.308 Winchester

About .308 Winchester

.308 Winchester is the general-purpose centrefire rifle cartridge — enough energy for any North American game short of the largest bears, flat enough inside 500 yards to be forgiving, and available everywhere at every price point. If you own one bolt-action rifle and want it to do everything, this is the default answer and has been for seventy years.

Its military twin, 7.62 NATO, has its own page here for a reason: they are dimensionally similar but not identical, and the pressure and chamber differences run the same one-way direction as 5.56 and .223. Check the barrel marking. For reloaders, .308 is the most thoroughly documented cartridge in print, which makes it the easiest one to learn on.