I have two 300 BOs.
A 16 inch and a 10 inch.
I use 200m for supers and 100m for subs as a rule of thumb.
Cool. Kind of along the lines of what I was thinking, and given your background I’ll make note of it. 
I have no special, tactical experience with the round.
I only have a fraction of a perfect of experience with it on animals vs 30-06, .270, etc.
With longer range man stoppers and game droppers, you are typically dealing with 3000fps. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a good bit more.
My opinion is mainly based on range time only.
For subs you want to be not much over 1000fps.
Sound really refracts and seems louder and travels farther in the cold, and cracking the speed of sound is easier when you are freezing your ass off. Playing at the desert range at 110 degrees as your only use you can use faster subs, but for simplicity let’s round off to 1000.
The 300 Subs act a lot like 147gn 9mm, 165gn 40, 185-200 45ACP, 45 Colt (factory type loads- no 44Mag rivaling handloads for your Ruger or Marlin), and real light 38s.
While some of these hit harder or lighter, they have pretty similar trajectories, and pretty similar run out of oomph ranges.
The supers act a hell of a lot like 30-30 and 7.62 x 39. Sort of in the middle between the 1000fps and 3000fps cartridges.
You can play with your zero, or use BDC reticles, etc. but tend to drop a lot past 200.
From talking to guys that drop a ton of animals with particular calibers,
I add that in.
For my ability, accuracy, calibers, guns, damage at that range, etc.
My 1000 FPS-ish stuff my rule of thumb is 100m
For 2000 FPS-ish stuff, 200m.
For 3000 FPSish and up stuff, 300m.
Sure, if you are a marauding post apoptalypic war lord coming at me on a motorcycle with an Uzi mounted to the headlight 500m away, I’ll try to wing it with any of the above.
Youre damn close to optimal with a 50yd zero. I have a suppressed 9" 300BLK and ran some different zero distances through JBM using Barnes 110 Tac-TX and compared the following zero ranges:
50/120M, 60/100M, 40/150M, and 30/200M.
I finally settled on the 150M zero for a couple of reasons:
- Bullet rise over line of sight is never greater than 1.5" out to 200M.
- Bullet drop at 200M is 4.5" below line of sight
- This zero had the second widest Point Blank Range on an 8" target (200M zero had the widest, but you will deal with being 4" high at 100M, versus 1.5" high with a 150M zero)
If you opt for a 200M zero, then, as previously stated, your bullet will be nearly 4" high at 100M but you will also experience the least drop at distance (7" low at 250M.) The 50M, 100M, and 150M track 15" low, 16.3" low, and 12.5" low respectively at 250M.
Drops at 200M for each of these zeroes is as follows: 50M zero: -6.5". 100M zero: -7.5". 150M zero: -4.5". 200M zero: 0.0" (obviously)
I threw this together a while ago and put it in a spreadsheet, of which I am using for reference, so take these numbers with a grain of salt and feel free to double check, but
this is what I’ve been able to conclude. Now I just need enough time and ammo to verify it all.
I’ve shot deer three times with Black Tip (20-75yds) and recovered the bullets all three times.
The first two bullets were to the same large buck. Round 1 was a liver shot and penetrated fully but got caught up in the hair just outside the exit wound. Since it was to the liver, a second round was needed to dispatch the animal. Round 2 hit about an inch above the asshole and ricocheted off the pelvis and ended up breaking the deers left femur.
Round 3 was a perfect shot on a doe and just the same as the first time, full penetration, but the bullet caught up in the hair outside the exit wound.
They always advertise their great weight retention so I threw them all on the scale when I got home to measure. Now these were all factory loads so I dont know if they were exactly 110 grains before firing, but theyre all close enough that I sure aint complaining about retention.
Round 1: 107.5gr
Round 2: 107.7gr
Round 3: 107.7gr
I also measured the min/max expansion and the overall length of each fired bullet which I can post if anybody is interested, but its probably better suited for the Terminal Ballistics subforum.
I found it an odd coincidence two of the bullets fully penetrated but got caught in the hair immediately after exiting. Im used to full pass through with a 30-30 and definitely prefer an exit wound for blood trailing purposes. Ive had 30-30 rounds that didnt penetrate fully but thats generally not the norm. A sample size of three doesnt have much statistical significance, but my general takeaway is over penetration in home defense scenarios shouldnt be a worry. The inverse of that is now it has me wondering if, for hunting purposes, is there enough penetration? Obviously every shot is different and bones and other matter plays a great deal into all this, but it still has me wondering.
Please stop shooting a deer until you learn to shoot…
What sort of 100 yard groups do you get? I have that ammo. Just curious. I have some operator error issues I need to cure. Would like to have some known basis.
We’ve taken a half dozen Whitetail with the 110 BlackTip and H110 at <2400 FPS at the ranch in the last 2 years.
Two, “new to deer hunting”/younger guys used one of my 16" guns from tree stands last year. Both were vetted “shooters” that were range buds.
The exceedingly mild recoil/report make the .300 an easy rd. to shoot to ones potential.
Five of the six deer were taken at 100 yds. or less, from stands in timber.
As said, with a trajectory like a rainbow, precise target/yardage data is necessary to make hits at distances of 200 yds or greater.
In a hunting scenario, ranging is frequently NOT possible due to game movement.
I’ll limit my .300 Blk to what has shown to work and keep shots inside 150 yds. It has been reliably effective with this limitation.
The margin of error (drop) is too great to push the cartridge in my book. We have better cartridges for that task…
AAC said 300 yards back in the day and I think Kevin has restated that recently. 150 yards and in with sub 7", 300 yards and in with 9" and above.
I look at the .300 as a specialty round. It has two specialties. Short distance, and short barrels. My only reason to have a .300 is that I wanted an small, compact SBR for home defense, and the 5.56 gives up too much out of short barrels. My .300 SBR has an 11.3" barrel, and I only shoot the 110 gr black tip as a duty ammo. I would never try to use it beyond 150 yds unless it was all I had at the time.
Of course other factors are my ever weakening eyesight, me using a red dot, and the fact that I’ll never be able to afford to stock up on .300 Blackout like I do with 5.56mm. The price of .300 Blackout ammo would have me much rather stock up on ammo for the 14" .308 AR. I am considering a 7.62x39 upper for its cheap ammo availability, but then I’d need special mags, different bolt…
5.56 is perfectly suitable for home defense from a 11.3” barrel. So is .300, of course.
My 9" BCM Barrel shoots Hornady black box 110 V-max at just over 2100 ft secs. My Win 296 load pushes the same bullet to 2240. Furthest coyote so far about 130 yards drt 1 round.
Yes, but when I say “home defense” I don’t just mean my house hold. I mean my home as in wherever I’m at. My “home town”, my “camp sight”… I’ll not utilize my SBR at long range, but I will expect it to reach out to 100 to 150 yds. The .300 could fair better at 150, or at 200 should I push it, than the 5.56 would out of a short barrel. I know the 5.56 would do the job at 150 or 200 yds easy, but the .300 would give me a little bit of an edge over the 5.56 because of the short barrel, so I went with it. It’s a case of not a whole lot better… but better.
My SBR is 11.3" .300 Blackout, and I shoot the 110 gr Vortx. Good combo, but I’d still not push it beyond the 150 -200 yd mark.
My pistol is a 10.5" 5.56. Same story, I’d not push it far. Probably 150 yds. I want to try out the Hornady 77 gr TAP SBR load here soon. See if it’s worth it.
In either case, I would be hard pressed to even pick up targets at over 150 or 200 yds as I’m only using red dots sights, and my eyes are rapidly failing me anyway.
From what I’m reading, if I wanted a pistol that would be a home defense gun with a suppressor (eventually) and sparingly be used to hunt feral hogs/whitetail with supers at ranges of 50-100 yards with a max of ~150 yards would a barrel length of 9 inches be a viable choice? It almost sounds like to be an effective hunting gun it should have a 16” barrel, as indicated in an earlier post.
Or am I thinking of this incorrectly? If hunting is the purpose go with a dedicated 16” and for home defense use the sorter 9-12” barrels with a suppressor?
No reason to have a 16" 300. 9" is fine for hunting.
Thanks! 9 it is