and what I read about in press coverages of matches. I still have not heard of the wide spread bullet weight increase you talk about but like I said, I convey what I have been told. If "Most" are not using 175's then I stand corrected.
the majority are using 185 hybrids or juggernauts and 200 hybrids with several shooters using 215 hybrids and a few using 230 hybrids.
What he is not telling you is the INSANE drop a 215 and 230 has and how that drop at 1000 yards is usually past the functional limits of a typical scope with only 45-60 MOA of adjustment
And yes, your gun has to be specifically chambered to shoot these monsters. My FTR rig is a switch barrel, i have one barrel chambered for the 230s and the other is chambered for the 185s and 200s. Different twist rates and freebore.
I believe I said that in my previous post. No argument here. I don't even consider these guns a 308 anymore because they are so far from SAMMI spec guns sold at Wall Mart that you cross the line into a different gun discussion totally. Lets talk about the OP's
Savage.
To the original poster, 4350 will work with 190s IF you seat them long and single feed your rounds. That also depends on how much freebore your chamber has. A long drop tube is needed and pour it slow. Thin wall brass is better for case capacity. If you are mag feeding forget about 4350. Stick with Varget or other similar powders.
How practical is this for the average shooter shooting the average off the shelf gun? OP has a
Savage. That is the question I really would like an FTR shooter to answer.
90% of shooters do not know what freebore is. What you are doing is giving advice to a person who may/may not understand everything about reloading or some
future reader that has no clue and ends up making a round that could be a potential safety problem.
Most barrels are too short, what is the point of shooting a 190 out of a 20" bolt gun or a 16" AR 10? Velocity will suck anyway and it will drop like a rock.
My whole point is you should not be shooting 190's and above in a gun that was not designed for them as most off the shelf guns are not. If you do not have the mag length and/or the freebore length, your only option if you want to shoot these "monsters" is to seat them
deep. Then you loose case capacity so the round you end up with will be rather useless. You are better off shooting a 175 because you will get better ballistic performance from that than a 190 in an off the shelf rifle.
My whole question was (for the OP's benefit) if someone could explain to me the practicality of shooting 190's out of a 308. It got turned into a FTR discussion where rifles that are not chambered the same as off the shelf .308's are for the sake of who can be most right and totally ignoring the fact that most people out there are shooting store bought guns and this is the advice we should be giving them.
190's and above are not practical because you loose case capacity seating them too deep and loose performance. You are better off shooting 175's in a store bought gun because that round will have better ballistic and terminal performance to 1000 yards.
OP, you will be able to use your 4350 to get that performance- 43 to 45 grains should get you around 2600 fps in your Savage. There are better powder choices, 4350 is a little slow but it will work just fine if you decide to give the 175's a try. (don't use Lake City Brass, too thick and you loose powder capacity and may not be able to get 43 or more grains in it with a 175 or larger.) You can use the powder for lighter bullets, it will go bang. Problem is, you will not get decent velocity out of the lighter pills.
Best thing about a 175 and 4350,
the powder and bullet will fit in the case seated at 2.80 which is what your Savage was designed for.
