300 BO, 6.5 G, or 6 ARC?

[6.5x300 WBY]

6.5 Grendel should be awesome.
I cannot understand the dislike of the 300 BO. It's one of my favorite cartridges to shoot.
It's my home defense go to of choice over anything and not suppressed. 110 tsx is the be all do all. Love my 300 BO. Love it so much I am building a 2rd 300 BO now. Yahoo love it

Best of luck building your AR for your wife

 

[azsugarbear]

300 BO is a great cartridge, but you need to understand what it can and cannot do. It was initially designed for suppressed rifles in CQB - Special Force guys clearing rooms & urban warfare. Yes it can be used at longer distances, but too many shooters/hunters load or use regular, heavy 30 cal. rifle bullets with supersonic loads and expect great results. These bullets never get going fast enough to open up. Only the very light 110-120 gr. bullets do well in the 300 BO at supersonic speeds in the 1,800 to 2,100 range. The answer is to buy the premium, heavy bullets that are made for subsonic speeds such as those from Lehigh Defense, Maker, Outlaw State, and a few others I cannot think of right now. They run 190 to 225 grains in weight, but are designed to open up at much slower velocities (think 800 to 1,300 fps). The reloader can still get them supersonic (if desired). People need to think of the 300 BO more as a 44 magnum with better down-range ballistics. Recoil is very light in an AR platform and delivers great energy on target.

I have no personal experience with the two cartridges mentioned, but I suspect they may fit the bill as well. I would not even consider brass availability in the decision to buy. It seems as if brass is currently available for all three right now on a limited basis - which is all you need to get started. Component shortages will not last and seems to be getting better every month. The rifle/upper you will have for a very long time.

 

[Varmiter71]

What about the 25-45 sharps with a Hornady 110 grain ftx
It's just a barrel swap and easy enough to make out of 223 cases that you don't mind if you lose all the cases when you shoot

 

[ARlife4me]

Interesting everyone gives the 300 Blk a bad rap for hogs. I had no problem using it with 125 Hor SSTs. From a blind.
From a helicopter I used an 870 with 00 buck. It too worked well.
Admittedly my 308 did better at distance.

I only give marketing a bad rap as make jokes at "ultimate hog hunter" labels. I wouldn't use anything over 150's at up to 300 yards as the drop will be horrible. 110-135 going 300 out of a 16" works just fine.

 

[Greenvette01]

I'm building a new upper, and am at the inevitable and unenviable point of determining cartridge. The purpose for this build is to be handled by my wife during predator situations on our farm. We deal with everything here from the smallest fox species to black bears in the 550+ range. Range to target will generally be less than 75 yards, much closer during the seasons when foliage is present on the encroaching woods. I am a hand loader, and have a fairly good stock of 6mm, 6.5mm, and 7.62mm projectiles on hand. The issue is brass.

What I'm seeing right now is that 300 BO brass is readily available, 6.5 Grendel almost non-existent, and 6mm ARC completely unavailable, however this is a long-term thing and shortages generally rectify themselves over time, so I don't want to make this decision based on brass availability alone unless someone can offer up some credible inside info that 6.5 Grendel and 6mm ARC brass are going to be largely unavailable for the next couple of years. I work in an industry where inside information circulates, so I don't think that it's unreasonable to "throw it out there". I don't want to screw around with re-sizing other cartridge brass down to either 6.5 Grendel or 6mm ARC; I just don't have time. I have even kicked around the idea of going 7.62x39. I'm not interested in 22-cal offerings; they are too small for me to be comfortable with in this application.

My wife is not recoil sensitive; when a predator is bearing down on your livestock, you could shoulder a Howitzer and not flinch, and she's a Kansas farm girl. If someone would like to chime in with an alternative suggestion that might have appropriate energy and available brass to boot, then please do so. Many thanks for taking the time to read this.

Best,

Chris

.350 Legend would be my pick IMO it's better than the 300 BO.

 

[ARlife4me]

What about the 25-45 sharps with a Hornady 110 grain ftx
It's just a barrel swap and easy enough to make out of 223 cases that you don't mind if you lose all the cases when you shoot

I personally only use fmj on varmints (pigs included). M193 has worked well for me.

 

[QuietTexan]

300 BO is a great cartridge, but you need to understand what it can and cannot do.

Agree 1000%. It was meant to to shoot subsonic loads inside the dimensions/parts of the mil-spec M-16/M-4 receiver set. Nothing else. Any other benefits are tangential to the design goals of the cartridge. I love it for what it is, but I know what it's not also.

15-20 years ago we didn't have the options for bolt faces that we do today. So 300 BO and 6x45 were awesome because they ran with basically no modifications other than a new barrel and required no parts other than standardized weights.

 

[Flyingdaddy]

I shoot a couple of strange calibers in my rifles, so early on, I was REAL concerned about brass. But you know what? Years later I'm still working with the original hundred rounds of brass. Really. Pick 'em up and re-stuff your brass. Given that rounds fired from a "brass chucker " in the field are likely to be lost, even so, we're talking about a predator control gun, right? Not a competition gun, not a meat gun - so how many rounds you think you're going to shoot in a year? Maybe 10 at the bench for zeroing. Then how many at real predators?

 

[Josh06]

I'm building a new upper, and am at the inevitable and unenviable point of determining cartridge. The purpose for this build is to be handled by my wife during predator situations on our farm. We deal with everything here from the smallest fox species to black bears in the 550+ range. Range to target will generally be less than 75 yards, much closer during the seasons when foliage is present on the encroaching woods. I am a hand loader, and have a fairly good stock of 6mm, 6.5mm, and 7.62mm projectiles on hand. The issue is brass.

What I'm seeing right now is that 300 BO brass is readily available, 6.5 Grendel almost non-existent, and 6mm ARC completely unavailable, however this is a long-term thing and shortages generally rectify themselves over time, so I don't want to make this decision based on brass availability alone unless someone can offer up some credible inside info that 6.5 Grendel and 6mm ARC brass are going to be largely unavailable for the next couple of years. I work in an industry where inside information circulates, so I don't think that it's unreasonable to "throw it out there". I don't want to screw around with re-sizing other cartridge brass down to either 6.5 Grendel or 6mm ARC; I just don't have time. I have even kicked around the idea of going 7.62x39. I'm not interested in 22-cal offerings; they are too small for me to be comfortable with in this application.

My wife is not recoil sensitive; when a predator is bearing down on your livestock, you could shoulder a Howitzer and not flinch, and she's a Kansas farm girl. If someone would like to chime in with an alternative suggestion that might have appropriate energy and available brass to boot, then please do so. Many thanks for taking the time to read this.

Best,

Chris

Have you looked at 300 hamr? I use the very similar 7.62x40wt and it's been great on hogs, coyotes and various other vermin lol. If you aren't shooting suppressed, a much better option than 300bo for hunting.

 

[Pdyson]

I have ARs in 6.5 Grendel and 300BO and I bought a little bolt action 6ARC for
my 9yo Grandson for deer, hogs & coyotes. I reload for all three. Shooting 120gr Gold Dots and 123gr SSTs or even ELDs the Grendel is my favorite Go-to gun for night hunting hogs and coyotes and i'll take it to the blind deer hunting if i see signs that hogs have been coming in before shooting light.

Component availability is only a problem with the 6mm ARC. Currently, only Hornady is making brass and all of it is going into ammo. My LGS had a case of ELD-Ms so I bought 5 boxes. BTW Hornady match bullets kill like poison so no need to waste them for the brass. As for case life expect the ARC will perform like the Grendel, ARs can be rough on brass. However, Stay a bit below max and your brass should last awhile. Of the 3 the Grendel will be the leader for energy and penetration but at short range all would work. I'd still feel under-gunned facing a 500+ pound bear and I think I'd just go buy a Ruger SFAR which is a hard hitting 308 on a AR15 sized frame.
Let me add one more cartridge to your list for consideration. Wilson Combats 300 HAM'R It's like a 300 BO Magnum. it's 250fps faster that the BO and pretty close to 30/30 power.

 

[del2les]

6.5 Grendel

 

[6.5x300 WBY]

Those 110 -120 Barnes in 300 BO are the cats meow. Hand loaded they are amazing what they can do 150 yards and in I have zero issues confronting pretty much anything that I could encounter. BO is awesome. I for one just love it. Is it the best nope but it does anything that I ask of it and does it exceptionally well. YMMV

 

[Viking264]

300 BO guys: I have a question, and so far I've been unable to find an answer despite searching the web and contacting the die maker. I've got an upper in 300 BO, but when I go to load the 110 TAC-TX the tip gets pulled out every time; they seem to get stuck inside the die. I'm using an RCBS set. Any of you have the same thing happen?

 

[QuietTexan]

Any of you have the same thing happen?

Never.

If you remove the seating stem check and see where it's hitting on the bullet/tip while seating, is it sitting on the tip? Or is the tip contacting the inside of the stem? Might have to either get a different stem that sits lower on the meplat, or drill the stem deeper depending.

I mainly use Hornady dies for lower-precision things like my 300 BO AR loads. I have had to change stems out to other calibers depending on the bullet being used - IIRC it was a really long Makers with a round nose I used a 338 stem with?