Month: January 2025

 

By: Fifty Shades of FDE

 

If you are like me, and own multiple copies of AR-15 Rifles and Pistols chambered in 5.56×45 or .223, I highly recommend that you get yourself into the 300 AAC Blackout round. I will tell you why in the shortest amount of time as possible.

 

300 AAC Blackout or 7.62×35 has been around for the past 10 plus years, and I myself was very hesitant for a few years after it was introduced because I didn’t want to purchase another type of ammunition. I also didn’t know enough about it and thought at first that it was not going to a round that would be popular enough to become an industry standard.

 

I will always be the first to admit that I am wrong, and I was very wrong about 300 Blackout. It’s very popular today and for many good reasons.

 

This article is sponsored by https://www.ammunitiontogo.com/

where you can get the ammo you need for your firearms at a great price. *note: At the time of this article, they are unable to ship to California due to restrictions.

What exactly is .300 Blackout? It is a .30 caliber round stuffed into a necked down 5.56×45 casing. It’s pretty genius because it is compatible with the standard AR15 platform. All you would need to do is swap the barrel and gas tube on your rifle or buy a complete .300 Blackout upper. Since the casing is the same, the boltface and BCG can stay. The rounds fit and feed into standard 5.56 mags, although there are specific magazines made for .300 Blackout available.

 

So the cost of parts is very minimal. Just grab an upper, and you’re in! It really doesn’t get any easier than that when it comes to introducing your collection to a newer caliber.

 

Ballistic performance is where the .300 Blackout beats the 5.56×45, which is at certain distances. I’m not a ballistics expert by any means, so I’ll explain it as best as I can through all of the research that I have read over the years.

 

5.56 is a tiny round, and it was designed to be effective through very high velocities. No problem when you are shooting it through a 14.5 to 16 or 18-inch barrel. As close quarters combat became more prevalent, the shorter the barrels of the 5.56 rifles became. Through experience and testing by many years of war, it has been understood by many that 10.5″ was the shortest you would want to go on a 5.56 chambered rifle. Any shorter and the rounds’ effectiveness will be diminished, and its ability to create a wound channel or yaw and fragment be reduced.

The 300 Blackout was designed to excel with shorter barrels down to 8″ and even less. Being a bigger round means that it is also heavier, the bullet weight for supersonic rounds starts around 100 grains, and subsonic rounds start at 200 grains. You can get the right load for your specific needs.

 

300 Blackout burns most of its powder quickly. Therefore, it generally creates much less of a flash signature than the 5.56.

 

It also is much quieter as well than the 5.56. Making it ideal for many purposes, such as hunting and home defense.

 

Get .300 AAC Blackout at:

https://www.ammunitiontogo.com/rifle-ammo-300-aac-blackout

 

The ease and compatibility of the 300 AAC Blackout can also be a danger as well. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures and videos of blown up AR15s. The most common cause is mixing the two calibers up. If a 300 AAC Blackout round was fed into a 5.56 chambered rifle, it would eventually push the .30 caliber bullet into the casing, causing overpressure, and since the bullet is bigger than the barrel diameter, it has nowhere to exit. After all of that, a trigger is then pulled, you will have ignited a grenade that could cause injuries or even death.

 

The best case scenario is that there are no injuries and that you just destroyed your AR15. So you have to be very careful if you are at the range with both types of rifles present.

 

I avoid the danger by being extremely aware that I do, in fact, have 300 Blackout with me, and make sure that when it is time to shoot it, that it is the only gun I am shooting until I am finished. Once I am done, It goes in the bag and along with all the mags and ammo for it.

That leads to my next system, magazines. I have several 300 Blackout magazines that were made and labeled as such. I designated every Black PMAG or magazine in my collection, a 300 Blackout magazine. All of my 5.56×45 magazines are coyote tan or FDE. That is how I visually identify what is loaded in my magazines, if its Black, it has 300 AAC Blackout in it. Simple, and that is my system.

 

I also will write with a sharpie, 300 BLK OUT on the dust covers on the upper recievers as well. If my friends are shooting it, I pay attention and handle the magazines.

 

Now, if I haven’t scared you away with all of that, 300 AAC Blackout is a versatile round that is very useful as your home defense gun or for hunting.

 

There are a lot of ammuntion offerings on the market, and they do cost more than 5.56×45 per round, but it is also in many ways more effective. If you are interested in a heavy hitting round that is effective in a shorter barrel, is quieter, and has less flash signature, the 300 AAC Blackout is what you want.