Fell Victim to the 300 Blackout

[dellet]

For one, people leave magazines loaded. Since both rounds use the same magazine, it is easy to grab the wrong one.

Anytime the wrong round ends up in the chamber, its an operator error. Its not as those pesky .300 Blackout rounds go around looking for vulnerable .223 Remington chambers to climb into.

The .300 Blackout is an excellent round that produces excellent energy out of short barrels and they work wonderful as a suppressed round. Nothing else really does quite the job, but you do have to be careful and pay attention because some, not all but some, .223 Rem chambers will accept the round with certain bullets loaded or loaded improperly. I do believe most of the incidents I've read about were handloaded OR factory loaded with a projectile not normally seen in the round.

What I do is use the .300 Blackout specific magazines and color fill the ".300" with a silver sharpie. I always try to also use a different color magazine if taking out both calibers in a single outing (such as tan 5.56 magazines and black .300 Blackout magazines labeled clearly "300"). Also, never leave a .300 Blackout magazine loaded.

Really it's not that complicated.

It's plain and simple operator error, with a certain type of operator having more than their fair share of problems.

But here is how it happens.

People who have used the cartridge pre Blackout name and those early in the Blackout craze recognized a feeding solution that also created a hazard.

If you seat a .308 bullet so that the .250" portion of the bullet nose rides the rib of an AR magazine, where a 223/556 neck is designed to ride(.253" diiameter), almost any .308 bullet will feed flawless from a standard magazine.

A lot of people actually use the neck of a 223 case to mark the spot on the bullet where it will ride on the magazine rib and seat to that depth.

That process easily creates 300 Blackout rounds that will headspace off the bullet in a 223/556 chamber somewhere in the shoulder portion.

Sadly one of the more popular factory rounds that meets this criteria is the 110 Grain Nolser Varmageddon. Not by design, but happenstance.

Bullet set back when chambering probably accounts for more problems than poor seated depth choices.

It's a cartridge the requires some thought to use, from bullet choice to shot placement. I am a big advocate of the cartridge. I also don't suffer fools. If you don't want to think about what you're doing when shooting, it's probably not the cartridge for you(collective "you").

Caden above proves the point. A well thought out hunting round, excellent shot placement. shooting distance well with the cartridges limits and you easily have success.

So simple a 3rd grader can do it. He's clearly had some great teachers.

Thanks Caden and Gotrdid for the example.

 

[drop_point]

Really it's not that complicated.

It's plain and simple operator error, with a certain type of operator having more than their fair share of problems.

But here is how it happens.

People who have used the cartridge pre Blackout name and those early in the Blackout craze recognized a feeding solution that also created a hazard.

If you seat a .308 bullet so that the .250" portion of the bullet nose rides the rib of an AR magazine, where a 223/556 neck is designed to ride(.253" diiameter), almost any .308 bullet will feed flawless from a standard magazine.

A lot of people actually use the neck of a 223 case to mark the spot on the bullet where it will ride on the magazine rib and seat to that depth.

That process easily creates 300 Blackout rounds that will headspace off the bullet in a 223/556 chamber somewhere in the shoulder portion.

Sadly one of the more popular factory rounds that meets this criteria is the 110 Grain Nolser Varmageddon. Not by design, but happenstance.

Bullet set back when chambering probably accounts for more problems than poor seated depth choices.

It's a cartridge the requires some thought to use, from bullet choice to shot placement. I am a big advocate of the cartridge. I also don't suffer fools. If you don't want to think about what you're doing when shooting, it's probably not the cartridge for you(collective "you").

Caden above proves the point. A well thought out hunting round, excellent shot placement. shooting distance well with the cartridges limits and you easily have success.

So simple a 3rd grader can do it. He's clearly had some great teachers.

Thanks Caden and Gotrdid for the example.

It seems to be the great majority of the observed kabooms in ARs are fairly new shooters and most aren't handloaders. I agree, 100% operator error of one type or another.