300 Blackout Ammo for Hunting: 5 Great Choices

The .300 Blackout can be a great hunting cartridge. Here are a few great .300 Blackout ammo options that are well-designed for hunting.

Though it was originally developed with military and police use in mind, the .300 Blackout has really started to come into its own as a hunting cartridge in recent years and is especially popular among those who enjoy hunting with AR-15 style rifles. For that reason, there are a lot more good quality .300 Blackout ammo options for hunters in the United States than there were just a few years ago.

Unfortunately, not all .300 AAC Blackout ammo is created equal. Many of the full metal jacket (FMJ), full metal jacket boat tail (FMJBT), open tip flat base (OTFB), hollow point boat tail (HPBT), and open tip match (OTM) style bullets are very accurate, and even worthy of a match grade designation in some cases. While these bullets are quite capable of cleanly taking game at times, that sort of ammunition is not designed for optimum terminal performance on big game.

With that in mind, just shoot those bullets at the range and use bullets designed for better terminal performance when hunting. Fortunately, there are some great options for .300 Blackout hunting ammo currently on the market that are suitable for use on deer, feral hogs, varmints, and other game.

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I'm going to go over some of the .300 Blackout ammo options for hunters and make some recommendations regarding which ammo you should use.

1. Winchester

 

Just like you'd expect from the name, the Winchester Deer Season XP line of ammo is great for hunting deer. The company currently manufactures a .300 Blackout load featuring a 150 grain Extreme Point bullet that's an excellent choice for whitetail deer hunting at short range. These bullets are designed for rapid expansion in order to produce a large wound channel and minimize any tracking after the shot.

Though it's marketed for deer hunting, there's no reason why you can't use this .300 Blackout rifle ammo on feral hogs, black bear, or other similar sized game either.

2. Barnes

The Barnes VOR-TX line of ammo features two .300 Blackout loads: a 110 grain TAC-TX FB and a 120 grain TAC-TX BT. Due to their barrier penetration capabilities, the TAC-TX bullets are marketed for law enforcement use. However, the controlled expansion and deep, straight line penetration exhibited by those bullets also makes them suitable for hunting a number of big game species.

Like the Barnes TSX and TTSX, Barnes advertises large diameter expansion and a high probability of a bullet exit when using the TAC-TX in .300 BLK, both of which are good characteristics for hunting ammunition.

Barnes TAC-TX bullets also lead free, so they're legal to hunt with in California.

Hornady

Hornady currently offers several very good choices for .300 Blackout hunting ammo: their Custom line featuring a 135 grain FTX bullet, their Black line featuring a 110 grain V-Max bullet, and their Custom and Full Boar lines each featuring a 110 grain GMX bullet.

Designed for extremely rapid expansion upon impact, the 110 grain V-Max is a great varmint hunting bullet. For that reason, the Hornady Black line of .300 Blackout ammo is great for hunting coyotes and other small, thin-skinned animals.

Since they are built for better penetration and less rapid expansion than the V-Max, the 110 grain GMX, and to a lesser extent, the 135 grain FTX, are both good bullets for hunting feral hogs and deer. Due to their more robust, copper alloy bullet construction, those GMX bullets in particular are excellent choices for hunting tougher game with the .300 Blackout. They're renowned for their performance on hogs (which is why Pigman uses them), but they're also just excellent hunting bullets in general.

Like the Barnes TAC-TX, the GMX bullets are also lead free, so they're legal to hunt with in California.

Subsonic

The .300 Blackout is known for its reliability and effectiveness when used in a short barreled or suppressed rifle, especially when compared to the .223 Remington. However, use caution when hunting with .300 AAC Blackout subsonic ammunition though.

Supersonic .300 Blackout ammunition can be quite effective on game when fired from a rifle with a suppressor. However, subsonic .300 Blackout loads have a bad reputation when used for hunting.

For the most part, subsonic rounds just aren't going fast enough for reliable expansion and tend to just zip right through the animal without causing much damage. Subsonic loads also have a short effective range and a very arching trajectory out past 50 yards, which makes shot placement more difficult.

With all that in mind, avoid using .300 Blackout ammo like the Federal American Eagle Suppressor 220 grain OTM, Remington UMC 220 grain OTM, Hornady Subsonic 208 grain A-Max, the Sellier & Bellot 200 grain FMJ (pictured below at right), or the Fiocchi Exacta 220 grain Sierra MatchKing for hunting.

These are far from the only acceptable .300 Blackout hunting ammo choices. Indeed, there are dozens of nice .308" hunting bullets out there. However, most of those bullets are designed to expand at the higher impact velocities common with the .308 Winchester and .30-06 Springfield.

So, if you decide to hunt with something not discussed on this list, just make sure you choose a line of .300 Blackout ammo using a bullet that will reliably expand at the lower impact velocities common with the .300 Blackout. As long as you do that, it will probably work just fine for hunting as long as you place your shots correctly.

Like what you see here? You can read more great articles by John McAdams on The Big Game Hunting Blog. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, & Instagram.

NEXT: 10mm VS .45 ACP: WHICH IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

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