300 Blackout bolt gun as a deer/hunting rifle?

[ncbowhnter]

I will be using Varmageddon loaded up to as fast as they will go with some accuracy. Most likely before most of you were born I learned to handload from an older gentleman. I had a .308 Winchester. He was a 30-06 fan. He gave me the best deer load advice I ever got. A Herter's 170 grain round nose specifically made for tubular magazine use, loaded to 3000 feet per second. Here is what I learned using that bullet at about 2800 feet per second. It entered the deer and did not come out at all. When you slit open the belly all the soft tissue inside was liquified. Only liquid and small chunks ran out the slit. Call it trauma, back in those days it was called hydraulic shock. And when that bullet hit it knocked the deer sideways and over. I had one jump up and take one jump then crumble. The others did not even tremble where they landed.

So my favorite load will be whatever goes in but does not come out. I don't want one bit of "energy" or whatever else you would like to call it, lost outside that animal.

Some will argue about not having an exit wound and a blood trail. I won't need a blood trail, cuz that sucker ain't moving.

I have never shot a deer at anything like 200 yards. Better to wait for a dumber one to wander close.

You remind me of a new friend I made a couple years ago. He's an older gentleman, full of knowledge and wisdom, and has some of the best stories I've ever heard. He pays me $30 and 2 miller lites to cut his grass. Takes about 20 minutes to cut his grass but I end up staying there for about 2 hours every time. Good post.

[dellet]

I guess the best way for me to describe it would be....
Take an empty balloon that needs to be blown up. Pretend the balloon is inside the animals chest. Now imagine the subsonic round going much slower so the amount of air quickly forced into the balloon would be much smaller. Even if the bullet expands or fragments, you still don't have much trauma.
Now imagine the faster round being a much larger amount of air forced into the balloon in the same amount of time. The balloon would be much larger.
That is the trauma I am trying to describe if that makes sense. You can clearly see it with gel tests.
Am I wrong?
And with all that being said, with proper shot placement, all this doesn't ever matter

The problem is you are equating speed with trauma and it does not really matter how fast an object is moving to create that shock or trauma. It is the shape, and what happens to the projectile when it hits something that matters.

A 285 grain arrow at 200 fps will have a bout 25 pounds of energy and will pass through a deer with very little trauma. A .338 Lapua mag. shooting a 285 grain BTHP match bullet at 2600 fps and 4300 pounds of energy probably will not have much more internal damage, and likely a smaller wound channel than a 1 1/8 broadhead.

Instead of your balloon, think of it this way.
How hard is it to drive a 16d nail though a piece of meat?

It goes pretty easy until the nail head hits, To drive the head through, it takes much more energy and will cause much more damage/trauma than the shank of the nail. Thats basically how an expanding bullet works, when the bullet expands, it's like pulling the ripcord on a parachute.

The cast subs that gds shoots, probably don't have the dramatic expansion of something like a Lehigh, but they will act a lot like your nail, if you were to try to drive it through backwards. and you would get the results more like Traveler was talking about.

Correct bullet design for the application, is much more important than speed.

[tXr]

You can get a serious bump in performance from a bolt or single shot over a 300blk chambered AR. I get very similar performance to the 762x40 with my Encore(13.5" barrel) because I am no longer limited with such a short COL to fit and operate correctly in a AR magazine.

Shot placement is key, I have "seen" a white tail taken with a 25 cal pcp air rifle shooting a 39gr pellet, DRT at 50 yards

[TNFrank61]

I use to get caught up quite a bit in ft/lbs of energy, bullet weight, caliber, ect. Today I just kind of feel like if you can accurately hit what you're aiming at and poke a hole in it so it'll bleed out then you'll kill it. You may not knock it off it's feet and you might have to track it for a bit but if it'll bleed it'll die.
All that being said my personal "rule of thumb" is 2ft/lbs per lb. of deer so that if you're hunting a 250lb Whitetail you'll need 500ft/lbs on target for a clean kill. Not any hard and fast rule, just my personal rule.
I honestly think at the range that I'd shoot at a deer(300 yards or less, much less,LOL) that a 300 Blackout will do the job. Especially if I keep it to 200 yards or less because in my way of thinking the 300 Blackout is in the same ballistic range as a 30/30 Winchester and with a 150gr bullet the 30/30 will kill a deer effectively out to 200 yards if you do your part.

[jwb47]

I will be using Varmageddon loaded up to as fast as they will go with some accuracy. Most likely before most of you were born I learned to handload from an older gentleman. I had a .308 Winchester. He was a 30-06 fan. He gave me the best deer load advice I ever got. A Herter's 170 grain round nose specifically made for tubular magazine use, loaded to 3000 feet per second. Here is what I learned using that bullet at about 2800 feet per second. It entered the deer and did not come out at all. When you slit open the belly all the soft tissue inside was liquified. Only liquid and small chunks ran out the slit. Call it trauma, back in those days it was called hydraulic shock. And when that bullet hit it knocked the deer sideways and over. I had one jump up and take one jump then crumble. The others did not even tremble where they landed.

So my favorite load will be whatever goes in but does not come out. I don't want one bit of "energy" or whatever else you would like to call it, lost outside that animal.

Some will argue about not having an exit wound and a blood trail. I won't need a blood trail, cuz that sucker ain't moving.

I have never shot a deer at anything like 200 yards. Better to wait for a dumber one to wander close.

I have had success with the varmageddon on white tail . I keep hearing people say it will blow up on contact but at 135 yds with the bullet leaving the muzzle at 2250 fps I shot a doe quartering way from me the bullet enter'd through the ribs crossed the chest and penetrated the opposite side shoulder I found the jacket and core seperated under the skin . Dont sweat it .

[TNFrank61]

Other then the Logic of having a bolt gun chambered in the same caliber as the AR I plan on building there's really no other reason to go 300 Blackout in a bolt action. I mean even the humble .243 Win. beats it in ballistics and down range performance with flatter trajectory, cheaper ammo prices, more availability and higher velocity. Still, there's just some "force" that's compelling me to get a Ruger American in 300 Blackout even though I'll be about $50 more then one in .243/7mm08/308 and even though it's really not practical for anything larger then deer size game and out to around 200 yards at that.
Is this some kind of "300 Blackout Sickness" or something, LOL. I just think it's such a neat little cartridge, I have to have one.

[ncbowhnter]

Other then the Logic of having a bolt gun chambered in the same caliber as the AR I plan on building there's really no other reason to go 300 Blackout in a bolt action. I mean even the humble .243 Win. beats it in ballistics and down range performance with flatter trajectory, cheaper ammo prices, more availability and higher velocity. Still, there's just some "force" that's compelling me to get a Ruger American in 300 Blackout even though I'll be about $50 more then one in .243/7mm08/308 and even though it's really not practical for anything larger then deer size game and out to around 200 yards at that.
Is this some kind of "300 Blackout Sickness" or something, LOL. I just think it's such a neat little cartridge, I have to have one.

My thoughts exactly. Unless you have a suppressor. That would change the game a little

[TNFrank61]

My thoughts exactly. Unless you have a suppressor. That would change the game a little

A Suppressor on one of these little bolt actions would be uber cool but I just don't feel like begging BATFE for the "Privilege" of getting something that I should have the Right to own in the first place and second, I don't want to give them $200 to pay a "Tax" on my Rights either. Also, Suppressors aren't cheap. A low cost quality one will run $1000 and up and I don't have that kind of cash for something that I may use a couple times a year.
I am going to get a 5/8"x24 Phantom Flash Hider and install on the end of the barrel because those threads just scream out for something other then a thread protector, LOL.

Like I said, a 300 Blackout bolt gun isn't a very logical choice except for pairing it with a 300 Blackout AR which I hope to build in the near future.

[ncbowhnter]

Like I said, a 300 Blackout bolt gun isn't a very logical choice except for pairing it with a 300 Blackout AR which I hope to build in the near future.

Or if you reload, or if you are sensitive to recoil.

[TNFrank61]

Or if you reload, or if you are sensitive to recoil.

Yes and Yes, LOL. Although not so much "sensitive" as it is just having a bad neck that I'd like to take care of. I mean there's no reason to beat it up more then needed. Heck, when I worked at McMilian Arms in 1989 I got to shoot my fill of the M88's in 50BMG that we made for the Navy, now those would really beat ya' up after a day of shooting. Now days I'm more mellow, I like my 9x19mm G26 for CCW and while I still want a 12Ga it'll be a semi-auto gas gun to soften recoil. So, yep, the 300 Blackout should work fine for what I want to do with a rifle.