I bought a Ruger Gen II in 300 blackout a couple months back. I bought it to solely shoot suppressed. It took me 4 different types of ammo to find one that would give a decent grouping. Most were horrible and you wouldn’t call it a grouping. Ultimately, the Hornady subsonic gave me about a 1" group. The main problem now is the 2nd, 3rd, etc shot is 2.75" low. If I wait a few minutes between shots they will all group ok, but back to back shots are grouped 2.75" below the “cold bore” shot.
Now…a couple questions:
Is this normal for a cheaper gun? I’ve had one browning x bolt do this, but it wasn’t this bad. I sold the browning because it bothered me.
Is subsonic ammo difficult to group? I’ve had ammo shoot better/worse than others, but 3 of the 4 boxes of this 300 blackout subsonic ammo wouldn’t even group. (not the scope mounts)
How long is your barrel and Can? My Banish 30 on my Savage 30-06 was too heavy and suppressed the gun couldn’t stay on paper let along group. So, the test is will it group unsupressed?
I have the same gun here, but i have quite good accuracy with subs. Especially anything loaded with lehigh defense bullets. I’ve shot groups less than 1 inch at 125 yds. My gas gun also shoots this very well even with a 10” barrel. Oh only shoot suppressed
I started with ammo from “Beck” loaded with lehigh 194gr. they shoot very well out of all my b/o guns. Also had couple of boxes of hornady 208 gr did well. The least accurate has been anything with t-rex projectiles. They shoot 2” at best 100yd. Have good luck loading with 208 hornady.
I just looked my can up. I have two 30 cal cans, but they are both the same. 28oz, so significantly heavier than yours. I need to shoot it without the suppressor and see what those groups look like.
That is double the weight of my banish 30 in 9in configuration. I bet that sags the barrel a lot more. Not sure why it would change from cold bore. The short barrel will flex less than a long barrel of the same diameter due to torque.
Finally got back to the range today with the 300 blackout.
An edit to one of my above posts. My suppressor is 16oz. I weighed it a while back after I said it was 28oz. I was looking at the specs for old version online. The new model only weighs 16oz.
I brought two different rounds to the range today. Winchester Deer Season XP 150 Grain supersonic and Hornady Black Amax 208 grain subsonic.
The subsonic Hornady black shot significantly better than any other subsonic round. I shot 3 groups of 4 and they all looked identical. The first 2 shots were dead on. Maybe .5” apart at 100 yards. The second 2 always hit 1” below the others. This happened 3 times in a row. Each grouping looked almost identical. I shot one last group of 6 and they closed up some. Not sure if that was a fluke or what, but I would be fine with that grouping. Unfortunately, the Hornady Black Amax is not a hunting round.
Winchester Deer Season XP 150 Grain supersonic shot very well. All groups were under 1 MOA at 100 yards. I had a 7 shot group that was .75”. Very pleased with this round, but it isn’t a subsonic round. I bought this gun to shoot subsonic. With that said, I came home from the range and fired a couple subs and the Winchester supersonic rounds and there was no significant difference in sound. The super was obviously louder, but it wasn’t bad. I couldn’t test this at the range because others were shooting.
I’ll probably start shooting the Winchester Deer season. I’ve started ordering reloading supplies, so will likely work on a subsonic round once I understand what I’m doing.
Nosler ballistic tip subsonic – this was one of the original rounds I tested. Probably the worst grouping I’ve ever had for any gun/ammo combo. No groups whatsoever!
Hornady Sub X – one of the other rounds I originally tested. Much better than the nosler and you could likely hunt with it as long as you didn’t need critical follow-up shots, but I still hated the grouping. The 2nd and subsequent shots were always 2.5” – 3” low. EVERY DANG TIME.
The Nosler and Hornady Sub X are both “blunt” tip rounds. I guess the low velocity and warm barrel significantly affected the trajectory of these.
