How would you design your ideal subsonic hunting round?

Posted by ottermupps@reddit | Firearms | View on Reddit | 25 comments

Just to clarify - I'm working on a worldbuilding project and I fully intend to incorporate guns into it.

I like the idea of heavy subsonic rounds, especially for hunting - sue me, silently dropping a deer or elk is cool. What I'm curious about is this: If you had the chance to have a gun (with any accessories) and cartridge custom made for free, with the only requirements being able to make 300 yard kill shots on an elk/bear/moose and being extremely quiet - how would you do it? What would that firearm and ammo look like?

(In the context of the world I'm working on, there's a great deal of territorial animals with good hearing, and they'll flock to the noise of gunfire expecting bodies. This gun would be used for hunting and warfare in the region these animals inhabit, which is rather large.)

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tom_yum@reddit

Hornady just released 338 arc which sounds pretty close to this.

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veive@reddit

Subsonic bullets are low energy, so you are probably going to want a large caliber to have enough energy on target to reliably take big game.

But big, slow bullets tend to drop a lot, so shooting 300 yards out will be a lot more difficult with them than it is with a modern rifle.

If you want a 'new' cartridge, I'd call it something like .458 blackout.

Essentially you will want a modern subsonic variant of the big bore cartridges used in Buffalo rifles.

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MrAnachronist@reddit

45-70 is 458 Blackout

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NetJnkie@reddit

But it's not subsonic.

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MrAnachronist@reddit

At 730 grains it is:

https://steinelammo.com/all-available-calibers/rifle-ammo/45-70-govt/45-70-government-730gr-wfn-subsonic/

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veive@reddit

Do they have .45-70 with decent ballistic coefficients like .300blk?

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OG_Fe_Jefe@reddit

Define...."decent"

The .45-70, and it's larger siblings killed tons of things from 200 to 600 yds with regularity, and had documented and surveyed kills out to a mile........

I think the 45-70 is doing "decent" already.....

Kids these days...🙄

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veive@reddit

.45-70 is supersonic, and it's performance would suffer significantly were it downloaded in order to be subsonic, which the OP specifically called for.

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OG_Fe_Jefe@reddit

JDJones made and ssk still lists the.45-70 Whisper on their website.

Load data; 18g of H110 pushing 465g Lehigh HP @ 968fps.

Kids these days don't read before attempting to call out OGs of things we've been doing before they were born.......

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veive@reddit

If you're comfortable trying to hunt big game with a cartridge that has less than 1k ft lbs of energy at the muzzle, go for it.

Your funeral.

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OG_Fe_Jefe@reddit

I'm comfortable with lots of things.

Shoot with great shot placement, and you'll realize why so many deer and other meat game are shot with a 22lr.

And I've had my funeral already.

It's was WAY easier planning and the after party I was there to enjoy.

The gentlemen at the headstone shop was a little agast that I picked up my own headstone.

But it's still be less surprise than the coroner when they realize that yes, that I have my urn chosen, ready and waiting....

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ottermupps@reddit (OP)

I'm agreed on the large caliber - 8.6blk and 338arc are along the lines of what would be used and they're quite good.

The buffalo rifle is pretty neat, I've not seen those before. Thanks!

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veive@reddit

Maybe .50arc?

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OG_Fe_Jefe@reddit

I don't know why you say " low energy".

JDJones made a subsonic 20mm case based 0.900 caliber. It retained over half its muzzle energy at 1000yds. It would not be described as low energy.

Yes. Shoot the same caliber at modern rifle speeds and it would have almost 4x the energy, but it's already got too much.........

... so it's already overkill.....

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Quadrenaro@reddit

155gr cast 300blk, out of a 9in barrel.

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Khaden_Allast@reddit

Are you asking for a single bullet - that is to say the actual projectile - or a single cartridge?

Ranging from deer to moose, there's no single bullet I would recommend for a subsonic load. That's because any projectile that will penetrate and expand enough in a moose at 300 yards will probably pass right through a deer without noticing, and on the flip-side anything that penetrates and expands at the right depth in a deer probably won't penetrate deep enough in the moose. Moose aren't only much bigger than a deer, they're also... "dense." The same round that works for one really won't work for the other, not with subs (well, not reasonably).

Now if we're talking a single cartridge, where I could swap between specific loads for specific game, I'd probably go with something akin to the 9x39mm used in the VSS Vintorez.

You might be wondering why I wouldn't "scale it up" to something like the 8.6blk (8.6blk is technically a smaller caliber, but uses a larger casing). Honestly, half of the hype behind that round is the highly debatable "benefit" of its stupidly fast twist rate. I've yet to see anything that suggests to me the 1:3 twist rate of 8.6blk barrels is actually doing anything; meanwhile that twist rate is going to burn through your barrel a lot faster than it needs to, so you'll have to replace barrels more often.

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ottermupps@reddit (OP)

A cartridge, with a few projectile types/weights for different uses.

This is why I ask wider audiences and don't just make shit up - I hadn't even considered that moose are denser than deer. Larger, sure, but needing almost a different power level for the two - interesting.

I hadn't looked at the VSS before except in passing - pretty damn cool gun, and honestly I'm getting some inspiration from the design.

Thanks for your input!

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ottermupps@reddit (OP)

All I'm getting is 22lr when I look this up - there's a very similar round in my world, but that's nowhere near powerful enough to take large game at range.

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Aggressive_Local8921@reddit

22 very fucking long rifle

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ottermupps@reddit (OP)

lmfao, I get it now.

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WiseDirt@reddit

VFLR... VeryFuckingLongRifle?