300 blk
 

Anyone put a 300 BLK upper on their AR15?

Round looks interesting. Same mags, same everything on the AR15, just swap out the complete upper.

My buddy runs one with a suppressor... she is very quite. They are cool, but if I wanted the gun for anything other than a toy ammo would be very limited. But since building AR's is dirt cheap why not have one of each. :)

Unless you are suppressing it, look at the 6.5 Grendel instead. In fact, I'm pondering selling my FAL build and 22 conversion and getting a 6.5 upper and a dedicated accurate 22lr upper.

If you are suppressing it, I've not done it but I've seen, handled, and shot 'em. Easy set up, the expensive and hard part is the right can.

It's a blast. I made my own brass out of .223 that I damaged. I use the same bullets that I use for .308.

I'm re-thinking this...

So I started reading around, and started looking at the ballistics. 7.62x39 looks to be a better cartridge, maybe 200-300 more ft-lbs. Lot of people have issues. But a search brought up people that have made it work.Apparently, the split M4 feed ramp is the issue. And the other suggestion is dedicated 7.62x39 mags. Standard lower works.

Looking around at 7.62x39 complete upper. $251 for one that works, designed with a AAC BLK type feed ramp.

A lever gun in .357 mag would be a far more effective tool in the real world. Might look funny with a suppressor, though.

My dad has one, damn it’s fun to shoot!

That is on the list. The 300 AAC Blackout looked interesting as a round. 30 caliber and similar ballistics to 7.62x39. But the 7.62x39 is more powerful and about 1/3rd the price.

As far as the .357 lever gun, that is coming. Maybe Santa will be good to me this year...

The short list also includes a .44 Magnum pistol and a .44 Magnum lever gun.

My real debate on the lever/pistol combos is...Marlin/Ruger in stainless (Houston = humidity) or Winchester/S&W. But that should be a different thread...

9x39 would be sweet if California allowed cans

I only suggested the .357 lever gun because, well, you guys know I'm not into the whole black rifle thing. That, and the suggestion was made kind of tongue in cheek.

As far as the .300 Blackout, though, it has always struck me as being far to focused of a cartridge to have any real world use for a civilian, outside of being just a fun plinker. Which is totally o.k., don't get me wrong - we do this for fun. The other "military" rounds commonly found in these "black rifles", however, all seem to have real world applications for us.

The .223/5.56 is one damn fine varmint round and the most popular match rifle chambering today. The .308/7.62 is one hell of a fine big game hunting round, and an excellent match cartridge as well. The 7.62x39 is a dead ringer for the grand old .30-30 and, loaded with the right bullets, a pretty neat little deer round.

The .300 Blackout, however, simply doesn't have a life outside of close range, door-kicking in combat. It has far too arching of a trajectory to be a varmint round, not enough poop to be a deer round, and does not perform well enough at mid to long range to be a match round. It's meant purely to add some close range stopping power to the AR platform. If all you are "stopping" is tin cans at the gravel pit or silhouette targets at the local range, its added cost and inconvenience make little sense. The same rifle in .223 would be just as effective for that duty, and far easier on the pocketbook. Not quite the cool factor or conversation piece, but the value of that will have to be decided by the individual shooter.

Jeff, 300 AAC Blackout does look like an interesting round, until I looked at ammo prices... And the LAST THING I need is stocking ANOTHER round. I've considered getting rid of my 1947 Winchester 30-30, but it is much too sweet a rifle.

That's why I make my own. .308 bullets can be gotten cheap, and you can make .223/5.56 brass into .300 BLK.

I'll pretend I didn't hear that... ;)

Phew... don't scare me like that...

That was the original appeal, after all. Kind of a bit of a dichotomy, though - all that work to neck up and fireform brass, then burn it up in an ammo-gobbling semi auto. Most folks who put that kind of effort into handloading prefer to shoot bolt guns, single shots, or lever guns.

Kind of as a somewhat related aside, this sort of reminds me of back in the '90's and early 2000's, when the long range black powder cartridge rifle game was big around here. A guy used to show up with a modern made reproduction Gatling gun. Could have been the Colt, of made from blueprints - I don't know. Anyway, he offered it up for use if you supplied your own black powder, cast bullet .45-70 loads, like the ones we were shooting in the match anyway. I never fired it, but I well remember the looks on some guys faces as they looked at the pile of spent cases at their feet, anywhere from 50 to 100 rounds. Anyone who has ever reloaded this kind of ammo will understand just how labor intensive it is. And that thing gobbled it up in just a few cranks of the handle. Yikes...

Choices
 

I considered all this a while back and finally decided to buy a PTR 91 (HK91 clone*) in the 7.62x39 chambering. It doesn't have the felt recoil of the 308/7.62x51 and uses standard AK mags (cheap). At the time, the 7.62x39 ammo was dirt cheap so I bought a couple of cases for future use. A great gun, made in the USA (South Carolina) and very high quality. I had an AR15 for a while but decided to sell it and keep the PTR rifle.

* actually, a clone of the original German STG45 which was used to design the Spanish Centme rifle which was used to design the HK91 which evolved into the PTR rifle. I didn't include the STG44 because it used a full rifle round rather than a shortened assault rifle special round. All the above examples use the roller locking action.