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300 Ham'r Velocity Not Up To Expectations

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I see a lot of bashing of this cartridge which I really don't understand, it does exactly what it's intended for which is hunting hogs and deer at fairly close ranges. If one is a fan of the Grendel, great! or the 6.8 SPC, good for you! enjoy your chosen cartridge and please respect that others prefer a 30 caliber round in an AR platform that isn't as heavy as a 308 and outperforms a 300BLK.
I have always liked 30 cal and the Ham'r would be a high priority if I wanted a new cartridge. For a while, ARPerformance sold barrels and dies for their TAC-30 which was a pretty much a 6.8 SPC necked up to 30 cal. The owner has retired and nobody is selling barrels for it now. The 300 Ham'r is now the main game in town if you want just a little more oomph than the 300BLK.
 
The wc version was designed for supers as the case being longer than bo. I don't own or use any suppressors, so I don't load for subs. Unfortunately, the article is more of marketing as I've killed many hogs before the ham'r was ever thought of including the whisper and bo with m193. I laugh at the term "ultimate hog hunter/killer" as it's always shot placement over every cartridge. Kinda wish I waited for the ham'r before buying the bo, but it wasn't produced when I bought the bo.
 
A couple of decades ago I thought that the 300 Whisper would be the perfect low recoil 30 cal, basically an updated 30 Carbine. For some reason, 223 holes just looked too small in targets (why, 22 cal is the same as a pellet gun, for goodness sake!). I knew it was optimized for heavy subsonic bullets and didn't think that would have any effect on accuracy with lighter ones. Once the 300 BLK came out I kept reading that many people found that accuracy was OK but not great for most supersonic loads. The Rifleshooter.com website even had an article entitled "

300 BLK accuracy problems? Maybe it isn't you…

".

Bill Wilson seems to have taken shooting hogs with a AR15 to the level of "art form". I occurred to me that after shooting a bunch with 223, he thought "OK, but not GREAT" and eventually developed the 300 Ham'r. TBH, I think he just wanted a little better hunting round than the 30 BLK. For a while he standardized and sold a version of Kurt Buchert's 7.62x40, but decided to push it just a little but and ended up with the 300 Ham'r. My guess is that if he had waited a couple of years, he might have used the slightly bigger 350 Legend Case (.3900" dia case vs .3759) to goose it a little more.
 
I am currently tooling around with A1680 along with some hornady 110gr and some leighieh total chaos 110gr. I have not fired any yet but had a friend tell me he was using this with the total chaos bullet and it was at 2400 to 2500 fps. I have to find time to get to the range to know what mine will do. My buddy is using a bolt gun, I will be using a Ar-15 so my velocity may be less with gas operation.
 
The wc version was designed for supers as the case being longer than bo. I don't own or use any suppressors, so I don't load for subs. Unfortunately, the article is more of marketing as I've killed many hogs before the ham'r was ever thought of including the whisper and bo with m193. I laugh at the term "ultimate hog hunter/killer" as it's always shot placement over every cartridge. Kinda wish I waited for the ham'r before buying the bo, but it wasn't produced when I bought the bo.

A person offered to give me a BO 18 inch SS fluted years ago. I said No Thank you. I don't shoot subsonic either.

Many years ago I talked to the locals about wild Russian boar hunting and what did they use. The answer to there "ultimate hog hunter/killer" was the Ruger 30 cal carbine. What a ***! This big boar probably 450+ pounds was coming down the trail right at me and I put the cross hairs on his forehead and fired. They didn't even penetrate it's forehead. I put about 3 bloody spots on it's forehead and it was still coming torwards me. Really aggitated and a bad head ache LOL. So I pulled out my 1911 and one shot killed it. My buddy and I took our carbines back and sold them at a loss and we bought the real ultimate pig guns for short range shooting, the 44 mag ruger semi auto carbines.

Low powered 30's do NOT belong in my gun cabinet ever! My 308's are my lowest 30 cal pig guns:)

I don't know where the Hammer stands in comparison to a 30 cal carbine and I'm not even going to bother looking them up. But I can tell you from years of looking up load data that it's just a rough guideline and chronographs never lie!
 
A person offered to give me a BO 18 inch SS fluted years ago. I said No Thank you. I don't shoot subsonic either.

Many years ago I talked to the locals about wild Russian boar hunting and what did they use. The answer to there "ultimate hog hunter/killer" was the Ruger 30 cal carbine. What a ***! This big boar probably 450+ pounds was coming down the trail right at me and I put the cross hairs on his forehead and fired. They didn't even penetrate it's forehead. I put about 3 bloody spots on it's forehead and it was still coming torwards me. Really aggitated and a bad head ache LOL. So I pulled out my 1911 and one shot killed it. My buddy and I took our carbines back and sold them at a loss and we bought the real ultimate pig guns for short range shooting, the 44 mag ruger semi auto carbines.

Low powered 30's do NOT belong in my gun cabinet ever! My 308's are my lowest 30 cal pig guns:)

I don't know where the Hammer stands in comparison to a 30 cal carbine and I'm not even going to bother looking them up. But I can tell you from years of looking up load data that it's just a rough guideline and chronographs never lie!
In hogs FMJ's never failed me, even at 55grs. I shot a 100-150# hog with a 40s&w 180hp that took almost a mag to kill it. I didn't have any fmj's on me at the time. Most think I'm stupid for using fmj's of yotes and hogs, but they just work!
 
I was an early adopter of the 300 Hamr,16 1/4 barrel. My cheapy Caldwell chronograph has shown my loads to be spot on with Wilson data and CFEBLK, not so much with 1680. I've called Wilson about bullets and traded posts with Wilson on occasion. I've found all of his claims about the caliber to be accurate.
 
45 ACP 230 gr. to the forhead just shut the pig down from probably 25 feet away. I have never used 223 on Texas hogs. I was always around the bigger is better crowd.

I did break down and compare the 30 carbine to the 300 hamr. The hammer is far superior with 110 gr. 2100 fps to 2600 fps. The Hamr is also over 500 fps behind a 308 win with 125 gr using twice as much powder.

So I would say that the Hamr is a great round for a AR15 platform
 
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