300 AAC Blackout has been on the market for a while now, and for all that time the only thing Hornady has been producing for that market is a 300 Whisper cartridge. Technically they’re just about the same damn thing, but branding makes all the difference. Now it appears that Hornady has finally jumped on the 300 AAC Blackout bandwagon, but it seems they’ve simply changed the label and not the mixture. What you’re getting is the same 110 grain projectile traveling at 2375 fps as you got with 300 Whisper. With this change, that leaves Winchester as the last stubborn hold-out of the “big boys” that isn’t cranking out 300 BLK ammo as fast as they can. Moral of the story: 300 BLK isn’t just some obscure caliber anymore.
Nice to see them joining the club. Based on what it was designed for, it makes a lot of sense that this cartridge would be popular.
@Nick,
It might be nice to put together an article about switching from 223 to 300 blk on your AR. What uppers are out there, that you like. If you can’t own a can, then what? Preferred scopes on the 300 BLK?
Damnit!!!
I second Sanchanim or Snachnim, I’m going to buy a 300 BLK upper when I get the funds available. Palmetto State Armory looks like a good place to shop. Any other suggestions?
I’m on the DSArms backorder list. $350 bucks but they gave me a 4 month wait estimate. Upper without charging handle and bolt carrier group.
Now we play the waiting game until it starts showing up at wal-mart.
As I understood it, there were a few differences between the Whisper and the Blackout. In the Hodgdon 2012 annual it talked about them.
I would really love a beginners guide to putting together your first quality AR-15 in 300 BLK.
+100
Step 1. Remove 2.23/5.56 barrel.
Step 2. Replace with 300blk barrel.
Done. Enjoy your AR-15 in 300 blk.
I wonder if Hornady got tired of paying royalties for the Whisper brand name.
Best,
JBR
I wonder how much Jones charges in royalties. In hindsight if he’d cut the royalties way down or not at all he’d finally have one of his whisper cartridges solidified in the mainstream.
“Moral of the story: 300 BLK isn’t just some obscure caliber anymore.”
Even if it probably should be.
Guess it took the right marketing. The Whisper’s been around since the early 90’s.
No, it just took someone willing to put aside their inflated ego and let the round get SAAMI standardized.
Perfect answer^
They must have read that article in American Rifleman.
Nick, I mentioned this back a ways, and it was on a repeat of the show just last week. But TacTV with Larry Vickers did a side by side by side comparison with two Daniel Defense AR’s one in .223 and one in 300BLK, and an AK. Seems Daniel Defense has come out with their own version of the 300, and seeing as they are a sponsor of TacTV, LAV wanted to do free advertising for them. The only problem was, the trials they put the three guns through, made the 300 look the weakest, which kind of confused me, since they were trying to promote their new platform. Now I’m confused, and it doesn’t take much to do that, but down the road I was thinking about getting a 300 BLK upper for my AR, now, not sure!
Depends if you want a suppressed AR .300 Black out is good. For anything else 5.56mm is going to just as good.
That’s a silly statement. So 5.56 is the same, if not better than, the .458 SOCOM? Neat.
The Freedom Group knows what America wants.
1. Mercilessly buy out a suppressor company.
2. Take the same round that’s been out for years and change the name to something really fancy.
3. Said suppressor company claims it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.
4. Add America’s love for anything 30 caliber.
5. Winner. Winner. Chicken Dinner.
I remember when I was researching the .300 BO because it sounded promising. The general response was, “LOL WUT?”. The numbers aren’t there. Still not there. If I wanted to lob something, I’d play tennis (or buy a 7.62x39mm rifle)
I’m sure it’s great for suppression, but there’s better options. Just sayin’.
Yup. Agreed. 7.62x35mm wouldn’t be nearly as popular if it weren’t for its ability to use a standard AR lower.
There’s a reason people who build AK’s haven’t done much in 7.62×35. The parts are out there, 5.56 AK kits and 7.62×35 barrel blanks, but there’s no benefit when you can get what 7.62×35 promises and more from 7.62×39
In their test (TacTV) the 5.56 seemed to stay flatter than the other two at distance, especially over the 300BLK, but the 7.62×39 did more damage on a cinder block!
If you want a suppressor this caliber is fine but you have a Obama black helo over your house for years. LOL
Why aren’t there mid-length or rifle length gas systems for 300 BLK uppers? I get that one formulation of the rounds is designed for suppression, but I am kind of interested in this as a 7.62×39 replacement since I’m not a fan of AK’s. I don’t much care about suppressors since dealing with bureaucracy is annoying. Is there any technical reason that a mid-length gas system wouldn’t work, or is it just a thing that happens not to exist yet?
Gas pressure. The pistol powders burn quick, meaning that the pressure further up the barrel isn’t sufficient to cycle the action.
300blk was designed from the ground up to be optimized for carbine length gas system. Commercial ammo won’t be reliable for longer gas lengths and your choice of powders for reloading will be severely limited.
TacTV had the 300 BLK sighted in 4 inches low at 100.
Most people caught that. There are several discussions about it.
See my comment above about TacTV. I also saw how they sighted in low to begin with….it was as if they didn’t want it to perform well against the other two. Not a good way to promote your new platform!
To be honest, I never really understand why all these renaming, if the content has not changed. I read an interesting article about brand companies worldwide the other day on medium.com/theymakedesign/top-branding-agencies-bcf12154af9b. I hope someone will be interested in this. Good luck and all the best!
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