Gentlemen, lend me your knowledge. (Very long winded 300blk content)

Wider, too. Wind is a major factor at Long Range. The 19th century Creedmoor target had "wings" to the sides, making it wider than tall.

I am a contender fan as well. I’ve been thinking about getting a 12” 300 blackout or a 30 Herrett with a 7 or 8 twist to shoot subsonics with a suppressor. Now that they are going to start making heavy sub subsonic bullets for the 350 legend though I’m thinking of just switching out my 357 max barrel for a faster twist one. I only have room to shoot 350 or so at home now

Far be it from me to question what another man wants to do for a hobby in his free time....

But this is kind of like taking a dirt bike to an indy car track.....


I mean, if you enjoy it, that is what matters. Shooting 1000 yards in the wind is challenging enough with a high velocity rifle cartridge though...

500 yards I think would be a hoot. 1000 I think will just be frustrating.

Walkalong said:

Amen to that.

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Yep, cut’r off

As an avid specialty pistol shooter, I would say it was a mistake to plan a 1,000yrd pistol on a Contender. Encore pistols give far more versatility to put powder behind the bullet.

As has been stated, and understood readily by anyone who understands ballistics even at a remedial level, subsonic 300blk is a poor choice for the task. Avoiding the transonic transition and destabilization isn’t really pertinent for a bullet that will REALLY want to wobble half way to your target.

If I were starting over with the intent of 1,000yrd pistoling, I’d build another 700 clone in 6 Dasher or 6.5 Creed, depending upon how I felt on the day the barrel were ordered.

ETA: take a peak at the specialty pistol board, lots of us doing 1,000yrds with handguns. Ernie @xphunter is probably the most vocal advocate for the capability specialty handguns, well worth following on various sites and platforms.

Trashyshoots said:

And where is this speciality pistol board you speak of, I havnt found it yet.

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We keep it pretty well concealed. Google “specialty pistol forum”..........

Bullets wobble when they run out of steam.
The Blackout is hardly starting with any. (Relatively speaking.)

Conversely, if you are truly shooting rimfire at five hundred yards, that compares to the 308Win at sixteen hundred.
You should be a remarkable reader of wind already...

Hookeye said:

Too bad Hornady dropped the 180 gr single shot pistol bullet. Wonder how that would work in a . 357 max

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I shot a bunch of them (trimmed meplat to fit cylinder length) from my .357/44 B&D Redhawk before they were discontinued. Speer still offers their 2435 180grn .358” Flat nose Hotcor, which is what I shoot now. It leaves the station at a cozy 1900fps over H110/296, I’ve shot it to 350-500 quite a bit, but haven’t bothered to revise my optic and mount to reach 1,000. The target would be massive, I’m already 4moa+ on target at 500, but running the numbers on his 230grn Berger at 1000fps, I’d have 30% less drop at 1000yrds with my revolver than his specialty pistol.

Running a subsonic 300 into a target one in a half dozen shots at 1,000 can and has been done. But there are other cartridges which would do the job far better with no more blast and less recoil. Don’t like blast? Stick a can out front. Don’t like recoil? Stick a can out front, and get a better grip.

What we’re talking about here is like devising a plan to enter a minivan in the Indy 500.

I don’t use them for 1000 yards but I would pick a 6mm or 7mm BR XP100 over a contender in 300 blk every time for accuracy up close or far away.

Trashyshoots said:

Dang, so im pretty much limited to 500 yards... slightly heartbreaking, haha.

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Just use a different cartridge.

At 1000 yards from a pistol, the cartridge you want was designed in Spain in the decade after WWII: 7.92x41mm CETME. Rather than explaining the reasons for how this cartridge, and particularly its bullet, does what it does out to 1 kilometer while producing relatively low recoil, I refer you to this fascinating video from Forgotten Weapons:



The problem is that this was an exotic experimental aluminum core bullet with a copper 'jacket' that no one makes today.

As to .300 AAC in a pistol, I actually had one:



I say had because I have since rechambered this barrel to a vanity wildcat I designed in 1999, which, as it later turned out, amounts to a slightly shorter rimmed version of the .300 AAC. I did the chamber conversion, which involved a simple ream out using my own reamer, because those spent rimless AAC cases are a colossal pain to pry out of the TC Encore's extractor -- if you use the .300 AAC in a single shot, make sure it has an ejector! Or grow longer fingernails than I have.

I can't tell you anything about long range work with this handgun setup because I've only used it at a 22 yard indoor range to date. With stout loads, the recoil is on par with my Encore's 44 Magnum barrel and factory loads. Muzzle flash and blast can be interesting with supersonic stuff, so I stick with subsonics indoors.

@Dave DeLaurant
I'll watch that video when I make it home from work, I love their video series. Im also curious about your extraction being so difficult, out of my 223 the brass is easy to pull out.

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I don't have your fingers. I'm stuck with mine, which are too darned fat for this job.

If you've already got an Encore or Contender, none of the following is news: the TC's extractor pushes the case out of the chamber a scant 1/3" from the back of the barrel. With such shallow extraction, the .223 case family doesn't give _me_ enough to grab onto. When I try to pinch an extracted .223-based case sticking out such a short distance, my fingers just slip around and behind the case. On top of that, the Encore's rimless extractor uses upward spring tension to positively engage the cartridge's extraction groove. That means an extracted case won't simply fall free if you point the barrel up -- you need to yank on it a bit. It doesn't help that I keep (well, bite) my nails short. To speed things along and reduce swearing I usually hook the extracted case's rim with something else, typically the rim of another spent case.

This problem isn't unique to me and the TC -- I have the same problem with my H&R in .300 AAC. I own a different H&R single shot in .38 Super (a custom rebore) with a spring ejector that makes life oh so much easier! Interestingly, I don't have the same problem with pulling .22 Hornet cases out of another of my Encore barrels. Even the small protruding rim of the Hornet is enough for my fingers to grab.

Trashyshoots said:

@Dave DeLaurant

That makes sense. A 38 super singleshot would be cool.

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It can also shoot 9x19 in a pinch by headspacing on the extractor groove.