Rifle Scopes Looking for Scope/Reticle advice for Subs & Supers - 300 BLK

[Dutch260]

Hi Gents, looking for some scope/reticle advice from those of you who have a setup where you shoot both subs and supers interchangeably.

I just got a Howa Mini Action 1500 chambered in 300 BLK and I'm trying to find a mid powered scope to fit the bill. However, I can't quite figure out the best way to go about picking a scope/reticle that will offer the flexibility of shooting both supers and subs without having to re-zero between the two. Ideally, I would zero with one and then use hold overs or unders for the rest.

Odds are I'm over complicating this but I thought I'd check with y'all to see if anyone is already doing this with success.

My broad requirements spec wise are:
Budget: <$1000
Power (Mid Range): Up to 15x (Trying to keep it short also since it's a fairly short rifle)
Illuminated Reticle
SFP or FFP both okay
Preferrably Mil but MOA isn't a deal breaker

 

[Shawn1492]

The difference between sub and super 300blk is pretty dramatic. Not really related. One is a pistol round and the other a close range deer round. Just buy a scope for for full power super rounds, your sub round are for inside 50 yards on beer cans.

 

[Dutch260]

True and I'm aware of that but this will be mostly a hog/varmint and plinking gun out to 200 yards. So the stealth of subs will be my primary objective. And I understand the limitations of subs at extended ranges but I have no desire to harvest deer with it so ethical kills is not a concern.

However that being said, if I want to sling some extra horse power I'd like to have that option even if it is few and far between. But if I do I want to be dialed in and accurate.

 

[steve123]

That new Gen 2 Athlon Ares BTR 2.5-15 would be a neat one for your application.

 

[Shawn1492]

Primary arms makes a 3x prism with a bdc reticle for 300blc.

 

[Jackomason]

your sub round are for inside 50 yards on beer cans.

And communists.

 

[Luvman]

Primary arms makes a 3x prism with a bdc reticle for 300blc.

I have one of these. I run it with supers for deer. It does pretty well for that. I haven’t shot any subs with it to see what the zero offset would be. I would think it would be pretty big. And the knobs aren’t the best for dialing an offset. They’re more for set it and forget it.

I think primary arms offers LPVO’s with this reticle. That might be a better option if their knobs are exposed to make it easy to dial on an offset when switching between subs and supers.

 

[Dutch260]

@steve123 - Man I was looking hard at that one last night. Still am but still wanted to gather as much data as possible.

@Shawn1492 - I currently have the Primary Arms 1-6x Raptor with the ACSS 300BLK reticle but it leaves me wanting. I took it to the range yesterday and zeroed in the subs @50 yards as directed and then took it out to 100 yards and it was dead on at the 100yd hashmark so i thought it was great. Was really impressed with the accuracy of the Hornady 190 Subx (1/4" @50 & 1"@100) Then I ran some supers through it and was hitting 12 inches high from the zero. Maybe I must misunderstood the reticle but I was under the impression that you could zero in both subs and supers @50 yards and the BDC would take care of the rest for both. However they were so far apart from each other it was an either or kinda deal. Then when I realized it wasn't a complete do it all scope I started nitpicking the thickness of the reticle and the limit of the 6x power. Don't get me wrong, still a great little scope but doesn't seem that it will do what I thought it would so now i'm open to a whole new world of possibilities.

 

[Luvman]

@steve123 - Man I was looking hard at that one last night. Still am but still wanted to gather as much data as possible.

@Shawn1492 - I currently have the Primary Arms 1-6x Raptor with the ACSS 300BLK reticle but it leaves me wanting. I took it to the range yesterday and zeroed in the subs @50 yards as directed and then took it out to 100 yards and it was dead on at the 100yd hashmark so i thought it was great. Was really impressed with the accuracy of the Hornady 190 Subx (1/4" @50 & 1"@100) Then I ran some supers through it and was hitting 12 inches high from the zero. Maybe I must misunderstood the reticle but I was under the impression that you could zero in both subs and supers @50 yards and the BDC would take care of the rest for both. However they were so far apart from each other it was an either or kinda deal. Then when I realized it wasn't a complete do it all scope I started nitpicking the thickness of the reticle and the limit of the 6x power. Don't get me wrong, still a great little scope but doesn't seem that it will do what I thought it would so now i'm open to a whole new world of possibilities.

If the knobs are repeatable you could zero for subs then determine the correction to zero supers. When swapping ammo just check to make sure the knobs are set right.

 

[Dutch260]

@Luvman - They aren't very repeatable. The are capped turrets and there isn't any bold or distinguishing marks for me to know exactly where I was or need to be. Especially in any sort of low light conditions. Hell even at the range I had better luck counting clicks when dialing than looking at the turrets themselves.

So far I've been looking at the PST Gen II 2-10x or 3-15x and the Gen 2 Athlon Ares BTR 2.5-15 with illuminated Mil reticles.

Haven't gotten around to looking at any Bushnells, Nikons, or Leupolds yet though.

 

[Luvman]

@Luvman - They aren't very repeatable. The are capped turrets and there isn't any bold or distinguishing marks for me to know exactly where I was or need to be. Especially in any sort of low light conditions. Hell even at the range I had better luck counting clicks when dialing than looking at the turrets themselves.

That sucks. That’s the same story for the 3x prism as well. For me it’s not an issue. I picked it up strictly for supers. Set it and forget until checking zero before deer season.

maybe something like the 1-6 razor in Mils could work. Zero for supers. Figure out your drops in Mils for them. Then figure out the zero offset for subs and dope your drop for subs.

 

[golden_311]

Not sure how accurate or what kind of quality, but remember thinking that it was interesting. https://www.eurooptic.com/leupold-m...be-illum-front-focal-300-blackout-113594.aspx

 

[Snuby642]

I have a couple of 300blks.
One is sbr 10.5 inch with eotech over buis, co-witness.

The other is rem 700 with a 3x9 nicon .
The 3x9 sucks for 300blk.

Any bdc type scopes pretty much suck.

Do yourself a favor and get a scope with exposed turrets, parallax adjustable to
A short distance. Big fat easy to read tactical style since you will be dialing a lot.
Just set zero for the round you use the most and have a range card for both rounds.

Mine will be changed soon as I get a replacement for the current host.

 

[Drew890]

[/QUOTE]
@Shawn1492 - I currently have the Primary Arms 1-6x Raptor with the ACSS 300BLK reticle but it leaves me wanting. I took it to the range yesterday and zeroed in the subs @50 yards as directed and then took it out to 100 yards and it was dead on at the 100yd hashmark so i thought it was great. Was really impressed with the accuracy of the Hornady 190 Subx (1/4" @50 & 1"@100) Then I ran some supers through it and was hitting 12 inches high from the zero. Maybe I must misunderstood the reticle but I was under the impression that you could zero in both subs and supers @50 yards and the BDC would take care of the rest for both. However they were so far apart from each other it was an either or kinda deal. Then when I realized it wasn't a complete do it all scope I started nitpicking the thickness of the reticle and the limit of the 6x power. Don't get me wrong, still a great little scope but doesn't seem that it will do what I thought it would so now i'm open to a whole new world of possibilities.
[/QUOTE]

I think that you may be a little confused on how to use the 300BO reticle.
Subs and Supers are zeroed at 50m together, but from there the BDC changes drastically.
Take a look at the below reference card. Your results at 100m sounds pretty spot on.

 

[Luvman]

I think that you may be a little confused on how to use the 300BO reticle.
Subs and Supers are zeroed at 50m together, but from there the BDC changes drastically.
Take a look at the below reference card. Your results at 100m sounds pretty spot on.
View attachment 7155445

If you can get subs and supers to shoot to the same POA/POI at 50yds I’m all ears!!

 

[Drew890]

If you can get subs and supers to shoot to the same POA/POI at 50yds I’m all ears!!

Lol yes I can see where I made that look confusing and incorrect.
Should be after zero’ing at 50m the BDC between Subs and Supers is drastically different.

 

[Luvman]

I’m zeroed at 50m with supers. I don’t shoot subs, but I suspect that if I loaded up some subs and shot them they would not hit at the same point of impact as the supers do. Likely lower.

I base this on 2 ASSumptions. First, subs are generally twice the weight traveling at less than half the speed of supers. And second, @Dutch260 mentioned earlier in the thread that his supers impacted 12” higher than his subs.

So if there’s some trick to get subs and supers to shoot to the same point of impact at 50m I’m all ears!

 

[Dutch260]

Exactly @Luvman which was my problem. I just zeroed the subs @50 and hoped/thought the supers would be about the same POI @50 as well. If not then there was no point in splitting the difference as my primary goal was to have the subs dead nuts and then the supers as a usable backup if I wanted some more ooomph.

So after my initial zero with subs @50 I stepped out to 100 yards and used the top of the post on that reticle as designed and it was on the money regarding the POA & POI. Had some decent wind gusts too but was still at about a 1" group so I was plenty happy with that for just thumping hog ears. But then when I switched up to my supers and used the top of the Chevron for 100 yards everything went to shit. Was hitting 12" high. Did that for two different brands of ammo (Sig Sauger 120 Coppers & Barnes 120 TAC-TX).

Could have been that the ammo but with that big of a difference it seemed obvious that the reticle wouldn't effectively compensate for both supers and subs with a common zero.

 

[Luvman]

I don’t think ANY reticle can compensate for loads with that much difference in weight and velocity.

There’s going to have to be a zero shift in the knobs to accomplish your goal.

a LPVO with exposed knobs and repeatable adjusts should do this. You’ll just have to dope and log the offset and drops for the different loads. This is another example of BDC reticles limitations. And is another area where exposed turrets with matching reticles shine. MIL/MIL of course but that’s a different shit show

 

[Snuby642]

Propriatary / caliber drop reticles are a waste.
Every fps change, bc and shape, weight.

Just spend money on a decent scope with external turrets.

 

[Snuby642]

On an other note the drops are seperate i.e.

If you set a 50 zero with a sub then you can use the drop reticle for that side.
Your super round will not magically now line up at 50 as well as has been seen
with several of the bdc contraptions I have used and been disapointed in.

The way they work is to be set for sub OR super for them to subtend.
That has been with 3 different brands.

Imho

 

[beetroot]

@Luvman - They aren't very repeatable. The are capped turrets and there isn't any bold or distinguishing marks for me to know exactly where I was or need to be. Especially in any sort of low light conditions. Hell even at the range I had better luck counting clicks when dialing than looking at the turrets themselves.

So far I've been looking at the PST Gen II 2-10x or 3-15x and the Gen 2 Athlon Ares BTR 2.5-15 with illuminated Mil reticles.

Haven't gotten around to looking at any Bushnells, Nikons, or Leupolds yet though.

I had few minutes shooting/playing with a PST G2 2-10 a few week back, it was a nice easy scope to get behind, glass was pretty good and turrets are pretty good, but I found the reticle extremely small on 2x, even with illumination turned on it was very very small.
I had been quite interested in this scope previously, but that put me off a bit.

I have a PST G1 2.5-10x32 which is FFP and the reticle does get very small and fine at 2.5x but I feel it more useable than the PST G2, admittedly I was not comparing the scopes side by side.

I have a PST G2 5-25 which I like a lot, the glass and turrets are great for the price and it's performed flawlessly for me.
The 3-15 is reported to have considerably better glass than the 5-25 so should be a great piece of glass, unfortunately despite having ordered one months ago mine hasn't arrived yet.
One thing too note is the reticle on the 5-25 is pretty fine on 5x but it's still usable, with the switch to the EBR-7c the reticles in both the 3-15 and 5-25 are the same size. With the 5-25 being rather fine on 5x, I'm not sure how user friendly the 3-15 will be on 3x.

Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll know for myself.

 

[Tikkablk]

I use a 300 blackout bolt action as my main hunting rifle for deer and pig as well as goat culling.
Run subsonics Lehigh Defence 168gr CF and 208gr ELD hand loads 90% of the time and 125gr Nosler BT’s supers. I’ve shot nearly 300 deer and 2000+ goats with this rig.

The scope I use is a Nightforce NXS compact 2.5-10x42 with a zerostop and MOAR reticle.

60m Subsonics zero set on turret zero,
60m supersonics zero set on the zerostop 9MOA high above the subsonic zero.

Its just a matter of ranging and dialling the required MOA as normal for subs.
Because the supers are 9moa high counting backwards on the turrets which is actually 11moa on turret and you just have count down the required drop for what ever distances.
It’s a really simple system once you rap your head around it.

Here’s a few deer for the last couple of weeks.