Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .300 Blackout - why?

I just found a bolt-action .300 AAC Blackout rifle for sale at a very good price. Has anyone here hunted with it?

I understand it was designed to be very quiet when used with a suppressor, but other than that, what does it do well?

"what does it do well?"

Nothing. When shooting sub-sonic ammo it has a trajectory like a rainbow. Shooting light weight for caliber bullets at super-sonic it is still useless, it still has a rainbow trajectory because it's not capable of reasonable velocity. They now make sub-sonic 308 Win that has the ability to go either way and has some authority when loaded with a game weight bullet.

That same question can be applied to most of the cartridges that have arrived on the dealer's shelves for the last thirty years!!!!!

It’s very quiet shooting subs with a suppressor, that’s what it does well. There really isn’t another purpose for it in my mind. If you want to shoot subs it’s a better choice than a 308.

I bought one on close out thinking it would be a light recoiling close range deer rifle when loaded with a 125 BT or 120 Tac. Could have just downloaded my 308 or used my 223 but I am a rifle loony and wanted to try the 300 BO

Look at factory ammunition specs and load data in a manual or two and decide if it'll do what you want or need. In my case, the answer is no.

What do it do??

It subtracts $$$$$ from your wallet!!

I think it was designed to fit in the AR platform of rifles with a single stack mag. but I could be wrong.

Standard mag oldvet

Mike

It does well for its intended purpose.

Down loading larger capacity cases to the same velocity and expecting high precision might be a challenge.

Best in the AR platform if that is your thing. Not really a great bolt action cartridge. Would have a use however, but not for myself.

I always thought that it would make a dandy small capacity case for shooting mid-sized .30 cast bullets, for match shooting not necessarily hunting. I finally gave up the idea when faced with the challenges involved with chambering its rimless self in a classic single shot such as a Martini Cadet or Winchester LoWall.

If your goal is a tacticool AR for quiet-suppressed clandestine ops (or close range pig killing/deer poaching), or just for something different to do, then go for it I say.

It’s good for launching heavy bulleys at subsonic speed, quietly with a suppressor. I had several for years, because ammo was easy to find and I don’t reload. Now that 308 subsonics are easier to find, I sold my 300BO to keep my calibers to a minimum. No problem for subs to kill deer, just keep it to 100 yards or less, and not a problem. If you’re not shooting suppressed, I don’t see the point.

In a bolt action? (un-surpressed) Good for kids to shoot and hunt with. Low recoil. The lighter ones would make good short range hunting rifles.

I had a heavy barred bolt gun in it and found it very boring to shoot. Maybe if it had been super accurate, but it wasn't.

I've been shooting them for about 20 years and have never had one that impressed me accuracy wise. I've had (nine or more?) 30/221's. 300-221's, 300 Whisper's, 300 Fireball's, 300 Blackout's (depending on who made it) with factory and custom barrels, one "custom" bolt gun, one Contender heavy step barrel carbine, three AR's and a handful of contender pistol barrels from various makers. Not a one of them was what I'd call accurate, relatively speaking. A couple of pistols barrels doing 3/4' 100 groups at best. Plenty well enough for what I used them for, but poor compared to other barrels/calibers I own/owned.

I've never been that impressed with the cartridge. Since you're in Reno, I can't see a practical use for it that wouldn't be better served with something else. It is good for close-range hunting deer and pigs and such, and it is good for close-range varminting, and with a suppressor, it could be used near "sensitive" areas to good effect for said hunting, but Reno has wide open country and few opportunities for a slow-moving bullet.

I know of 2- 300 lbs. black bears and a bunch of deer shot with Cutting Edge Bullets 100 gr. Flat Base Raptor it was designed for the 300 BO. It's the only bullet to shoot super-sonic, with a 16" barrel no problem getting 2400 fps. In a 10" pistol or SBR makes the best house (close quarter) bullet gun combo, beats the hell out of a 5.56.

If you can't take recoil or for kids and woman, it's a better choice than a 30-30.

https://cuttingedgebullets.com/308-100gr-flat-base-raptor

For sub-sonics Cutting Edge Bullets 190 gr. Sub-Sonic Raptor, under 100 yards it will put the smack down on deer....https://cuttingedgebullets.com/308-190gr-subsonic-raptor

Also a bullet for sub-sonic on game Makers 190Grain .308 Expanding Subsonic Blackout. Paul and a couple guys on the 300 BlkTalk Forum has put a lot of work getting this bullet right. There's been a lot of animals shot with this bullet, in the past couple years.

https://makerbullets.com/proddetail.php?prod=308190SBLK

Lehigh Defense also has a 194 gr. sub-sonic bullet......https://www.lehighdefense.com/collections/bullets/products/308-maximum-expansion-194gr-subsonic-bullet?variant=1073832868

One thing I tell people when they are considering sub-sonic hunting. You are basically bow hunting with a gun that must keep bullets under 1000 fps, pick your shots carefully, use a range finder and know trajectory by shooting at those ranges. Using bullets in the 190-200 gr. your maximum shot is around 110-115 yards.

Someone did a review on one by Melvin a while back. Wasn't really impressed by the concept or the performance. Seemed like a really pricey bad idea in that platform; a strange rifle in search of a real purpose.

In an AR for sneaky pokes at pigs and such, sure.

Seems there is divided opinion about the cartridge and that's fine as far as I'm concerned. Thinking at the same time there be some misunderstanding by a few of you fellas about what is practical with such contrivances. My own view about subs and hunting began around 2004-2005 when something remarkable happened in my front yard. Whacked a pig in the front yard that was rooting around with a .22 CB short. Pop'n flop, hardly a twitch. I was astounded. In the years since I've come to view the necessity for placement in lieu of large amounts of tissue damage in the terminal phase of ballistics in a very favorable fashion.

Short version, no pun intended, if you can put the bullet where it belongs, one does not need a great deal of energy/momentum/expansion or the rest of that gack. Time passed, a truckload of pigs died and are still going tits up in the swamps. Florida law was modified and it is now legal to hunt with a suppressor. Having used the CB short for over 10 years due to the state's desire to keep noise complaints to a minimum and their directive that I only use rimfire guns, I nonetheless inquired of my overseers if a suppressed rifle of CF format was acceptable. They said sure and here I am.

I have a partner in the pig killing game that went a little crazy with that news and I have no idea what numbers of suppressors/guns/cartridges he has at this point, but he whacks the pigs a fair bit, probably taking down 75-100 in the last 3 years. One of his guns is a break action SS in .300 Blackout. He fiddle farted around working up loads and it is a perfectly quiet shooter. As he progressed with this project I developed the .30 Sneezer for a T/C Contender frame. It is nothing more than a .357 mag case with about a 1/2" long neck due to my desire to use cast bullets. Oddly enough, the BO and Sneezer are within a very small fraction of having the same case capacity. The bullet I use is, dependent upon alloy, 185 grains +/- a wee bit. My gun is twisted 1:12" and does quiet well with 30:1 alloy which is quite soft. My buddy tried some that I hardened up a bit due to his much faster twist rate, somewhere around 1:7-1:8. Both guns shoot very well in the subsonic realm with this bullet. See the target below, this image taken in the course of load development with the Sneezer. They are 5 shot groups and I'm kinda fond of the Blue Dot load.



The BO rifle that my buddy shoots does pretty much the same.

They do expand at subsonic velocity:



With all that out of the way, what good is it? Well, I'm not plinking at pigs hundreds of yards distant. More like 15-25 yards. The Sneezer has been blooded, and so has my friends BO, his quite a bit more than my own. Is the Sneezer viable at longer range? It is. Hold a coffee cup for me at the 100 yard line and if your bright enough to not hold it in front of you I can bust the cup without making you bloody. Hell, if you're smart enough to empty the cup first, you probably won't get wet.

Longer range ballistics with subs are interesting.The numbers below are for velocity and drops on a BC of .410. Little is lost over the course of 100/200/300 yards. So in the real world, if you know the range, the drops and can play the wind, if any, one can do some damage at longer range. I don't pursue that because I have no need, or in truth, any opportunity to shoot things at longer range. JBM says it looks about like this.

(yd)...(in)....... (ft/s) )..............(ft•lbs)
0..... -1.5....... 1052.1............. 454.6
100...-0.0...... 995.7 ............. 407.2
200... -33.5.... 949.9 ............. 370.6
300...-105.6... 910.9.............. 340.8

I popped 5 pigs some years ago with the CB shorts w/o taking a step. Two mature hogs in the 175-200# range and 3 shoats about 50#. With a single shot rifle. Could have done the same with the Sneezer or a BO, not a question in my mind about that. The suppressed CF guns are quieter than CB shorts w/o the can. The advantage of the single shot is the lack of noise from the action cycling that one can expect from an AR platform, or to some degree from any repeater. As example, I've heard suppressed 10/22s and the action noise was more noticeable than the muzzle report.

Last thing I'll say about it is that suppressed subsonic is certainly not for everyone, or every situation. I seriously doubt I'd be playing with it if I live in Wyoming or similar environs. OTOH, if you can put the bullet where it needs to go, it will work, every time. Distance has nothing to do with it, any more than terminal performance.

To each his own. I bought one of the early Ruger Americans chambered for 300 Blackout. From the start, not having a suppressor, I loaded 125 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips. Accuracy was good, and terminal results on pigs and whitetails were very good. Recoil was very slight. Great cartridge for women and children. Subsonic rounds were not my focus at the time, but the cartridge was a powder miser, brass was everywhere, and it was easy to load for. I guess I am just the opposite of the naysayers.

I thought about buying one of the bolt action custom Remington Model Sevens in 300 BO a few years ago, but man they were expensive back then. Im sure they have dropped in price just like almost everything else lately.