Brown/Silver Bear Velocities - Saiga .308 16inch

[cw3sting 12]

A friend gave up some Brown Bear and Silver Bear .308 Win ammo for velocity testing.

 

Here are the results.

 

[paprotective 362]

Gonna have to try this stuff now..

 

Thanks for the info..

 

Brown Bear FMJ seems like it has a low 'spread' (aka deviation).

 

 

Al

[jdmakersmark 15]

Thank You for the test. I was waiting for the Brown Bear test. For the price it seems to work well for my S-308.

[cw3sting 12]

One important note about the 'Bear' ammo. I recommend staying away from the laquer coated Brown Bear and stick to the Silver Bear. In my tests, there were several following failure to feed, failure to extract events after the initial Brown Bear laquer rounds were fired. Personally, I think laquer coated rounds gum up the feed ramp and chamber causing problems.

 

My vote for the best/cheap .308 round is Tula, followed by Silver Bear and Radway Green.

 

Prices before shipping:

 

Silver Bear FMJ: $7.19/20 = $0.36 per round (CDT)

Radway Green FMJ: $39.96/75 = $0.51 per round (AIM)

Tula FMJ: $6.49/20 = $0.32 (CDT) ($4.99 AIM, out of stock)

 

For a hunting round, the Silver Bear SP might be a good value (accuracy not tested by me):

 

Silver Bear SP: $7.79/20 = $0.39 per round

 

Brown Bear or other laquer coated cartridges in 7.62x39 and other 'cone' shaped cases might be acceptable, but in straight sided cases like the .308 and .223 not. I base this not only on my own observations, but comments in many blogs and reports as well.

 

YMMV - Be safe, Be responsible.

[Rhodes1968 1,638]

After a several hundred rounds of Brown Bear I have never had any FTF or FTE doing everything from one round every few minutes for baseline accuracy tests to burning though 4 x 20Rd mags at the combat rate of one round every 2-3 seconds several times just because I like to do it occasionally. My rifle seriously loves this stuff.

[DrThunder88 912]

Interesting findings. Thanks for the info!

[cw3sting 12]

Rhodes1968;

 

I can appreciate firing 'laquer only' rounds and not having a problem. But, fire 15-20 Brown Bear followed by 15-20 Silver Bear.

 

Failures to feed, or extraction problems have been extremely rare with my .308 until I did just that.

[csspecs 1,987]

Correct. All lacquer or no lacquer.

 

Mixing is when strange stuff happens.

 

Give a decent chamber cleaning between lacquer and other coatings and you will be fine.