.300AAC & 6.8SPC...how come?

I get and agree with the economical argument of sharing cheap .308 pulls with a .308 Win and .300 BO for range fodder. But when talking performance, shooting 300 BO bullets in a 308, and visa versa, it would be retarding the potential of either cartridge, a compromise of the negatives.

Arguably the best bullet for the BO is the 110 TTSX as it is optimized for the cartridge COAL and lower velocity. Do you plan to use this for a 308 when you could use a 150-165gr Barnes (etc)? In a "HAD-to situation, sure, but this starts to get into the TEOTWAWKI camp.

 

The 220 subs are going to be way more prone to over penatrate. You'd be much better off shooting 110s.

 

NO...I meant FMJ bullets... practice ammo.
for Hunting, of course, specific best by caliber.

 

Shooting a 110 grain from a BLK nets you around 2400 fps MV, hardly a "lower velocity". The TTSX is a good bullet for BLK because it's expansion characteristics are better at lower velocities than most other hunting bullets. This is 300BLK's biggest barrier to great hunting performance with heavier bullets, most above 150 grains don't expand as well at BLK velocities.

Though I said "as well", bullets like Nosler Accubond, and Hornady Interbond still do pretty well, and you can load 150-155 grain to a bit over 2000 fps MV. The higher BC helps maintain energy, and they are very effective out to 300 yards. Even 168's will work, at 1800 fps. So, using something in the middle weight area for 300 BLK and .308Win can work very well without giving up anything from either caliber. Hopefully, as 300BLK popularity increases, the bullet manufacturers will come out with products that expand more at lower velocity. There may already be some factory loads around, but as I reload all my BLK, I haven't found anything beyond the current crop of hunting and target bullets. The 150 grain range can still be easily loaded to COL's less than magazine length or shorter and still have powder loads that will maximize the heavier bullet's potential. I load 155 Palmas to 2.150, in between max length (2.220) and what a 110 (2.050) would usually load to.

For home defense (inside at least), I don't favor a rifle of any type, because overpenetration will always be a hazard. A light, frangible bullet would be a great option, if there is one, but loading lightweight bullets to subsonic velocities is counter to BLK operation; they usually won't cycle well, if at all, and the current selection would still tend to overpenetrate.

 

I remember a few years ago I thought the 6.8 seemed pretty cool and I even told my LGS (semi-jokingly) that the 300 blackout was just a fad and people needed to get going on 6.8

Now I'm on board the blackout train and am wondering why there's not more of a supply being pumped out. If we could get factory ammo prices down to something closer to the price of .223 I'd be all over it.

 

cabelas in buda has 300 black. So does my local academy

 

When discussing crossloading .30 cal bullets in .300 BO and .308, it absolutely is a lower velocity in most any book. You seem to be arguing and agreeing with me in the same paragraph.

 

To the OP, where are you looking? I stopped by my local Academy Sports last week and found 3 loadings in .300 BLK and only 1 loading in 6.8 SPC. A little disappointing since I'm a 6.8 shooter, but I load my own, so it's not too big a deal for me.

So much hate and discontent among the calibers/platforms. Can't we all just get along? The more AR owners/gun owners there are, the more allies we SHOULD have. Why divide and conquer ourselves? If you like a bolt gun, buy/use a bolt gun. If you like an AR, buy/use an AR in the caliber that gets the job done for you. Waaay too much pissing among you guys. Hey, I have both a bolt gun and an AR in .308...what the hell am I thinking?

 

So...what, excuse me but I can only relate to my local area...market.
Academy Sports...what's that?
We do not have one here.
I do have a huge BassPro...Sportsman's Warehouse, and a plethora of LGS.
They do not carry .300AAC BO.
So but there is commonly 6.8 on the shelves...even WallyWorld (Walmart) had tons of it during the "shortage", I know, I bought about 30 boxes of Federal Fusion 6.8SPC then, when there was none online.

I have NEVER seen .300 AAC at Walmart or any of the Big Box Sporting Goods like BassPro, Sportsman's, or Cabelas?

That is what I was saying...my OP.
Yet there is all this "talk" about the .300AAC BO being the greatest thing since sliced bread...Gun Rag writ-ups...and so many Manufactures & Gun Makers jumping on the bandwagon, more so than rifles for the 6.8SPC ?

 

Patriot, now you see why it takes so long to negotiate a truce when dealing with people of differing opinions. Perhaps it is time for the issue to be closed?

 

Local stores and corporate marketing managers sell what they believe to be the best fit for the market.

We don't have a Mazda dealer in town, you don't have .300BO. It might have something to do with the amount of .300BO guns they have sold. If they aren't selling the guns locally, then there's even less incentive to sell ammo - they have no demonstrated need to stock it.

It's been that way in this metro for decades - what is a hot item on the coasts takes two years to be "in stock" locally. What is changing things is the internet - someone can see and read about a new item and that creates demand in a market that was previously relegated to a later part of the overall marketing scheme. The merchandisers knew about it it, but the supply chain cannot deliver those kinds of quantities to the nation. So they roll it into markets one echelon at a time to meet the production schedule of the maker.

It takes a long lead and large warehouses across the nation to roll out new merchandise simultaneously coast to coast. And the magazine writers? Paid shills for the marketers to keep getting the new toys to hype.

What we are seeing is the typical highpoint in the media about a new item, and the public is buying it despite some of it's shortcomings, as they always do. Supply is one. Just like electric cars, some cartridges aren't as available as we would like them to be, same as the recharging stations that don't exist cross country. You can't drive in an electric car coast to coast in less than ten days. You won't find cheap import or surplus .300BO in pallets at the LGS for quite a while. The 6.8 crowd has been waiting ten years, it hasn't happened yet, and there's already a host of competing cartridges trying to do the same thing.

If there is a lesson to be learned, it's that believing the consensus about a New! cartridge and taking the hype at face value is it's own punishment. You have to look further and see how it fits into your situation. If I were shooting every weekend practicing for matches and climbing the rungs of National class standings, it wouldn't be in anything but 5.56. That's about a cheap as it gets, it's government subsidized and does a great job of poking holes in paper.

 

Patriot, Academy Sports is a big box sports store in various areas around the southeast. Your location isn't listed with your avatar, so I don't know where you're from. We also have a Gander Mtn who has had the same inventory of Remington 6.8 SPC ammo for years because it's priced at something around $35/box of crap ammo, and they wonder why they can't sell it. There is also a Bass Pro within a 25-30 minute drive that stock A LOT of ammo, but I haven't visited in a long time, so I don't know if they stock .300 BLK or 6.8 SPC.

Tirod is right about regional managers stocking shelves with what they think will sell most. A manager in Texas tells what the Academy Sports in Knoxville should carry. That just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I would think that a manager in Knoxville would probably know his/her local market better than some suit in Texas. Oh well, if only I were in charge of the world for a week...

 

I know ammunition manufactures like the 300 blk because they can cut the neck off of .223 brass, size and trim it, load it up and sell each one for a dollar.

 

Not arguing, just disagreeing with part of what you mentioned about "retarding the potential" of both cartridges by cross-loading the same bullets. I shoot two different .308's and a 300BLK, and I don't see what you're talking about in my circumstance.

Certainly I could agree that you'd be wasting potential loading a .308 with 110 gr or even 125 gr. bullets, since the platform is so much more capable with 150-200 grain, but the BLK is at home with those weights also, at least in a carbine length gun. There's plenty of energy there, in a 155-168 bullet fired at 2000 fps, to take medium sized game that many would use a .308 for. Where is the loss of potential? Most of what I shoot in my BLK are those which are optimum for my .308, and I get the performance I'm after with them.

 

Stick with 5.56 and be happy.

 

I went Blackout first. Where I hunt, shots over 200 yds. Are rare. I wanted better performance than I was getting from my.223 AR in a deer rifle for my recoil shy daughter (didn't like her 243 bolt gun). All we needed was a barrel, brass, and dies and we had what was, for us, a better deer rifle.

 

Although AAC advertises the max effective range of 300BLK at greater than 400 yards, I've always seen it (and built mine as) more of a mid-range rifle, something I can shoot very accurately to 200 yards, and less so out to 300 yards. I have my sights set up to be most useful to 150 yards, but usable to 300. I think the two have some common ground, but the 6.8's potential is wasted, IMO, below 225-250 yards.

For long range, past 300 yards, I'd most definitely go with the 6.8, given the choice. Also, given the choice, I'd take the 6.5 Grendel over the 6.8SPC, but that is a different argument, er, discussion. A Grendel upper is my next project for my AR.

 

There's some concepts being assumed that don't always stack up for new gun buyers at a retail long gun store.

First, 6.8 has been out for so long that many of the bulk ammo shooters are not buying retail off the store shelf. That business went to the internet as soon as vendors could offer the deals. And the same will happen to .300BO - why buy ammo for $17-25 a box of 20 when crates of 500 run well under a dollar a round - close enough for some to just buy new brass rather than spend a bunch of time cutting down old milsurp?

Second, not all the buyers of a new caliber are reloaders. The impulse gun purchaser looking for a New! gun is doing it more for the novelty than a long term commitment. It's a status symbol. In the case of the 6.8 we started seeing the boutique shoppers falling off about four years ago as other cartridges crowded the market. The Caliber of the Month club is currently focused on .300BO, it still remains to be seen what happens when the next New! cartridge is introduced.

This goes to the AR remaining popular - which it will - but buyers are fickle and the generation coming up, the 14-20 year olds now, may have a completely different idea of what they want in firearms. They grew up with the surge in AR's, who knows what gun will be their generations example of something different they can hang their ego on.

Not to forget that there has been a strong tradition for inch designations in the civilian gun market in America. A new cartridge will more likely be named in that system than metric. Instead of naming it the 6.8SPC, Remington could have gone for .277 SOCOM. Marketing has a lot to do with it.

You know how the game is played, which would catch your interest at first mention, a .277 SOCOM, or 7.62x45 Whisper? Young buyers don't know or generally have a good grasp of ballistics - hence the current trend in 18-22" 6.8 hunting rifles. They want their gun to be just a little better than everyone else's and they will go to an extreme to do it.

That's where shelf supply is an important factor. The 6.8SPC II loadings aren't readily seen on the shelf, but .300BO is perceived as being the hot rodded 5.56 round that is bigger better than the other guys.

Marketing and perception play on the buyer's notions. It's all a game of plucking the strings of the heart and having the product sing the siren song of male enhancement.

It's why you see so many 3/4 ton Diesel pickups purchased just to get one guy to work as a commuter vehicle. "I have a Diesel truck, I shoot a bigger bullet, I am better than you."

When that mindset is questioned, it's not just numbers or using it in it's best operating parameters, it's questioning the very maleness of the owner. Exactly why we have four pages of monkey dancing as various fanboys attempt to jockey their position on the subject to prove they are not so much Right, but Superior in the male pecking order.

Again, it's where we are in the current market cycle on the .300BO. It's a comparison to 6.8, and as a very telling point, the last year, most conversations have been .300BO vs 6.8SPC. And the barely mentioned other cartridge isn't given much shrift. It has it's run, and the sales are simply falling off as new shooters don't read about it anymore. 6.8 moved into the international military market, and .300BO? Never made it as a 3Gun cartridge back 30 years ago. It doesn't have a good history, it's just a wildcat reborn for short range and suppressed use.

If my gun can shoot further than your gun with a flatter trajectory, then I am better than you. That statement has been treated like fact for over 70 years in the industry, so seeing .300BO play off it's short range use is bucking the trend.

Dedicated fans of a caliber will reload brass to their hearts content - that is not an indicator of anything when there are so few new shooters taking up reloading. It's an advanced activity for older guys 25 up, and certainly much less an impulsive buy at a LGS by the newly graduated into manhood. What those guys want is the better cartridge over a 5.56, and that is what sells in the long run. The .300BO is far from disappearing from the scene, but lets see what competition brings out at the SHOT shows the next two years. I suspect the ammo and gun makers would very much like to get people away from easy reloading into a cartridge they need to buy off the shelf where they play on their field.

Expect a lot of hype and comparisons why that New! cartridge is better than .300BO. They will ignore 6.8 because it would be a tough sell.

 

I reload for 308 and 223/5.56 and I looked at the 300BLK and 6.8 and chose the 7.62 x 40 and I am pretty happy with it , BTW I cut my 223 cases with the harbor freight saw and use a Lyman case trimmer to complete them while watching football or Nascar, you dont need a lathe.
The 6.8 has a slight edge but I already had 308 bullets and 223 cases , BTW
I killed a deer last season with it.

Here is the performance chart

7.62x40 WT (16” barrel)
110gr: 2534FPS Muzzle Velocity and 1569 Foot Pounds of Energy
125gr: 2463FPS Muzzle Velocity and 1684 Foot Pounds of Energy

5.56 Nato (16” barrel)
55gr: 3150FPS Muzzle Velocity and 1212 Foot Pounds of Energy
62gr: 3000FPS Muzzle Velocity and 1239 Foot Pounds of Energy
77gr: 2750FPS Muzzle Velocity and 1293 Foot Pounds of Energy

7.62x39 (16” barrel)
123gr: 2320FPS Muzzle Velocity and 1470 Foot Pounds of Energy

6.8 SPC (16” barrel)
110gr: 2550FPS Muzzle Velocity and 1594 Foot Pounds of Energy

300 BLACKOUT (16” barrel)
125gr: 2275FPS Muzzle Velocity and 1436 Foot Pounds of Energy

 

While the 300 BO is short range compared to intermediate carbine rounds it's the king of long range when talking suppressed SBRs, compared to a MP5 9mm it's very flat shooting.

To me it's really closer to a PCC and it's ballistics are very close to that of a 357 ( I use the same powder, similar weight bullets and get very close to the same muzzle velocities)from a carbine until ballistic coefficient takes over.

 

Great post. I highlighted some of it because it hits home on the "next greatest AR cartridge" and the promises its developers are making. Have you read much about .375 Reaper? As the 300BLK could be considered a cousin to the .223, the Reaper is supposed to do the same from the .308. Let's hide and watch, shall we?

Personally, I like the 300BLK, and it offers me what I'm looking for in an AR platform. However, I also see its shortcomings, and I don't proclaim it as the best thing since sliced bread for everyone. One reason there are so damn many cartridges and calibers to choose from in any reloading manual is that someone, somewhere, at some time, perceived that there could be something better than what was existent at that time, and developed what they thought could fill a void, or improve on something already there. Many times they succeeded, and just as often, failed to deliver something better. The arguments we have about 300BLK/6.8SPC could be carried to so many other calibers as well.

 

Well said.

Very true.