Gentlemen,

I have been shooting Hornady 165 grain spire points in my Remington 660 (308) for years, and have a load that shoots sub MOA consistently with that bullet. Unfortunately Hornady has changed the ogive on this bullet, moving it closer to the cannelure.

My question is, do any of you have a suggestion on a different bullet that will work in this rifle given the short magazine and long throat? I doesn't seem to like boat tail bullets.

I know it will shoot the 180 round nose well, and I have a few of the old 180 and 150 spire points, but I'm about out of the old style 165 SP grain bullets.

Thanks

Not to sound too dense but have you tried the new bullet? How about seating the new bullet to the same length as the old bullet? I'd look at trying the new design of the bullet before changing bullets. You may have to adjust.your charge weight.

Sam,

Thanks for the reply. The new bullet has .015" more travel to reach the rifling in my barrel when seated to the same OAL (at least the batch I have). I have always loaded the 165 SPs to 2.80" OAL (max for 308 win) which feeds reliably in the 660's short mag and give me 0.8" average groups. Group size with the new bullets hasn't been as good (~1.5") as the older slugs when seated to 2.80" I haven't tried the new spire points seated to 2.815" to see how they feed. That will be my next step. I wish the magazine was long enough to allow me to load my ammo to a little longer OAL.

I'm just wondering if there are other 165 grain bullets that have a little more of a 'weight forward' ogive. All of the other bullets I've tried have shot into 1.5" or larger groups except the Hornady spire points. What's really strange is that the Hornady 165 BTSP group very poorly-- 2-2.5" just like all the other boat tails I've tried.

I shot these groups today at 50 yards, the three shot cloverleaf (0.4") are the Spire Points, the shotgun pattern is the Hornady 165 Boat Tail Spire Points. The new Spire points shoot better than the BTSP, but not great.



By the way, my load is 46 gr. IMR 4064, CCI 200 primers in Winchester cases with the 165 Sps. Pretty hot, but accuracy is better than anything else I've tried. Velocity averages 2680 out of the 20" barrel.

I'd put out a want to buy add in all the available forums and grab up what people still have. I may even have a box or two. What is the old part number?

God Bless, Louis

Try the Sierra 165 gr HPBT Gameking. It has a large HP opening, and so it cannot be seated to 2.80.
I seat mine to 2.735, which gives approx. the same Ogive OAL as most other 165gr bullets seated to 2.80.

I load that bullet over 39.5 gr. of IMR 3031. It has been sub moa in several 308 rifles including the two 308 rifles I shot today.

It does have a boat tail but thing has been one of the most accurate 308 loads in most all the 308 rifles I have shot it in.

450,

Thanks I'll give them a try. I've used the 168gr Matchking bullets, but found that to get best accuracy I had to seat them out to the point they won't eject let alone feed through the mag. Great accuracy though, with groups averaging under 1/2". Never tried it with IMR 3031, I was using 44 gr. of IMR 4064.

I measured the throat length on my rifle and it's around 0.30" which I believe may be part of the challenge. I know Weatherby rifles have long throats with no issues. I assume shooters of those rifles seat bullets out a little longer.

I loaded up a new batch of both the old stock with the seating stem set at the same depth I've had it for years and new stock with the seating stem backed off 3/4 turn, and will be trying that today.

I checked the OAL of my loaded old and new stock and noticed the new bullets are much more uniform in length with OAL right at 2.808 with a few as short as 2.806 and as long as 2.811. The older bullets gave me a range of 2.770-2.809 OAL (2.791" avg.). Go figure. At least I may have some wiggle room to play with seating depth.

Update

Ok so I tried the new style bullets seated out a bit and they shot great!

Here's a pic of my mobile bench:



Here's the result:



Again at just 50 yards.

OK, so I guess I jumped the gun on the new bullet, and they still feed through the short mag. Wonder what they will do if I seat them out to 2.82"?

By the way, this load consistently groups 0.8" at 100 yards which does everything I need.

speer makes a 165 spitzer you may want to try.