Who hunts with subsonic ammo?

[Radar]

I am fixing to rig up a new hog hunting rifle, it will be a bolt gun in 300blkt, suppressed with a thermal mounted on it. Just waiting on my suppressor to come out of jail.

Who on here hog hunts with suppressed subsonic 300blkt ammo and do you have a lot of hogs that run off after they are hit?

What is the most effective store bought subsonic hunting ammo?

What is the maximum distance for a clean kill on a hog?

[Drycreek3189]

Jeff, I don’t know much about the Blackout round, so I have no answers, but I do have a question. How heavy a bullet can you load in the cartridge ?

[Artos]

My dedicated sub BO was short lived Jeff & went through the same...I loaded some 220gr, but it offers no advantage over supers unless you just want a one shot quiet kill. The impact scatters the herd & you lose the opportunity on follow up unless they stay in the same spot where sighted in.

All sub ammo has the basic same rainbow trajectory regardless of weight...Kentucky windage becomes critical.

To me, the 22lr is the ultimate sub & if I wanted a one shot quiet gun past 50, I would probably go something like 45LC & find the heaviest cast bullet available for anything going in the shoulder.

[scott123456789]

A few important things I’ve learned missing hogs with subsonic 300blk.

you are essentially hunting with .45 acp and it has the flight path of what feels like a bow and arrow. With a 100yard zero you are 7-8” high at 70 yards so you have to be very careful with exact yardage. I shot over the back of a pig because I didn’t realize how extreme the flight path was.

secondly the travel time to 100 yards is 1/3 of a second. I’m running an AR and there is enough noise that pigs can react. I hit a second pig in the rear end, when he turned when he heard the gunshot due to slow travel time.

i was running Hornady sub-x as it is readily available and one of the only true factory hunting subs available. After the second pig that ran off I haven’t shot at them again with sub ammo.

the sound of the round hitting a pig will be loud enough they are going to run. You won’t be able to pick them off one and at time even if the sound report is near nothing.

which suppressor did you pick up?

[scott123456789]

https://youtu.be/YE3NccxmAZ0?si=zDGN0Fn1wvi3Gw0r

thia pig was at 60-70 yards and my 100yard zero was too high.

[Radar]

I have a Griffin Bushwacker 46 in jail right now.

[Radar]

My dedicated sub BO was short lived Jeff & went through the same...I loaded some 220gr, but it offers no advantage over supers unless you just want a one shot quiet kill. The impact scatters the herd & you lose the opportunity on follow up unless they stay in the same spot where sighted in.

All sub ammo has the basic same rainbow trajectory regardless of weight...Kentucky windage becomes critical.

To me, the 22lr is the ultimate sub & if I wanted a one shot quiet gun past 50, I would probably go something like 45LC & find the heaviest cast bullet available for anything going in the shoulder.

I have heard this before and was curious. I ordered a multi caliber suppressor this time, so I have some options to use. I have a 450 Bushmaster that I can try out as well.

[150class]

There are a couple factory loads that are suppose to have decent expansion.

At the end of the day though it'll be tough to have a round floating below 1000-1080 fps and provided significant KE to routinely drop or have a short track. That and the dialing in for sub 100 yard shots due to drop is annoying. I gave it a whirl on a 10.5" 300BO build and its fun but simply not as efficient/practical as I was hoping. Top that with discovering the "smack" of the SUB hitting the critter is incredibly loud and the build was mostly a good in theory and not the best in practice situation. By all means it could still serve a purpose and work but that will mostly depend on individual expectations going into this situation. Believe I shot 8-10 pigs from 80 yards and in when it was primarily a dedicated SUB set up and drop a couple with shoulder shots, 2-3 ran 100 yards or less and the rest were further or never found.

Most of the shots seemed to be within a inch or two where I was trying to hit minus one that was a solid 4-5" off but found that pig about 150 yards out.

Personally I would set it up to primarily run supers through it with a can on and then throw some subs through it and get a dope chart of sorts set up and whenever you feel like through a mag in that is strictly Subs only you have a solid idea of holds.

Hope that helps.

190gr Hornady loads I had decent luck with --> https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1019544858?pid=741787

194gr Underwood loads --> https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1018747737?pid=864130

[Chase4556]

I load the 190subx and use it on pigs. If I have the opportunity to ear hole them, they drop. But 90% of the time I take pop shots, hear the impact and they run off. However, I’m not worried about RECOVERING said pigs. It’s less work for me if they run off and become coyote and buzzard food. That 190 in the vitals will kill them, just not on the spot.

Supers sometimes drop them, but even then they run a lot.

I’ve hit them with 308, 223, 30-30 and others. Even with those calibers if I can’t get a neck shot or ear hole them sometimes they run, sometimes they drop.

[Drycreek3189]

A friend of mine had an internally suppressed Ruger 77/44 that was as silent as an air rifle with sub loads and he said he could only kill one hog at a time with it. I chose to go with an AR in 6.8 SPC and go for speed over silence. Sometimes I can get a second one when they’re running away, sometimes not.

[Tony Pic]

My friend and I have two deer blinds that are essentially 100yds apart. At times, we both have had Axis at both spots/feeders and he is big on neck shots not to ruin the cape. There have been times where he has shot at his spot, and the deer at my feeder looked up(after he shot). Looked around and back to feeding. No spooking at all. Now this was done with a 75gr 223 out of a Ruger American ranch rifle with a AAC suppressor with a distance of about 50yds. Dropped the Axis on the spot. I'm hearing many bad stories about the 300BO hunting supressed. The 150gr super 300BO drops pigs on the spot without a can. I guess if you are close enough and do a head shot.It can work.

[El Paisano]

I hunt suppressed with a Ruger Ranch in 300 BO w/ thermal. Sounds like similar to your setup. I use hand loaded 190 Sub-x. I also have a zero setting saved in the thermal for supersonic 125 grain loads, and one for the subsonic loads.
I shot around 1000 rounds of 300 blk subsonic last year in search of a very quiet, accurate load. I found it using Unique powder BUT, I also found that the sound of that 190 slug slapping pork is louder than the shot, so after that first shot, don't expect any more aimed shots right away. If your shot is head/neck and the pigs drops, they MAY settle down faster with a real quiet report.
So, for shooting pigs wise, I don't think you will gain much practical advantage by shooting subsonic suppressed over supersonic suppressed in 300 blk.
Where you DO get advantage is that there is no need for hearing protection when shooting subs suppressed. Due to hearing damage from a past life, I need all the help I can get. I can even wear my hearing aids when shooting subs suppressed.
I have heard and read about many bad outcomes when shooting pigs with subsonic 300 blk ammo. I don't know whether they are true, made up, or just repeated, as often happens on the internet.
My experience with subsonic shooting has convinced me that bad outcomes are more likely to occur if:
1. The range is not known, and/or
2. The shooter hasn't shot enough to know where the bullet will strike at various ranges, and/or
3. The reticle does not allow for accurate hold over/under to adjust for range differences.

If you don't have all three of the above items accounted for and covered, I would suggest that you stick to shooting supersonic with bullets in the 110 to 125 grain range. The 110 Barnes are hard to beat for pig killers, but I shoot Speer 125 TnTs because they are much less expensive and I can shoot a lot of them. This a good time to make the point that there is no substitute for a lot of "Trigger time" and making that bullet go where you want it.
I suspect that a lot of the horror stories are told by people that zero a rifle at 100 yds (or whatever), and go hunt. They shoot at a pig that may be 75 yds or 115 yds and the pigs runs off. Of course, the couldn't have missed, shot over or under, so it must have been that weak cartridge, and "IT" wounded the pig.

You should also know that most 30 caliber soft point bullets are designed to expand at around 1800 fps IMPACT VELOCITY, or more. If you research the ballistics of most factory loaded 300 blk rounds with bullets of around 150 grains, and look at the velocity at 100 yds, not many will meet that threshold. So you are basically pencil holing a bullet through the pigs with no expansion and guess what? Pig runs off.

I generally carry 2 mags. One with supers and one with subs. If the situation is not right for the subs, it is easy to change mags and zero setting and use supers.

[9452772]

I shot 300 BO with 208 grain hornady subs at 25 yards. Head shots work but I am close. The rise and drop is a problem, option is to load lots of profiles in the thermal and then place wood stakes every 10 yards between you and feeder.

[Archereject]

I’m pretty sure 340 Easton Axis are subsonic 😂.

[Fordnandez]

I know it varies dependant on the grain but if you are zero'd in at 100 how high will you be at 50?