Hunting deer with subsonic 300 blk?

[Ace12]

I have a OSS can on order, and trying to decide which of my current guns to thread and shoot suppressed, or new calibers to buy. A Coworker shoots a subsonic 300 blk and was telling me about how absolutely quiet it is. And it got me curious to getting one for doe management on my farm. We try to shoot 10-15 a year. But some years it’s hard with limited time to hunt, and once you shoot one with normal rifle, the field clears and the hunt is typically over. (Yes I know other larger calibers are better options) but I’m mainly looking into being able to shoot 3,4,5 does a hunt. Curious if a extremely quiet rifle would allow me to do this easier then bow hunting

 

[ChromeKype]

It will shock you how loud it is out in the quiet woods, even subsonic on that first shot. The deers they’ll be a runnin.

I hunt with a suppressed.300 blk. I use supers though. I’ve hunted with subs and was like “yea, sticking with supers”.

You can watch the guys in Texas on YT hunting pigs with subs, and the pigs seem not to know where the sound is coming from, so there is that, but it’s at night with thermal.

I have one of the quietest cans for .300 if not the quietest, but run a piston gun. Maybe just maybe the does wouldn’t get spooked if you were using a bolt gun.

 

[Ratbeetle]

Subsonic 300 blk is extremely underwhelming. I personally wouldn't hunt with it. That said, I shot a whitetail doe once at 160 yards with a 130gr barnes supersonic load. She was DRT. I was shooting suppressed and the other deer just stood around like nothing happened.

 

[Packin_packout]

Subsonic is good for causing tracking jobs...unless you are doing head shots. Back off to 300-400 and just go supersonic you will be able to get a few shots off. Work from far to near. They typically get general direction but when they don't see the other one drop you usually get 30-60 seconds to get second shot off. If they do a bang flop the other does normally don't freak out. Shoot early and leave them sitting til you are done hunting then the work begins as always. Normally they ignore the ones on the ground if you are not seen. Ended up doing this for my uncle for a few years.

 

[Rich M]

Was at the range and a fellow was shooting 300bo w can. All I could hear was the slide and the ring of metal when the bullet hit.

 

[def90]

Colorado hunting requirements are that your ammo generates 1000 ft-lbs of energy at 100 yards. .300 blackout subsonic with a 220 grain bullet only generates somewhere around 500 ft-lbs. Would be illegal to use in Colorado.

 

[Gatorgrizz27]

There are a lot of guys who have hunted with subs in TX, most don’t recommend them, even for hogs where they don’t care if they run off and die somewhere else.

Barnes 110 gr black tip seems to be where it’s at.

If you keep sitting after you shoot, more stuff will typically come by. It might an hour or two though so you may run out of daylight.

 

[Tahoe1305]

Concur with most here. I’ll attempt to add some below.

if you do want quiet you need a bolt gun. The bolt cycling on a AR is just as loud as the supersonic crack (IMO).

the only aggressive expandable ive seen in sub sonic are the hornady 190 Sub-X. Never used them but I’d give them a try.

I haven’t tried it, but I speculate a supersonic 300blk shot through a can at 200 yds is pretty darn quiet. It won’t seam like it at your ear but it’s still 75% quieter than un suppressed.

I have an omega can which I think is still closely spec’d as the “quietest” and agree it’s fairly underwhelming. The only thing it adds for me hunting is hearing safe and muzzle blast down a bit. Debatably not worth it IMO.

It’s fun though. Enjoy.

 

[brisket]

I can't recommend shooting deer or hogs with subsonic 300 black outside of headshots.

I'm in Texas and have participated in field dressing/processing 4 dozen+ animals that were shot with 300 black. The 3 bullets I've got experience with are the nosler 125gr ballistic tip, barnes 110gr black tip, and hornadys 190gr sub-x.

The barnes at supersonic velocities opens reliably and has left a gorgeous blood trail if the animal moved at all. I've personally shot 6 hogs this year alone with this bullet. Phenomenal results.

The nosler at supersonic velocities has expanded violently, usually causing the loss of shoulder meat from 1 or both shoulders. Bullet performes like you'd expect. I'll admit, I've only seen a few animals killed with this bullet.

The 190gr sub-x. Where do I start... Hornady has some really good marketing around how this bullet performs. Sometimes (20%) it lives up to the hype. The rest of the time (80%) it doesn't. The problem with sub sonic bullets is that when/if they expand, they rarely have any sort of "explosive" expansion to them (minimal temporal cavity) and this particular bullet does not have the ability to create large cutting petals (like the barnes). So even with perfect bullet performance the internal damage looks a lot like something shot with a field point from a bow, or maybe just better than that. For me, in thick south texas brush its a no go, and officially off the list of approved cartridge/bullet combinations. I've seen several animals hit well (saw bullet impact on the animal as a spotter) that weren't recovered until the birds showed us where the animal died.

On your question, suppress whatever rifle you want to hunt with. Once you're shooting supersonic there's not a big reason to use 300 black unless there is a compelling reason to use an AR platform

 

[gildensterz79]

Thanks for everyone’s input