I know this is a Bow site BUT.......

[idratherbhuntin]

OK. Time to take the leap! I WANT an integrated suppressed rifle. The question is.... WHAT CALIBER??? I am jumping back in forth between 22-250, 223 and 308. 90% of what I am going to do is varmint and hog hunting. Of course quite a bit of plinking. Most of my shots will be within a 100 yards or so because most my hunting will be at night. I am well aware of all the tax stamps, registrations, laws and expense. Just looking for advise on caliber.

Larger calibers such as 308 are great for impact down range but harder to catch the gas and get it truly quiet like a whisper. The smaller 22-250 caliber still has the wonderful sonic "crack" of breaking the sound barrier.

Any thoughts???

Jeffoneal1@yahoo.com

[Artos]

You simply aren't going to get the quiet like whisper you seek w/out going sub-sonic.

Regardless of cal, you have to keep your velocity at 1000fps to avoid the sonic crack, which mean you are going to lob in the shots for any round you pick. That means .22rimfire, 223, 22-250 or .308.

Even with the subs, the thud of the impact will scare the remaining pigs and varmints off most of the time. You need to figure out exactly what application you want in the suppressed rifle and move from there.

[idratherbhuntin]

You simply aren't going to get the quiet like whisper you seek w/out going sub-sonic.

Regardless of cal, you have to keep your velocity at 1000fps to avoid the sonic crack, which mean you are going to lob in the shots for any round you pick. That means .22rimfire, 223, 22-250 or .308.

I know... 1080 is the magic number. I know sub sonic is the only way but like you said that is the case with any round. My questions is which would be the best for what I am doing. I like 308 but it is not going to be a long range gun when suppressed. so it would probably be better to leave that to a non-suppressed rifle. If I go smaller with the 223 etc am I going to lose ALL my knock down due to the sub sonic over the full velocity, thus loosing the effectiveness of the rifle. Will have to reload my own no doubt but probably cheaper on the smaller calibers. There is no perfect suppressed gun out there but just want the best all around bang. Just thinking out loud what configuration would allow me to use it the most.

Thanks for the opinions/advise. All is appreciated.

[M16]

My favorite suppressed rifle is a .300 whisper. I load it with Sierra 240 match king hollow points just below the speed of sound. It is totally quiet. You will need a barrel with a 1 in 8 twist to stabalize this bullet. I have killed as many as five hogs out of a bunch. They run off when a bullet slaps their buddy but come right back. Accuracy at 100 yards is around an inch. You can shoot longer distances if you record the drop and learn how to dial in your scope. I have several suppressors and if you want to go totally silent this is the best setup.