A petite bolt action rifle

9 Responses to A petite bolt action rifle

1. Michael Pearce says:

   June 19, 2012 at 1:15 am

   I’ve been having trouble getting an answer, straight or otherwise, to the following question. Maybe you’ll know. Can anyone speak of first hand experience getting reasonable accuracy (say sub-MOA) with subsonic loads from the .300 AAC Blackout?

   Savage’s experience bothers me. I don’t want to buy a rifle and spend a bunch of time trying to develop an accurate load if it is a lost cause. I see lots of evidence that the cartridge can be accurate with lighter bullets. However, lighter bullets serve no purpose for me in that cartridge. The promise of a subsonic cartridge is what interests me, but not if it cannot be accurate. Theoretically, with the right rate of twist, it should be possible to be accurate. If so, why did Savage give up, and why can no one demonstrate it?

   If you’ve been photographing a rifle, maybe you’ve gotten to fire it with subsonic loads, and maybe you can relate your experience.
2. Oleg Volk says:

   June 19, 2012 at 8:49 am

   I have not fired it but I have subsonic match ammunition on hand and the guy holding it is a professional sniper. I will try to get a live fire opportunity and see if we can check it for accuracy.

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4. BtheBeast says:

   June 19, 2012 at 11:58 am

   I was under the impression that Savage bailed on the 300 BLK because you can’t get supersonic and subsonic accuracy from the same twist rate. You either need to rifle the barrel for big, slow bullets or light, fast bullets, but you cannot do both. Savage was worried that if they picked one twist rate, then their customers would think they could get great accuracy from both supersonic and subsonic ammo.

   Savage didn’t think that the 300 BLK is inaccurate, just that a single rifle cannot be accurate with both types of ammo. At least that’s what I understood from their press release.
5. Sha-ul says:

   June 19, 2012 at 1:32 pm

   Savage attempted to build their rifle using their standard 1:10 .308 barrel which is not nearly a fast enough twist for the 220 grn subsonic rounds.
6. Michael Pearce says:

   June 19, 2012 at 1:35 pm

   I considered that possibility, but that’s not what the press release says.

   “… we have tested many variants of this cartridge in various barrel lengths and rates of twist. This exhaustive testing left us quite unsatisfied with the accuracy we were able to get from the subsonic loads in this chambering. Accuracy with the lighter, faster loads in this caliber was actually quite good. But we believe the real value in this cartridge lies in the use of subsonic loads for suppressed rifles.”

   The caliber seems to have many fans, but oddly the emphasis does not seem to be on the subsonic capability. It’s a .30 caliber cartridge that fires in an AR-15 and yields full magazine capacity, and the existence of subsonic loads is just a neat side effect to most people. But outside of an AR-15, which Savage doesn’t make and I don’t want, the only feature that makes this cartridge special is the subsonic loading.

   It’s possible that those bullets are so long, they cannot be properly stabilized at that velocity with any rate of twist. The statement from Savage has essentially said this, and no one has stood up to contradict them. I have been specifically asking, and I’ve been met with only silence.
   • Oleg Volk says:

     June 19, 2012 at 1:40 pm

     Except that I shoot .338Spectre with even longer 300gr SMK bullets and it’s very definitely sub-MOA. The same gun is not sub-MOA with lighter, faster bullets. I do not think it’s a bullet limitation.
7. Sha-ul says:

   June 19, 2012 at 2:37 pm

   There has been quite a bit of discussion about this at various sites, I have seen it discussed most recently at silencertalk. A Savage press release showed they were trying to make this work with a 1-10 twist. I built my 300 WTF on a Savage 110 action & have been quite pleased with it so far.
   Over the evolutionary history of this cartridge, it has shown decent accuracy& was used with great success as a silhouette pistol round.

   300/221, 300 fireball, 300 whisper, 300 blk. 300WTF(In Jest)
8. Jeremy says:

   June 20, 2012 at 3:26 pm

   Just go old school with the research, Victorian era style. Try different barrel lengths with different twists, bullet weights and powders and see what kind of groups you can make at different distances. If all else fails, just throw a can on a .45 and tap one to the back of the head, just like mom used to make.

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