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When Kentucky Gun Co sent the Diamondback FS Nine for testing, I also requested to borrow an H&R Handi-Rifle in 300 Blackout (review in the works). Unfortunately, there’s nothing chambered in 300 BLK in my gun safe and I was fresh out of any ammo in the caliber from almost two years ago when I last shot it. A trip to two local gun shops left me empty-handed, but my local shooting range pulled through. They had a few boxes of Gorilla Ammo‘s subsonic 300 BLK on hand and, while there was a slight tingle of recognition in my mind, I wasn’t actually sure if I’d heard of the brand before. They said it was really nice stuff so I bought two boxes . . .

Reviewing the Handi-Rifle would, of course, require more ammo than that so I hit up the intertubes to find some. I also opened up a box of Gorilla’s gun food and liked what I saw. Their website had a lot more information, I liked what I saw there too, and pretty soon there was more 300 BLK and some .223 on the way.

EDIT: Now available with more coupon code! I gave Gorilla Ammo a head’s up that this post was on here, and they were kind enough to extend a discount to TTAG readers. Use coupon code TTAG10 during checkout for 10% off your order (valid to June 6th, 2014).

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My first impression was that the plastic clamshell inner packaging is pretty cool. You can either pluck rounds right out the top, shake it upside down to dump them all out, or pop the clamshell open to have easier, yet organized access.

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Second impression: this is extremely nice-looking ammo. It should be, too, as Gorilla takes great steps to ensure its aesthetics as well as its dimensional (and powder load) conformity.

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Quality is really paramount here, and you can read more on the Gorilla website, specifically, the “About Us” and the “Our Quality Difference” pages. Instead of copying and pasting everything I’ll just refer you to those links, and will put the short version here:

  • Top quality, new brass — e.g. Lake City
  • Top quality projectiles — e.g. Nosler, Sierra, Hornady
  • Ballistics lab for load development. Includes chamber and port pressure measurement, velocity testing, accuracy testing, etc.
  • Laser inspection equipment tests each round six times for dimensional conformity. Can measure to 0.0005 of an inch.
  • Loaded ammunition is polished after manufacture, and high speed photography equipment inspects each round for flaws.

This isn’t so much a review as it is a sort of “heads up” if you weren’t familiar with the brand or maybe had heard of Gorilla Ammo but hadn’t checked them out. After putting a bunch of rounds through the Handi-Rifle, though, I can absolutely say that you should check them out. The results were excellent and were markedly better than a large manufacturer’s .300 BLK that I eventually found and purchased locally. But you’ll have to read the Handi-Rifle review to see.

Gorilla Ammo is not cheap, but it’s in-line with or even low on the price scale of other match grade ammunition (for instance, .223 with 69 grain Sierra Matchking is $19.99 for a box of 20, or $375 for 500). It’s certainly match grade, top quality stuff so I believe it represents solid value if that’s what you’re shopping for. Plus I really like the packaging.

Gorilla Ammo Website: https://www.gorillaammo.com/
Gorilla Ammo Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gorillaammo

Gorilla Logo from FB Page

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31 COMMENTS

  1. Ah great now you’ve blown the lid off where am I going to get ammo? 🙂 Their going to get bought out before I get a chance to buy more. 😉

  2. @Nathan,

    Check ammoseek.com, gunbot.com, Natchez, Midway, LAX ammo, etc. There are still plenty of gunshop employees who don’t even know the 6.8 SPC and 300 BLK exist.

  3. @Jeremy S,

    I love quality ammo, and thanks for the heads up. I’ve heard of Gorilla, but haven’t tried any. That’s going to change. Those rounds look like they need to see the inside of an AR.

    • Hey Accur81 — I hope you didn’t order yet, because I e-mailed Gorilla to give them a heads up that this post was on here and they replied with a coupon code for 10% off for TTAG. Info is up in the post now (and the code is TTAG10).

      Jeremy

  4. If it isn’t loaded by children in some third world country than it isn’t worth my time /sarcasm

    • The ‘good’ ammo just sits in a couple of magazines waiting for the day. The stuff that actually gets shot is the cheapest, dirtiest, lousiest stuff on the shelf. Funny thing though, on half man targets within 200 yards my rifle can’t tell the difference between match grade ammo and junk, so long as it goes bang.

  6. Man, looking forward to that 300 BLK Handi rifle review!
    And good to see anyone producing 300. I need a butt load of it but haven’t found the right source yet…

  7. Gorilla ammo is some good s/:;( before I decided I needed a new budget I enjoyed usin thier product, but now I typically use critical defense

  9. Shouldn’t that be “good through 05/06”? “Good until XX/XX” always made me think that XX/XX was when the code wouldn’t work anymore.

    • Honestly I’m not sure. Gorilla said it’s “active for 30 days” and it was created today like 40 minutes after this was posted. So whether it’s good through the 6th of next month or good through the 5th or what, I’m not entirely sure. If you think you need some, don’t wait until midnight on the 5th to place the order 😉

    • Crap. Ditto. Sorry for not verifying it. I shot an e-mail back to Gorilla like 10 min ago and they’ll get it figured out soon. Keep an eye out here and I’ll update when I hear back. …but they’re EST and it’s after 7:00 PM there so it’s possible that this will be resolved tomorrow…

  12. Gorilla 220gr 300blk is the only factory load I have shot that is consistently subsonic (Hornady 208gr AMAX is the worst offender, 1400+ FPS on some shots) yet has the strength to cycle and lock back an unsuppressed 9″ AAC upper.

    Grouping is above average but not in hand-load territory.

  13. I’m a college student. Wolf is all I can afford to feed my poor AR. Which is partly why I got an Adams Arms piston AR, so that it would better handle oodles of shitty ammo.

    • …not entirely sure if you’re serious or being a little bit sarcastic, but the truth is that I was oddly impressed and fascinated by it haha. Like, I really dig the clamshell! I opened up that first box and did the whole “shutup and take my money” thing 😉

  16. Talk about marketing overload. Is TTAG getting kick-backs from companies associated with .300 BLK?

    Edit: “Use coupon code TTAG10 during checkout for 10% off your order…”

    Yeah, probably.

    • No. As mentioned, I e-mailed the company and linked them to this write-up informing them that I put this up on the site. I did ask them if they would be interested in offering a coupon code for our audience, and they said ‘sure thing.’ Did the same with See All and with Tactical Triad. I don’t really see a reason not to. If something is going up on here with a positive review and I can talk the company into offering a discount for anybody who wants to try it, I don’t see a downside there.

      TTAG will get precisely 0% of any sales that happen to come from this. If there’s a way for me or TTAG to take advantage of sales from this, it would be if we get some sort of feedback from Gorilla saying “wow, you guys have a huge audience and we got a ton of hits from that write-up” and then using that as an incentive for other companies to loan us their products to review — guns, optics, ammo, gear, etc. Of course, they’d have to be confident because the review will tell it how it is…

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