I finally jumped on the 300 Blackout band wagon. I have my barrel and everything else needed to build my upper. I just finished converting 130 5.56 cases to 300 BLK. I guess I researched everything about it except the actual availability of ammunition and reloading components.
Outdoor life awarded the 300 Blackout Barnes TAC-TX Blacktip “Ammo of the Year”. That’s just great except it’s not actually for sale anwhere. Neither are the 110 grain Blacktip TAC-TX bullets as a reloading component. Barnes is even sold out.
At this point there are only a handful of 308 bullets that are suitable for 300 Blk velocities. Most of them require a higher velocity window than can be obtained with the Blackout(Including many of the non blacktip Barnes TSX bullets).
One of the better choices out there appears to be the 125 grain Sierra Pro Hunter. It also appears to be sold out everywhere.
Where are all the new 300 blackout bullets that were suppose to be coming down the pipeline?
The ballistic tips appear adequate for small deer but I was hoping for something that offers consistent penetration and expansion. Too bad there isn’t a bonded or Nosler Partition style bullet available below 150 grains.
The 125 grain Nosler Ballistic tip has good penetration in ballistic gel but it fragments. I think it would make a great self defense choice but perhaps not ideal for hunting should it encounter a heavy shoulder bone of a large mule deer.
The stand outs in the test appear to be the 125 grain Sierra Pro Hunter, 130 grain Hornady soft point, and the 110 Tac-TX black tip.
The Hornady bullet is available so I may have to settle on that or the Barnes 130 grain TTSX which may not get the velocity needed for adequate expansion.
I use Atlanta Arms and PNW Arms Nosler 125 gr ballistics for hog hunting and it’s an excellent round. The first time I used the round, I took two hogs with one shot.
Since then I mix my hunting rounds with 110 gr. Barnes Black Tip and the 125 gr Nosler.
Appreciate the help but all of those components are less than ideal or inadequate for hunting medium sized game and are available for much less from Midway or Grafs.
Im not saying there is a shortage of lightweight .308 caliber bullets. Obviously that is not the case. There is a shortage of lightweight 110-130 grain .308 caliber bullets that will give superior results at 300 Blackout velocities.
Barnes probably shipped them all to their distributors - like Black Hills Shooters Supply. If so, a dealer would just need to know to pull them from a distributor rather than Barnes. Or maybe just order from Barnes and they will ship when they next have them.
Nightvisionary
Are you shooting unsurpressed? If you are get some 150 gr Speer BT’s and load them up with 17 gr Lil’Gun OAL 2.100" for 2022 fps. I get great exspantion all the way out to 200 yards with this load in my 16" CMMG.
Unfortunately those are all the standard .308 Barnes 110 bullets not the 300 Blackout optimized black tip. The 300 TAC-TX blacktip catalog code is 30811. With a bullet length of 1.173 it is longer than the other 110 grain Tac-TX bullets. Barnes offers several all copper 110 grain bullets so it can be very confusing.
