300 Blackout - At long last, a review!

I specifically waited a while to see how this cartridge would take in the current market, but it is finally time to take it out for a spin. Having been a long time sucker for the venerable .30-caliber variety of projectiles, this was right up my alley, but the final clincher was being able to form the brass from .223 or 5.56 brass (something I have absolutely no shortage of). I therefore set about rounding up reloading supplies and upper receiver parts.

First Impressions: When I first started reading about this round, I was immediately skeptical of its published ballistics, particularly the effective range and the velocity. How the hell could this little case hold enough powder to drive a 110 to 135 grain projectile beyond 2,000fps? I get that most of the loading data uses pistol powder to make up for this reduced capacity, but with such fast burning powder it raises the risk (and the severity of the consequences of) loading mistakes, while also reducing the safety threshold for OAL. Don't get me wrong, I know that so long as you stay within the safe range of the published data, you should be just fine; the simple fact is that the safe range for this particular cartridge is less than one grain when loading with H110.

Loading Bench: I have to say, this is one of the most fun cartridges that I have ever reloaded. Initially, trimming the .223 cases down to length was a royal pain in the ass, but eventually i got smart (or lazy, depending on your perspective) and snapped up a harbor freight benchtop 2" chop saw. First I removed the cheap-o vise that came with it and replace it with a home made jig to chop every case to the same size (in this case, I was chopping them just below the neck, to about 1.40" to allow room for error). To make things easier on my sizing die, I did a quick deburr on all the cases before grabbing the sizing wax and sizing the whole lot. Now it was time for a quick spin on the case trimmer, a date with the chamfering and deburring tools and finally a good cleaning in walnut media.

One issue I did note was that the partitions in the .223 ammo boxes I was using to store the cases are actually higher than the sized 300 BLK cases, making it difficult to remove any single case. Anyway, loading was a breeze. I've never used H110 before, but it meters very well in my powder dispenser.

The Rifle: I wasn't about to plunk down the money for a commercial upper or a full up rifle, so I ended up building my own. This being a relatively light recoiling round, I ended up going the direction of an ultra-lite AR upper to slip onto the lower from another of my rifles. I manage to get my hands on an AR-Stoner lite contour barrel, a DPMS slick side upper (my personal preference, for simplicities sake and because it fits very tightly to a rock river lower) Yankee Hill Gas system parts and a Midwest Industries rail system.

At the Range: I started out testing a series of 110gr Vmax loads along with a number of 135gr SMK loads. I was initially expecting the SMKs to be the real tack drivers (based on previous experience with .308s and .223s) but was surprised that a few of the little red tips printed very respectable sub-moa groups (best group was .85"!), while the match kings hovered around the 1"-1.25" area. Not bad at all out of a little 16" carbine!

Now for the bad bits: My biggest issue was a huge number of double feeds and failure to extracts with the SMKs. At first I thought it was something wrong with the gas system (not quite lined up perfectly?) but after stripping it down and re-aligning it, the problem persisted. After some trouble shooting, the culprit revealed itself: The hydraulic buffer system I had installed was slowing the bolt carrier enough that it was not cycling fully. The first symptom was that the bolt didn't lock back on an empty magazine, with double feeds being the eventual result of my not correcting the problem. While this never occurred with the Vmaxs, I believe it is because there was a larger charge of powder behind the little hornady bastards that gave them just a little more gas pressure to cycle fully.

Another thing I noticed is that chopping and resizing the thicker lake city 5.56 brass was a bit more dicey than the bulk box federal I ended up using exclusively. The 5.56 brass that I did end up with was very tight in the chamber, making extraction very difficult; likely will not be resizing surplus brass too 300 BLK again.

Overall: Love it. This little bastard is a great addition to the gun safe, especially for someone who reloads. Being able to chop and resize shot out .223 brass makes makes it a very good value to anyone who handloads, while the standardized caliber (.308) makes it easy to find bullet options. The AR platform compatibility is perhaps its best feature overall, and makes the 300BLK a very sturdy chamberings that is likely to outlast many of the other fad cartridges that have come on out in recent years.

Hodgdon Benchmark Reloading Powder: Hand on Review

I've been working with this powder for a while now, and I'm constantly surprised by what I can wring out of it performance-wise. Granted it's not the end-all rifle powder or the top of the line target stuff, but it's a good value, a good all-around powder and very easy to handle.

The Good Stuff: First off, I like that this powder is fairly fine without being so fine its difficult to accurately meter, ensuring a uniform burn and less chance of being cut by the powder measure. The smell is very strong compared to other powders and very identifiable when fired, but not in an unpleasant way (sorry, I get nostalgic on Hoppes solvent too. It happens). Price is very good; not the cheapest out there, but nestled happily around the middle ranges of common rifle powder. Still, the performance you get is well worth many more expensive powders.

What I like most about Benchmark is its sheer versatility. It has become my go-to powder for all my precision varmint/target rifles, as well as my beater dear rifle. I won't post full load or rifle descriptions because I'm not in the business of doing that (so I'll understand if you take these numbers with a grain of salt), but the results where impressive by anyones standards. In 308 winchester, it has marked average groups of .30 MOA with the best group down to .26 MOA. In 223 Remington, it averages .35 MOA with a best group of .32 MOA. Most impressive, it turned my beater 45-70 Handi rifle that wouldn't even group with factory ammo into a .95 MOA deer killer! Hurray!

Bad Stuff: If you have a sensitive nose, the smell might be an issue in-doors. It's not the top tier target rifle powder, so don't go and expect to be slaughtering world records with it. Also, I don't recommend using it for cast lead bullets; most of my test groups where not terrible, but where easily overshadowed by other powders.

Over All: Very good powder, and definitely recommend it to others. For a very long time, this was the only rifle powder I kept in good supply and, if I hadn't started playing with cast lead, it probably still would be. The price is right and the performance is great, so I really have no gripes worth posting.

RCBS Uniflow Powder Micrometer Adjustment Screw - Hands on Review

I'm going to jump right out and say this may be the best 40 bucks I have ever spent on a powder measure gadget. I initially made the mistake of getting the wrong size one for my particular drop (oops), but once I got the right one installed it was very easy to zero and adjust.

The adjustment screw is tight enough to prevent accidentally knocking the measure out of alignment. My only possible concern (and to be honest, its not really a concern, just a nit pick) would be that its a bit tricky to pull out in order to clean the inside of the powder chamber. Not really an issue, just takes a couple more seconds to accomplish.Super fine powders tend to clump up a hair after two or three hundred rounds, but that might just be me (re: my rant about Winchester Autocomp).

Overall, a great little upgrade for any powder drop. Definitely recommend it.

Winchester Autocomp

Ok, this one has been in the works for a while, just haven't taken the time to sit down and write it up. I got this powder thinking it would be a great option for 9mm loads, but have run into more issues than I can begin to describe here. My first problem with this powder is the near-total lack of reloading data for it. Outside of hodgdons annual reloading manual (and even then, the bullet selection is very limited) I can't find any data AT ALL. This doesn't bode well for the manufacturers confidence in this product, since if they aren't even willing to support it with a good amount of load data, then WTF are they selling it for?

Issue number two is more a gripe with all super fine powders in general, but this one is no exception. Its sticks in the powder drop, and after 30 or 40 measurements starts to reduce the total volume dropped into the cases. I have done my damndest to keep the thing clean, but at this point its just becoming irritating. I don't really want to spend my whole reloading session waiting on my RCBS electronic dispenser (all BS aside, the drop measure is twice as fast), but that's what I've been reduced to at this point.

Last, but not least I get the feeling from chrono readings and other Autocomp user experience that the Hodgdon loading data is significantly under-charged. I have enough powder to start exploring the real limits of this powder, but that's not what I bought it for. I just want clear, diverse, and accurate load data. Is that too much to ask?

At the end of the day, I suppose that with a little tweaking and a lot of range time I seem to have found a couple of better than average loads. But for the amount of shooting and tweaking and trial & error I had to do to get there, in retrospect I should have just bought a pound of Winchester 231 and never bothered with Winchester Autocomp