300 blackout bullets selection

[IAm_Not_Lost]

I haven't used any Barnes in my 300. I bought the 16" upper (along with reloading dies, some primed and spent brass, a box of 125gr Vmax, and a handful of loaded ammo) from a friend of mine specifically for my daughter to use for deer. She ended up not caring much for deer hunting (she prefers pheasants), so during Covid I re-did a few things on it to make it more practical or maybe more tactical. Anyway, I've hunted, trained, and competed with this friend of mine since the early 90's. We are both extremely competent hunters and shooters. The only deer in recent history that he's wounded was with this 300 BO using Barnes 110gr projectiles. He felt that the shot looked and felt great, the hit looked good, and the distance was within 100 yds (super easy shot for either of us). There was very little blood trail and he was not able to recover the deer. I know that many of the Barnes projectiles struggle to expand starting at around 2,000 fps. I'm not calling into question whether or not they have a 110gr bullet that's well suited for the 300 BO. I'm just not willing to risk duplicating his experience when I have experience with the MKZ bullets. The MKZ line has always given me extremely impressive results on both paper and fur. I haven't tried their 125gr on fur yet, but on paper it has been accurate and has given me a little more speed than most other 120gr and 125gr options. I'm looking forward to proving it on game in a couple of months. The MKZ bullets do cost quite a bit more than Barnes, but on an average year I might have $60 wrapped up into #150 worth of meat including 30-50 lb of summer sausage and/or snack sticks, so I don't mind spending more on a projectile that I have a lot of confidence in.

I just had to look up the MKZ bullets, hadn't seen those in detail.

Yeah, it's so hard to quantify one deer that didn't respond to a bullet, I mean, you have stories like that in every caliber. I just listened to a Vortex Nation podcast where the guest started shooting 33 Nosler because an Elk didn't go down with his 270 WSM, an obviously excellent cartridge for Elk.

Would be interesting to know which .30 caliber bullet from Barnes he used. I could see the blue tip not doing great from a 300BO at 100 yards since the velocity would be so marginal, but I thought the TacTX were supposed to be for that slower caliber, could be wrong.

 

[dellet]

Would be interesting to know which .30 caliber bullet from Barnes he used. I could see the blue tip not doing great from a 300BO at 100 yards since the velocity would be so marginal, but I thought the TacTX were supposed to be for that slower caliber, could be wrong.

Barnes doesn’t actually make a hunting bullet suitable for 300 BLK.

The 110 Blacktip that many people use is actually a tactical bullet designed for Military and LE. The clues are in the name TAC-TX and on the box, M/LE. Many people use it and it works. But you need to understand the design.

It’s barrier blind, meaning it can be shot through things like drywall, glass, car doors and clothing without losing course or starting to expand. But also made to not over penetrate when hitting tissue. It’s not supposed to pass through a body. You may or may not get a blood trail.

The TXS is the Barnes hunting bullet.l line. They do not make one specifically for the lower Blackout velocity. The 110 Blue tip could work at very short distances. Expansion velocity is around 1800 fps. So with a muzzle velocity of 2400 fps, 1-125 yards would about the limit.

This is where the cartridge really got a bad reputation as a hunting cartridge. People not researching their bullets and using the wrong application.

 

[Lefty2506]

Barnes doesn’t actually make a hunting bullet suitable for 300 BLK.

The 110 Blacktip that many people use is actually a tactical bullet designed for Military and LE. The clues are in the name TAC-TX and on the box, M/LE. Many people use it and it works. But you need to understand the design.

It’s barrier blind, meaning it can be shot through things like drywall, glass, car doors and clothing without losing course or starting to expand. But also made to not over penetrate when hitting tissue. It’s not supposed to pass through a body. You may or may not get a blood trail.

The TXS is the Barnes hunting bullet.l line. They do not make one specifically for the lower Blackout velocity. The 110 Blue tip could work at very short distances. Expansion velocity is around 1800 fps. So with a muzzle velocity of 2400 fps, 1-125 yards would about the limit.

This is where the cartridge really got a bad reputation as a hunting cartridge. People not researching their bullets and using the wrong application.

Totally agree.

 

[Lefty2506]

I just had to look up the MKZ bullets, hadn't seen those in detail.

Yeah, it's so hard to quantify one deer that didn't respond to a bullet, I mean, you have stories like that in every caliber. I just listened to a Vortex Nation podcast where the guest started shooting 33 Nosler because an Elk didn't go down with his 270 WSM, an obviously excellent cartridge for Elk.

Would be interesting to know which .30 caliber bullet from Barnes he used. I could see the blue tip not doing great from a 300BO at 100 yards since the velocity would be so marginal, but I thought the TacTX were supposed to be for that slower caliber, could be wrong.

I agree. It's hard to draw a solid conclusion from a sample size of 1. A good example of that is that the folks that hunt the 50 acres behind us took a decent 10 point during archery season last year. It was a high double lung shot. I can't remember whether they shot it late in the morning or early in the afternoon, but the following day one of our hunters watched it fall over dead at around 10:30 am while it was attempting to checkout a hot doe. If I remember correctly, the arrow was still sticking out of it. Its would be easy to say that a double lung shot with a broadhead is ineffective based on that, but I've killed dozens of deer that way.
Conversely, that same hunter killed a 150 class 12 point during archery season last year using a 2 blade mechanical, and there was NO blood trail. We searched for blood for 4 hours and not a drop. I choose to start looking down a different set of paths that I knew they often used in that area and found him laying dead in the middle of a logging road roughly 180 yds from where he was shot. I back tracked him looking for blood and found maybe 6 small drops. I've never been a big fan of 2 blade broadheads, and now there's no way on earth I'd use one.

The difference between these 2 examples is that in the 2nd example there are plenty of other options that have proven, reliable results over the years. There's no reason for me to use a 2 blade broadhead. There are no advantages that it could offer me over a 3 blade broadhead regardless of whether we're talking about fixed blades or mechanicals. I'm pretty sure my buddy was using the black tip Barnes in the 300 blackout, but (similar to the broadheads) there's no reason for me to use it. There are several projectiles that have proven to be effective 100% of the time in a 300 blackout regardless of whether its fired from an AR pistol or a bolt action rifle. To be clear, I'm still not going to say that Barnes doesn't make a good deer hunting bullet for a 300 Blackout. Based on the limited evidence I have, I've simply decided to use something else. If it were not for my curious nature, I'd just use the 125gr SST an call it good. However, based on the results I get from the 105 MKZ in my Grendel, I really want to see how the 125gr MKZ performs from my 10.5" blackout upper

 

[dellet]

I agree. It's hard to draw a solid conclusion from a sample size of 1. A good example of that is that the folks that hunt the 50 acres behind us took a decent 10 point during archery season last year. It was a high double lung shot. I can't remember whether they shot it late in the morning or early in the afternoon, but the following day one of our hunters watched it fall over dead at around 10:30 am while it was attempting to checkout a hot doe. If I remember correctly, the arrow was still sticking out of it. Its would be easy to say that a double lung shot with a broadhead is ineffective based on that, but I've killed dozens of deer that way.
Conversely, that same hunter killed a 150 class 12 point during archery season last year using a 2 blade mechanical, and there was NO blood trail. We searched for blood for 4 hours and not a drop. I choose to start looking down a different set of paths that I knew they often used in that area and found him laying dead in the middle of a logging road roughly 180 yds from where he was shot. I back tracked him looking for blood and found maybe 6 small drops. I've never been a big fan of 2 blade broadheads, and now there's no way on earth I'd use one.

The difference between these 2 examples is that in the 2nd example there are plenty of other options that have proven, reliable results over the years. There's no reason for me to use a 2 blade broadhead. There are no advantages that it could offer me over a 3 blade broadhead regardless of whether we're talking about fixed blades or mechanicals. I'm pretty sure my buddy was using the black tip Barnes in the 300 blackout, but (similar to the broadheads) there's no reason for me to use it. There are several projectiles that have proven to be effective 100% of the time in a 300 blackout regardless of whether its fired from an AR pistol or a bolt action rifle. To be clear, I'm still not going to say that Barnes doesn't make a good deer hunting bullet for a 300 Blackout. Based on the limited evidence I have, I've simply decided to use something else. If it were not for my curious nature, I'd just use the 125gr SST a call it good. However, based on the results I get from the 105 MKZ in my Grendel, I really want to see how the 125gr MKZ performs from my 10.5" blackout upper

There are always crazy example of bullet failures that are actually shot placement failures. Most of the time the reasoning is never figured out because the animal isn’t recovered. The Barnes Blacktip is a great example, it was absolutely designed to kill medium sized animals in their particular environment. That doesn’t mean you can’t kill some other animal in a different environment with it. Just realize the difference in how the bullet might perform. Shooting a whitetail or antelope, thin skinned and not much more than 16” of chest cavity and the bullet works as designed. Shoot a moose or elk and the bullet may not make it to the heart.

Then there is the perfect shot and the animal does not respond by the book.
Archery hunting, shot a buck perfectly broadside with the dreaded two blade fixed broadhead. Watched the arrow pass through, all the deer did was flinch and go back to feeding. After a minute or so he walked to the tree line and bedded down. A bit later his head flopped down and never raised. I waited probably 10 minutes and decided to walk back to my truck and close the distance I would need to drag. Returned to the kill spot within about twenty minutes. No deer to be found, no blood on the ground. Only my arrow that I had retrieved and stuck in the ground as a marker. Lazarus deer had run off.

I let the momentary panic subside, replayed the shot and where the buck walked to and laid down. Made a five yard arc through the timber and found the buck. Still no blood, but two clean holes.

As soon as I cut the skin into the abdominal cavity, all the blood poured out. That answered the question of where did the blood go. Heart and lungs proved the arrow had passed through both. When I pulled the skin off the rib cage I found the arrow had passed perfectly between ribs on both sides, never touched one.

No blood trail due to lack of blood pressure. If someone had been watching the deer feed, they would have thought the buck was startled by a noise. Went back to feeding and then went and bedded down.

Plenty of stories of a blood trail starting well and then vanishing. Fall bears are notorious for this. Fat plugs holes. Plenty of ways that the right equipment and good shot placement not insuring easy to recover game.

You can minimize the chances, but never eliminate them completely. Knowing the limitations of the gear and working within is the key.

 

[Lefty2506]

There are always crazy example of bullet failures that are actually shot placement failures. Most of the time the reasoning is never figured out because the animal isn’t recovered. The Barnes Blacktip is a great example, it was absolutely designed to kill medium sized animals in their particular environment. That doesn’t mean you can’t kill some other animal in a different environment with it. Just realize the difference in how the bullet might perform. Shooting a whitetail or antelope, thin skinned and not much more than 16” of chest cavity and the bullet works as designed. Shoot a moose or elk and the bullet may not make it to the heart.

Then there is the perfect shot and the animal does not respond by the book.
Archery hunting, shot a buck perfectly broadside with the dreaded two blade fixed broadhead. Watched the arrow pass through, all the deer did was flinch and go back to feeding. After a minute or so he walked to the tree line and bedded down. A bit later his head flopped down and never raised. I waited probably 10 minutes and decided to walk back to my truck and close the distance I would need to drag. Returned to the kill spot within about twenty minutes. No deer to be found, no blood on the ground. Only my arrow that I had retrieved and stuck in the ground as a marker. Lazarus deer had run off.

I let the momentary panic subside, replayed the shot and where the buck walked to and laid down. Made a five yard arc through the timber and found the buck. Still no blood, but two clean holes.

As soon as I cut the skin into the abdominal cavity, all the blood poured out. That answered the question of where did the blood go. Heart and lungs proved the arrow had passed through both. When I pulled the skin off the rib cage I found the arrow had passed perfectly between ribs on both sides, never touched one.

No blood trail due to lack of blood pressure. If someone had been watching the deer feed, they would have thought the buck was startled by a noise. Went back to feeding and then went and bedded down.

Plenty of stories of a blood trail starting well and then vanishing. Fall bears are notorious for this. Fat plugs holes. Plenty of ways that the right equipment and good shot placement not insuring easy to recover game.

You can minimize the chances, but never eliminate them completely. Knowing the limitations of the gear and working within is the key.

Agree 100%. My friend and I have both competed effectively at the national level, and I'd rate the odds of him having marginal shot placement at 0%. That said, it doesn't mean that the bullet didn't make contact with an unseen object before it hit the deer. I've blown multiple thumb size limbs out of trees over the years, and even tagged a tree or two that were just the right shade of brown. That's not a bullet failure, that's a hunter failure.

I've had similar situations with archery and firearms. The archery kills DID have a blood trail, but the deer just flinched and went back to feeding, falling over a few feet away. The exact opposite with a firearm. Shot a decent 8 pt with my muzzle loader at 170yds. He was with a doe standing in a picked corn field. He ran 100 yds and fell over dead. I could still see him laying in the picked field. I found the hair on the ground where I hit him, followed his tracks to where he laid. No blood until I reached the point where he started to tip over and then it was everywhere. When I field dressed him I discovered that the 300gr SST left my barrel at around 2450fps and had removed the front 1/4 of his heart including the aorta. He wasn't able to generate any blood pressure. The entrance and exit wounds were of sufficient size (impressively large actually), but without the ability to generate any pressure, the blood just filled his chest cavity until he tipped sideways and it started pouring out.

 

[Konocti's Wigwam]

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to add something concerning the use of a 110gr Vmax in a 300 blackout. I'll apologize in advance for the length but I want to share all the information so that people can draw their own conclusions.

Where I'm at, a mature buck will field dress at 200 lbs or more, and a nice doe will field dress at 120 to 130 lbs. In 35 years, I've only seen 3 does that field dressed measurably more than 130 lbs. I'm blessed to hunt a +200 acre farm where 90% of the time I have at least 1 opportunity (per trip) to take a deer home with me. I have a 10.5" and a 16" 300BO upper and for the past few years I've been "fur testing" projectiles to see what works well and what doesn't. Early on I noticed that cheap factory 110gr Vmax ammo shot decent (1 to 1-1/2 moa) from both of my uppers. Normally, I'm looking for 1/2 MOA, but for a 300BO and shots inside 150 yds, I'm fine with 1-1/2 moa. I had been trying to find an accurate load with H110 and Maker 110gr REX bullets, but I couldn't get them to shoot consistently enough for my liking. Sometimes I'd get 1-1/2 moa, but most of the time the groups were 2 moa or bigger. Anyway, I wasn't sure if the 110gr Vmax would be tough enough for deer in my area but figured I'd give try them since I had a bunch of it on hand. I don't shoot these uppers much, so if the cheap factory stuff worked well, I probably would not have continued to look for a better option. I opted to test the 110vmax in my 10.5" upper mainly because it would leave me enough physical room to also take my 24" Grendel (I wasn't willing to use an iffy bullet on a nice buck). Late one morning I had a nice doe walk by me at 12 yards. There was a light snow on the ground so tracking should be easy if needed. As she stopped to eat a few briars as she passed by me. She was just past perpendicular and her head was turned away which gave me a nice quartering away shot. I put the red chevron right behind her leg to avoid damaging any of the meat there. I was basically aiming right at her heart and squeezed the trigger. I could see where the bullet hit because it hit the center of a rib and took it out leaving a big (1-1/2") depression visible under her fur. She only ran about 30 yds which is one of the shorter retrieves I've seen over the course of 300+ deer that we've shot over the years. I put her on the tail gate and drove her out into the middle of the field to field dress her (easier to work on than doing it on the ground). When I dressed her, I was shocked to find a +3" star shaped hole through her liver. My initial thought was that maybe I hit her a lot farther back than I thought I had. I'd also caught the near lung. I got her home and hosed her out, then skinned her. After getting the hide off, I could see that my shot was dead on the money, but upon hitting the rib, the 110gr vmax made a sharp turn (I want to say over 45 degress, but it was AT LEAST 30 degrees) towards the rear and slightly downwards. The remains of the bullet were imbedded in the wall of her chest cavity (did not penetrate out to the hide) about 2" beyond her sternum. I shot her from a tree stand, but that stand is only about 12' off the ground. The flight path should have had the bullet exiting about 4" higher. I took pics of her hanging so I could note the entrance and exit points. Total penetration was only about 8". I immediately decided not to continue using the 110gr Vmax for whitetail. I had a load worked up for 125gr SST so I went out that evening and re-zeroed the upper for that load.

I've only had this happen on 2 other deer in my life, and those two were shot consecutively with the same weapon and projectile. It was in 2002 with a 50 cal Encore Muzzleloader pushing a 140gr pure lead (no alloy, soft) projectile made by PR bullet at 2200 fps. I took a nice doe at 125 yds, and a nice wall hanger at about 10 yds the following weekend. On both deer, the bullet's trajectory altered noticeably on impact, and that was the last time I ever used a pure lead bullet for hunting.

As a side note, last year I used the same 10.5" upper to take a decent doe at 75 yds using Sig 125gr HST. I had 4 boxes that I had picked up at the beginning of Covid (last 4 boxes of 300 blackout in the store at the time). It was a double lung shot and she ran about 100 yds which is normal. The shot was a pass through, and based on the wounding, I'd say the expansion was minimal. Might be an okay choice from a 16" tube, but I'm not sure I'll try to use it again. I bought 2 boxes of 125gr MKZ bullets and found an H110 load that consistently groups around 1" from both of my uppers with good velocity. I'll try that this year If they perform anything like the 105gr MKZ I use in my Grendel, I'll probably be tickled with it.

Lefty,

Replace that vmax with a cx and compare results. The 110 cx will be akin to a 120 gr bonded. Also try the Barnes 110 TTSX. I do shoot monolithics because it is required in my state, but those cx and ttsx put a whoopin' on game, even in the 300 blackout.

EDIT: I will admit that I will reach for my 6.5 Grendel over the 300 blackout most days of the week, for hunting, but it's about 1 lb. heavier with a 1-4 LPVO. The 300 blackout is not really effective past red dot range, IMO.

My main reason for wanting to shoot 300 blackout, some of the time, is for weight. With a 7.5" barrel, it's the lightest AR I own, comes just over 6 lbs. with a red dot. As for hitting a rib and deflecting into the lung/heart, it did kill it after all...

 

[Konocti's Wigwam]

Barnes doesn’t actually make a hunting bullet suitable for 300 BLK.

I think that is debatable.

 

[dellet]

I think that is debatable.

You’re correct it should have read

Barnes does not have a bullet designed for hunting game with 300 Blackout.

Big difference between designed and suitable in a limited applications.

Some Of the Lehigh bullets fall Into the same category. Designed to shoot dogs on the city streets, doesn’t mean it won’t work in the woods on small deer. Not sure I’d count on it for anything over 150 pounds.

 

[Konocti's Wigwam]

Not sure I’d count on it for anything over 150 pounds.

Agreed, but in my area blacktail deer are about that weight for average, even for a buck.

The skin on pig could be tougher than a blacktail, IMO. They can get up to 200 for a boar. I do think the 300 blackout is a viable cartridge, as the rifles are so light. But, for fatality reasons, I will usually grab a 6.5 Grendel, it has a lot more punch. For me, 300 blackout is good to about 150-200 yards max.

 

[dellet]

Agreed, but in my area blacktail deer are about that weight for average, even for a buck.

The skin on pig could be tougher than a blacktail, IMO. They can get up to 200 for a boar. I do think the 300 blackout is a viable cartridge, as the rifles are so light. But, for fatality reasons, I will usually grab a 6.5 Grendel, it has a lot more punch. For me, 300 blackout is good to about 150-200 yards max.

My only point is matching design to task, and not blaming the bullet is you miss use it. Let’s be honset, shoot a 200 pound deer and a 200 pound human with the same load and see which one drops first.

The Hornady 190 sub bullet is another great example. It was designed for the TAP ammo supplied to LE and meets all FBI standards. It’s just not going to have great penetration.

I know of more than one 500 pound boar dropped pretty quickly with a 110 Barnes. Will never say that they won’t work. Just if it doesn’t, try to find out why.
When the bullet was new people found out the hard way that at impact velocities over 2500 fps, the bullet was useless, more or less came apart on lmpact and penetration was in the single digits. No good in a 308. Or 300 BLK with a 24” barrel.

 

[mic2377]

From a 16" barrel the 125 SST or 110 TAC-TX are probably the best choices available. As noted prior the 110 and 130 TSX/TTSX bullets are different than the TAC-TX with much tougher pedals and a higher minimum expansion velocity.

I would consider using the 110 VMax only in a low velocity and limited penetration (read SBR) application.

What it boils down to is 300 BLK is a limited cartridge. I wouldn't consider it over 150 yards. It is amazing how much more lethal a 308 is even with mild loads.