For general shooting is 300 blackout (suppressed) worth it?

[scubadds]

I started to post this in "beyond 556" but it has more NFA relevance...


I am trying to make a few gun purchase decisions, I am wondering if many are shooting 300 BO in place of 5.56 for general range time?

In other words, have you put away 5.56 to go with 300 Blackout, or are you finding it cost prohibitive?

I sold all my reloading stuff to a friend starting an ammo company; not sure when he will be online with 300 Blackout and I have not searched out factory ammo much to find the lowest prices...

I just traded out of my AAC 16" upper, and have not had much range time with 300. So, I am finding it hard to decide whether to get a new 9" AAC upper (which I had him order for me) and SBR or just stick with 5.56.


So, I would love to hear how the 300 Blackout fits into your range time?
Does it replace 5.56 or just another caliber to keep up with?? Granted the subsonic is so nice to shoot...
(I get that the ballistics are better for 300, but the paper and steel aren't shooting back at my range)
Thanks

[markm]

I can't think of any good reason to take on that silly round... other than hog hunting.

[scubadds]

I can't think of any good reason to take on that silly round... other than hog hunting.

It seems like the round is so popular, I figures some guys were shooting it all the time.....
They sure are selling the hell out the uppers, must be a lot of dead hogs....

Perhaps I should have thrown this over on the "Beyond 556" as they are already biased that way?

[markm]

The perception was created that the round is very popular. I'm still trying to figure out how that campaign was so successful on the gun boards. 300 makes no sense for 99% of AR shooters in my opinion.

It's got some special forces potential for a niche application, and Suppressed hunters of swine seem to like it. But for a regular AR shooter, it's expensive with less accuracy and range than good Mk 262 ammo for example.

If someone is just into trying different calibers, and can handload their ammo, by all means... I'm more rooted in target and long range shooting... so that's where my bias against it comes from.

[TehLlama]

Of firearm owners, the percentage is tiny, it's a low adoption caliber. Of the group of people who frequent gun forums, they're the early adopters of all things with marginal gain potential, so that why it seeeeeeems popular.

I'd still rather run 70grTTSX in 5.56 over getting another caliber, but I'm willing to read more than one page of catalog copy to reach that conclusion. The simple answer is to keep the evolved 300 Whisper viable, a LOT of consistent excitement has to be constantly drummed up, or that caliber will go the way of 45Bushmaster, 458SOCOM, 243WSSM, 6.8SPC, and others where they are extant, but basically one-off wildcats that specialty ammo shops will make rounds for if there's some absurd markups involved.

In the 8-10" double stamp regime of muzzle velocities, there's something to be gained in running a 300BLK setup, but if I ever end up with one, it's because a) I'll already have a 30caliber can otherwise set aside for use on precision rifles, and b) because I have an extra upper, handguard, and probably an extra foot of barrel blank to turn into a BLK barrel.

For somebody who is going to mount a red dot or low powered scope and primarily go hunting with the rifle and doesn't have any other AR15 components around, getting a 300BLK rifle setup isn't completely dumb, but just as easily a 5.56 will do more, be cheaper to practice some with, and critically even the super-gucci match quality brown-tip loads (Barnes TTSX) are still on par with the usable hunting loads for BLK. In that magical range of just barely too short for Mk262 out of short barrels to really play nicely, a double stamp BLK setup would be awesome, but this is the EXACT overall silhouette I run for my double stamp unit (10.3" barrel, mini sized can) and I'm still outright thrilled with running 5.56 for that. That said, a really short BLK upper with a 6-7" titanium can would be a super-nice little handy rifle, provided you have ammunition that plays nicely for that job.

So, IF you can handload, IF you have a small enough can in 30caliber to make sense, and IF you want a small, cute, subsonic capable setup, then look there exactly. An 8" suppressed upper can be truly awesome if you have a couple of loads for it (a heavy barrier blind type subsonic load, and one that makes sense for everything else you want to do with it) makes that an extremely capable setup, but I agree with most of Mark's complaints that somebody using just off the shelf hardware and cartridges, BLK offers almost no improvement.

[scubadds]

thanks,
I really appreciate the time you guys took to answer...
I did go ahead and trade out my 16" AAC upper for a new 9" AAC 300 upper, as it will work well with SDN6.
Could not figure which lower I wanted to SBR for it (for some reason, I have become smitten with the HK MR556...) I know its expensive and heavy....
But as I research it, I am impressed with the quality of workmanship and design. I "thought" I wanted to SBR that HK lower for 300 blackout.....
But it makes more sense to go to 11" on the HK upper in 556 (or the 10.4")
Thanks for saving me time and money....

(I did have a ton of reloading stuff, and I sold it all to a friend that is starting a large scale ammo company. He is going to try out some 300 blackout, so I figured I would cash out of all my reloading gear at once.)

[darr3239]

Does anyone offer subsonic 5.56, that cycles in an AR15? That's where the 300 BLK shines. It's nice not needing any sort of hearing protection with a silencer. Even suppressed supersonic ammo isn't exactly loud.

[alienb1212]

Well since we've got the opinion of two people that don't have rifles in that caliber...


I love my 8.5" with a .30 can. So much more of a pleasant shooting experience. Yeah, it's ballistically limited, yes, there's situations where a stout 5.56 load may make more sense, but meh, why not?

It really depends on what your definition of "worth it" is. If you don't really have a purpose for it, (no hogs in Maine for me....) it's just an expensive AR-15 that shoots bigger bullets. Might as well get an AK. If you've got a can and are going for a subsonic build..it's pretty crazy quiet and a REALLY good way to break the ice with some new shooters that are afraid of muzzle blast and recoil. Mine is movie-quiet and I still get the "Man, that's ****ing cool" feeling when I take it to the range.

[TehLlama]

Well since we've got the opinion of two people that don't have rifles in that caliber...
I love my 8.5" with a .30 can. So much more of a pleasant shooting experience. Yeah, it's ballistically limited, yes, there's situations where a stout 5.56 load may make more sense, but meh, why not?
It really depends on what your definition of "worth it" is. If you don't really have a purpose for it, (no hogs in Maine for me....) it's just an expensive AR-15 that shoots bigger bullets. Might as well get an AK. If you've got a can and are going for a subsonic build..it's pretty crazy quiet and a REALLY good way to break the ice with some new shooters that are afraid of muzzle blast and recoil. Mine is movie-quiet and I still get the "Man, that's ****ing cool" feeling when I take it to the range.

Basically, that's the exact setup I want if I'm going to end up with a 300BLK upper, because that's the configuration that makes sense. The subsonic loads are limited, but do cycle the setup (5.56 are in fact awful subsonic, and if I don't care about terminal effectiveness I want 22LR or 9mm with a can, because those can be even lighter and cheaper to run with more affordable parts), but that's where 300BLK/Whisper well and truly shines, it can run subsonic loads that are SMG effective, and can still run supersonic loads and be equally or more effective than 5.56 equivalents.

My complaint again lies with why companies are selling 16" 300BLK setups - not only are those really good at only one task (taking hogs), but in order to have subsonic factory loads for those longer guns, there's a lot of velocity left on the table in factory loads when the shorter barrels are used (or at least every subsonic load I've found is set up for ~980fps at muzzle from a 16"), so the subsonics are going too slow to be anything but pistol caliber in terms of effectiveness (but they are an absolute blast to shoot for amusement, just for me if I want something purely enjoyable I want a 22lr setup so I can afford to blast indefinitely). Since I already have a suppressed short 5.56 setup, a BLK one only does one thing different for me - I can combine my effective supersonic double stamp setup with my fun suppressed subsonic setup, instead of having two separate ones. Shooting steel with a double stamp setup is easily one of the most amusing things to do at the range, and BLk would again really extend the possible range on that for fun stuff, but for me personally I'm having exactly as much fun blasting within 25yds as I would out further.

I'd really like to have one, and still might in the near future, but it's exactly as you explained, 'worth it' is variable because the use case where a 300BLK upper makes the most sense is a much smaller one than anybody selling the hardware to go with it is willing to admit.

Scuba - just have something SBR'd, it's a modular weapon system and you can run both uppers on that - as long as you're not the way I am about being incapable of the maturity require to have half of an AR without compulsively buying another 1.5 AR's just because. The 8-10" BLK uppers really do work awesome, and if you can talk him into making a load that is subsonic for THOSE uppers (and trans-sonic in 16") it'd probably sell quite well

[scooter22]

I can't think of any good reason to take on that silly round... other than hog hunting.

Because it's operator as f*ck, obviously. Duh.