Posted on 03/21/2019 5:49:26 AM PDT by w1n1
For Hunting, Target Shooting and Self-Defense
Manufacturer are getting more resourceful, every year we get a new round that’s been declared the latest and greatest. The 6.8 SPC, the 6.5 Grendel, and we’ve seen the rise of the .224 Valkyrie. These rounds have a shelf life similar to the shelf life of freshly baked bread.
One round that have stood out is the 300 Blackout. In fact, it's simply grown in popularity. The round introduction came at the best time!
As the shooting industry was beginning to lean towards short rifles and suppressors – the 300 Blackout just so happened to be designed for short barreled rifles, and you can suppress it as well. Timing was right for the .300 Blackout round.
Initially designed for the military, the civilian market caught on real quick. The 300 Blackout functions perfectly in an AR-15 platform with hardly any changes, this makes it inexpensive to adopt and easy to test out.
If you're not into the details, here are some top .300 Blackout Ammo for the many different purposes:
-For Plinking/training - Magtech AAC Blackout 123 grain
This 123-grain FMJ ammo is one out on the market thats affordable, reliable and easy to shoot.
-For Suppressed - Sellier & Bellot Subsonic 200 grain
A subsonic load through a suppressor is nice and quiet. Nowhere near movie quiet, but quiet enough to be hearing safe.
-For Hunting - Barnes Vor-Tx 110 gn
They fly further, hit harder, and are much more capable of quickly killing your game of choice.
-For Home Defense - Fiocchi SST 125gn SST projectile expands on contact and penetrates with near recklessness. Read the rest of 300 blk ammo.
Get a proofreader and an editor.
I Reload tons of .300 blk. This is a round that mostly only makes sense for reloaders. Can’t imagine paying ridiculous retail prices for .300 blk, especially for rounds that can’t touch my own in terms of performance.
No joke! The writing is atrocious.
Sounds kinda neat, but the one thing ( remember the “one thing”?) is htat the article discusses super and sub-sonic loadings as if they are interchangeable. Yeah, they really aren’t.
The sub-sonic semi auto AR15 300AAC/Blackout is made to opeate with mild pistol charges of fast burning powder- a smaller gas port located at a few inches forwardof the chamber- a pistol AR set up, regardless of barrel length. Then you add the supper sonic loadings, set up as either carbine port and system length or longer. A sub sonic 300 is a singular item, a super sonic set up is another, okay, so two uppers, great.
The super sonic upper won’t function/cycle with the sub sonic ammo, and the sub sonic set up will be beaten to death with the super sonic ammo. Just slight issues in my book.
Secondly, while the sub sonic set is great sounding (a pistol round if you like- a 200 grn 30 cal bullet at 1050 is a pistol round). And is great for stuff at pistol ranges. Standard heavy 30 cal BTHPs won’t expand at sub-1000 ft/sec impact velocities, and usually won’t expand at heavy rifle velocities as well- they are not made to. So, Hornady and maybe others make a 300ACC/BO heavy bullet designed to expand. Next up s the anemic performance of the 125-150 grain loadings for the super sonic version. Out of a carbine length barrel of 16 inches, it runs about 2200 f/s at the muzzle, slower than the oft ridiculed 7.62x39 soviet round.
(Throw up your hands now gesture) What to do? Take both your 300 AAC/BO uppers and enjoy them immensely ( espc the heavy set up with a suppressor!), second, enjoy your super sonic 300 AAC/BO as well. But do not expect them to meet your “one gun/all needs” requirement.
Wish the folks writing these articles would be fair enough to explain the facts, not just the “neato” stuff.
Great post...
Firing a .30 cal bullet out of a modified .223/5.56 case might seem a little weird at first, but several of us around here reload and shoot this round a lot. It’s fun to shoot and easy to reload. Personally, I find it more suitable as a “close range” round more than anything else but I’m pretty old...LOL. Both Ruger and Remington make bolt-action rifles in this caliber. The Ruger can be had in a model that utilizes AR-style magazines. A friend of mine has one and it’s pretty sweet. He uses it primarily for hog hunting....suppressed with a night vision scope. With the suppressor tax stamp cost and the cost of that scope, it’s way outta my price range....LOL
With zillions of .223/5.56 spent cases laying around, it’s a pretty easy conversion to do with the right tools, dies, etc. There are some differences in the two cases and some great differences in thickness dimensions on spent commercial .223 cases by manufacturer. Once modifed/resized, a certain case neck thickness is desired for proper reloading. I personally stick with spent military 5.56 as it seems to maintain the best overall consistency and neck thicknesses once modified to .300BO.
Once set up, it’s a fairly economical round to play and plink with.
I agree. My .300 BLK rounds use 125 grain Nosler Ballistic tips. Super accurate from my self-built upper. The best thing to happen was Starline started selling new brass. I do have a big bunch of cut down .223 brass left to process!
One of my exact loads! Except my own hand rolled lake city brass. I’m running H110 and getting good results in SBR.
Very informative and accurate. I’ve never fired or even seen one but used to work for a retired Navy Chief who was in on the ground floor with this round and periferals and told me all about it.
I have rifle (18”), carbine (16”), and pistol-length (10”, I think) ARs in Blackout. The carbine is my favorite
It took some doing, but I was able to dial in super- and sub-sonic loads that work in all three platforms, suppressed and unsuppressed.
I’m delighted with a selection of .30 caliber ARs.
For the sub-sonic, I’ve had good luck with Sierra 220s and Hornady 207s. For the supers, I load (cheap) surplus 147 FMJs for plinking, and Hornady 125 SSTs.
So that’s four loads in three platforms that work either with or without a can - if my math is right, that’s twenty-four combinations with four loads. I’m tickled with that.
I also like being able to make Blackout brass from .223/5.56 cases since I’ve got those by the thousands. Inexpensive and easy to acquire and store up.
True, the big 220 going about 1000fps is very close to a .45 hardball but with much better ballistic coefficient.
And at a couple hundred yards with a can, there’s not much more satisfying than “Pop.....thwack!” Heh heh. I get happy just thinking about it!
As for store ammo, I’ve only run one box of factory sub-sonics through the carbine because someone gave them to me. They didn’t work between carbine and pistol, can/no-can, I think for the reasons you described. Had problems cycling and FTE in various combinations.
So if you handload, and are willing to fiddle around a bit, there’s nothing wrong with the Blackout.
Subsonic loads are crap because there are no .30-cal bullets designed to perform at such low speeds.
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