new Hornady 300 blackout subsonic expanding bullet load

Got some of these coming in, hope to have them in time to wack a doe next weekend out of my 8" barrelled TC suppressed pistol.. will test on a pig or two first of course

https://www.hornady.com/ammunition/subsonic#!/

Is this the first bullet designed specifically for the BO? It's the first I've heard of, myself. If that's right, all I can say is "took em long enough."

Lehigh defense has had both bullets and ammunition for some time now. Theirs is lead free though.

A boutique shop:

https://discreetballistics.com/

I haven't used their products myself.

The Barnes 110gr Tac-TX was specifically designed for 300Blk and it's been the gold standard for terminal performance and reliability ever since.

Also Nosler and Lehigh have been making expanding subs for a while now too.

There are many bullets specifically designed for the 300 blk out. The blk out led to many expanding subsonic bullets and have also carried over to the 308 Win.

Chad,

Just curious if you are aware of any reasonably priced .30 cal sub-sonic bullets that actually expand? It seems there are some advertised out there, but that they really do not truly expand (the tip just deforms to the same size as the base, if that).

Hopefully the new Hornady subs will work, assuming they sell the bullet and not just ammo. Thanks for any reply!

That's a good question. What does "expand" truly mean? Some claim expansion with the slightest tip deformation, and some claim expansion when it fully expands. So, not sure. The expanding subsonic bullets that I have used were all in the $.80 - $1.50 per bullet price range. That's the cost of the bullet alone, not loaded ammo. The rubbery tip that Hornady uses on the Critical Defense ammo is what they are using to help initiate expansion. The problem is there just is not much force to reliably open the tips up for expansion at the slower speeds. To expand the bullet at these slow speeds, they open up the hollow point more (more hydraulic force entering the hollow point), and make the bullet out of a softer lead. Several times I have deformed the bullet during the seating process with these much softer lead bullets. The other method is to make a solid copper/brass bullet that is pre-scored to open up and expand, or break off it's petals. These are the expensive ones. But no, if you find some good expanding bullets that are cheap, let me know. I will certainly load them up.

They make pistol bullets that expand at low/sub sonic velocity, seems like they could just carry that over.

Sierra 240 grain JHC's reliably expand in my 45 colt loads. Loads around 1100 fps will do over double caliber expansion and cowboy action velocity loads still expand quite a bit, but I don't have a fired one around to measure.

Yes, the pistol bullets would expand, but they are not .308" caliber. And the 30 caliber pistol bullets are all light weight. The big bores have a large hollow point opening for a 44 or 45 caliber. It's different all together.

I saw some gel tests with these and they were less than impressive.

I shot a pig last yr using a Lehigh defense subsonic 300blk expanding round and was able to recover a bullet. It expanded marginally aka the scored leaves opened up about 25%, but was able to take the hog down after two shots one neck and one lung.

I have since moved away from subsonic in general simply because of the difficulty in determining distance of a hog using thermals or NV, and second, follow up shots are harder due to slower speed thus more leading and drop compensation.

Right, but why doesn't a bullet manufacturer just make a 30 call jacketed hollow cavity style bullet? Surely they can.

They do. And they are $.80+ each with soft lead.

Hornady ammo wont be out for sometime.

Chad, let me see if I can get some bullwts samples...