In need of some advice. Gave a .308 Winchester (Remington Model 600) to my Mom that really fits her well. The problem is that in that package, a 150 grain bullet causes an uncomfortable amount of recoil and muzzle blast for her (she's 5'2" and 67 yrs old). In the interest of making it more fun to shoot, I'd like to use a lighter bullet and reduced loads but don't want to risk loosing any game or reduce accuracy.

The gun will be used almost exclusively for PA whitetails (180 lbs is a whopper). Any suggestions?

Also, anyone know the twist rate in the 600 and can it stabilize a 130 grain properly?

Thanks once again.

Hi smallcal,

My advice would be to stick with the 150 using 300 savage load data. That will get pressures down quite a bit and a 300 with a 150 gn bullet should be managable by nearly anyone. If you go with smaller bullets I would advise caution as a lot of them are of very light construction and some are intended for varminting.

Another note on using 300 savage data, the 308 case is just a tad bigger than the 300. I would start 1 or 2 grains above minimum loads.

I guarantee a "slow load" hornady sst 150 will open up!! Slow it down to 2200-2300 muzzle velocity and put them inthe boiler room and they will work. Here in Wisconsin I have a group of friends that swear by a speer hollow point (I think in 130 grain?) in their 30-06. They rarely get an exit wound but they say on broadside shots it turns the inards to soup and they never have to track a deer where a bullet has entered the boiler room.