Just One .308 Winchester

Just One .308 Winchester

- Mike Venturino

Watching cartridge fads come and go has been an interesting pastime. When I bought my first gun magazine in 1962, we were in the middle of the belted magnum craze. It seemed like new cartridges appeared every few months: .264 Winchester Magnum, .350 Remington Magnum, .224 Weatherby Magnum and so forth. Popular wildcat cartridges have also been “legitimized” as factory rounds like the .22-250 Remington, .25-06 Remington and .35 Whelen. (Seems like Remington was most active at the time.)

More recently, there have been the Winchester Short Magnums, Remington Ultra Mags, and too many for AR rifles to keep track of. I even shot a .50 Beowulf that belonged to a friend. The current fad is new cartridge case shapes all based on 6.5mm bullets. Watching Internet and printed magazine debates about which case shapes and bullet diameters are superior is hilarious to me.

That’s because I don’t care. I know what is best; at least what is best for me. No matter what cartridges zing to incredible heights of popularity, no matter what sort of rifle in which such rounds might become available, my mind has long been made up. I chose the .308 Winchester. Many .308 rifles have come and gone from my racks over the years; bolt actions, semiautomatics, leverguns and single shots.

The .308 rifle that has stuck is a Winchester Model 70 Featherweight barreled action that its previous owner put into a full-length, Mannlicher-style stock. By its serial number, the Model 70 dates back to 1952, which coincidentally was the same year Winchester unveiled its .308 and Featherweight rifle configuration. The U.S. military didn’t officially adopt the 7.62mm NATO until a few years later.