What caliber for a suppresed short barrel lightweight build

[Sid Post]

I disagree. The grendel outperforms the 308 past 500 y and is a great hunting round for varmints and deer. Plenty of bullet options and easy to handload for. Not to mention it does well in a SBR platform.

Non-standard AR-15 components and magazines are a turn-off for me personally just like it is for my Six8 rifle.

Shooting a deer or varmints at over 500 yards never really crosses my mind and I live in Texas! Pronghorns and Mountain Goats and the Grendel aren't a good mix for me either.

Small groups at long range (>600 yards) is what I generally think of but, my 10.5" up close works well and high sectional density long range bullets are good for special purpose shots.

If I am hunting over 500 yards, I'm going to start with a 7 Magnum personally. If I wear out my 300WM, it will be rebarreled it to a 7 magnum with no regrets. Generally, I prefer larger bores so, call me biased as I rebarreled my rifle to 338-06 over other '06 options.

 

[Lycanit]

I think pretty much everybody here would agree that saying suppressed short barrel and combining that with 400 to 500 yards as an option is asking a lot of any particular combination. Anything that can run well suppressed and be useful, as suppressed and subsonic I assume, limits you to a certain velocity so the only gain and energy and range is by bullet weight and BC. If you're not looking at subsonic but just merely suppressed then there's many options to be had. It's just that you run into so many conflicts with efficient long range and subsonic short barrel close range. It can be done though. If you're willing to rangefind and dial it in. As part of the reason I hedged on the 375 socom versus the the 458 socom. As it has a monolithic 300 grain bullets that expands down to about a thousand feet per second available for it. So if you can rangefind it it will still expand out to 300 something yards. The 375 socom is far flatter and more energetic in that regard but it does not have a dedicated bullet made by Barnes for it. For sure though very interested in this and other thoughts about what could be done and how so!

 

[luceteeth]

I would suggest the 338 Sherman SS. And yes, with the right suppresor you can tame the big bores. I have a 458 Socom that shoots 500 gn Maker bullets at subsonic speeds and is very quiet.

 

[Lycanit]

I have always been very partial to Hawke bullets, they do make standard run bullets and I call that standard they're still fairly custom but you can call them and specify different profiles and modify the metallurgy to suit your need. And of course they make some super nice heavyweight spire points that you can stuff in a socom case, and with a little bit of powder they make and extremely nice impact.

 

[Deleted member 118518]

.358 Winchester

 

[rustyshackleford]

I disagree. The grendel outperforms the 308 past 500 y and is a great hunting round for varmints and deer. Plenty of bullet options and easy to handload for. Not to mention it does well in a SBR platform.

Nyet. Idk how you think grendel > 308. You can get sleek bullets in 308 and you have more powder capacity and higher operating pressure.

 

[Lycanit]

The grendel is out performing the 308? Winchester? The .308 Winchester?

Ok?

 

[Schroedernd]

Nyet. Idk how you think grendel > 308. You can get sleek bullets in 308 and you have more powder capacity and higher operating pressure.

Quite simple. Google ballistics chart comparisons for the 2 of them for the most common bullets and see that after 500y there isn't a huge difference on drop and the grendel usually does better with wind. Not bad for a much smaller round....

 

[rustyshackleford]

Quite simple. Google ballistics chart comparisons for the 2 of them for the most common bullets and see that after 500y there isn't a huge difference on drop and the grendel usually does better with wind. Not bad for a much smaller round....

So you just want to look at the 168 smk at 2600 ft/sec and pretend a 165 TGK at 2750 doesn't exist. Got ya

 

[Lycanit]

Quite simple. Google ballistics chart comparisons for the 2 of them for the most common bullets and see that after 500y there isn't a huge difference on drop and the grendel usually does better with wind. Not bad for a much smaller round....

Well I might agree that a round May retain more of the original muzzle energy and muzzle velocity at extended ranges. By that logic my 22 creedmoor is an amazing beast. But I still would not consider it a thousand yard Elk round and would probably never dream of pulling the trigger on a Grendel on a deer at 600 yards, given the right conditions I wouldn't hesitate with my 308. I'm not bashing the grendel I think that for what the platform is which is a small bore AR-15 platform limited cartridge, it does a reasonable job of extracting the most performance from a cartridge limited to those constraints. And if you were to limit yourself to that then I think you would be very well served with having three or four uppers on an AR and utilizing it as the Lego gun that it is. A monster socom for up close and ugly and killing anything that walks. A long barrel 223 that you can reload and touch stuff such as varm its way out and even deer up close very well. The Grendel to cover everything that the 223 is too small for. And of course a 22 rimfire conversion for practice. That's how I have mine set up. Not trying to take over the OP, but I agree with you there's something to be said for spending good money on trigger and a fantastic lower and snapping on and off your uppers. I'm not sure that the OP was limiting himself to AR platform though? Or did I miss something in some of the conversation?

 

[Lycanit]

I think everyone agrees that in the 308 Winchester the 168 grain typically is the the worst possible long range bullet. Too slow to stay supersonic at 1,000 yards and not enough BC to stay supersonic 1000 yards. Go lighter or go heavier but nobody really makes a good one in that range except for maybe two and you have to reload.

 

[Ken61]

308

 

[Sid Post]

Well I might agree that a round May retain more of the original muzzle energy and muzzle velocity at extended ranges. By that logic my 22 creedmoor is an amazing beast. But I still would not consider it a thousand yard Elk round and would probably never dream of pulling the trigger on a Grendel on a deer at 600 yards, given the right conditions I wouldn't hesitate with my 308. I'm not bashing the grendel I think that for what the platform is which is a small bore AR-15 platform limited cartridge, it does a reasonable job of extracting the most performance from a cartridge limited to those constraints. And if you were to limit yourself to that then I think you would be very well served with having three or four uppers on an AR and utilizing it as the Lego gun that it is. A monster socom for up close and ugly and killing anything that walks. A long barrel 223 that you can reload and touch stuff such as varm its way out and even deer up close very well. The Grendel to cover everything that the 223 is too small for. And of course a 22 rimfire conversion for practice. That's how I have mine set up. Not trying to take over the OP, but I agree with you there's something to be said for spending good money on trigger and a fantastic lower and snapping on and off your uppers. I'm not sure that the OP was limiting himself to AR platform though? Or did I miss something in some of the conversation?

Good points.

22-NXS, 22 Creedmoor, etc. for really long range.

30 H'AMR, 30HRT/TAC/Amercian/x6.8 for intermediate ranges

375 Socom for closer big stuff

And then something else for subsonic use.

Of course, this assumes the OP is using an AR-15 in the EU and doesn't mind building multiple uppers and supporting American calibers that may be unobtanium in the Europe.

 

[Sid Post]

Hello everybody, I am considering my next build which is inspired by one of my favourite rifles (16 inch suppresed Bergara BA13 takedown rifle). Considered style of hunting means in my case shots up to 400 meters/cca 450yards. As I will shot with suppressor and need good manoevrabilty I want maximum barrel lenght 16 inch. In my country is no limit for barrel lenght so I can go even lower, but I consider this as reasonable minimum for practical use of the powder without excessive fireballs . Plan is to shoot both subsonic and supersonic (in 90% cases, subs are just for finishing shots with my dogs around) I am reloading so no problem to go even with most exotic wildcats. Main aim is find out whether there might be something surpassing quality of this small toy I already use with possibly larger caliber. I was thinking about something in 338, or bigger.

Europe based, super and subsonic, and a bolt action rifle with a 14~16 inch barrel is a really difficult combination for a practical cartridge given the extremes of super and sub sonic. It needs to be effective at 400 meters so that helps but a Russian Boar or big Bear is no slouch in the tough game department. Battue rifles are more common in the EU and I see them in calibers like 375H&H for Russian Boar as one point of reference.

For the 'finishing shot' around your dogs, I would personally use a 9mm pistol with a 147gr FMJ. It will suppress well and fairly easily and has enough mass and toughness to punch through and break a spine, take a head shot to scramble the brains, etc.

In my case, in somewhat similar conditions, I use an auto-loading rifle in at least a 6.8SPC for feral hogs in the 100~150lb range at 200 yards max range. I'm debating moving up to a 308W/7.62x51 for a bit more smackdown with head shots. Both suppress well for supersonic rifles with a good can.

For close in shots, personally, I'm using a Glock model 40 (6" barrel) in 10mm which will finish game humanely and in my case is a heck of a lot easier to use if I'm attacked by my 'neighbors' dogs (suspected meth cooks and marijuana growers using ill tempered dogs to complicate law enforcement discovery in the country).