I may catch some flak from the "subsonic isn't for hunting" camp for this, but it is what it is.
I have been playing with the 300 Blackout, 190 gr Sub-X. I chrono'd that ammo and was getting some low velocity spread on it surprisingly. I built up a profile using the Hornady 190 gr BTSP bullet and loaded it onto the RAPTAR, and went to check how it jived with the real world. My goal was to stretch it out to 200 yards with reliable hits, but hoped for 300. 300 was not a problem on paper. Hits were dead on what was called for. I have been hunting a few smaller fields that have houses fairly close. One has a 24 hour non-stop Methican American Compound across the road. My goal was to draw as little attention to myself as possible while in that field. It stretches about 300 yards across.
I connected with a doe at 255 yards using my modified LMT CSW with a 10.5" barrel, S&B 1-8 SD, CNVD-LR, and Wilcox RAPTAR. I initially ranged her (not shown in the video), and shot. She took the hit, ran a little and stopped. I re-ranged her, shot and hit again. This repeated once again, and she ran just a bit after that and collapsed dead. I look at the kill with these bullets similar to a kill with a bow, not the blown apart wound you find with a normal rifle. She would have died in a few minutes from that first shot, but she would have had to bleed out, same as with an arrow impact. I just went ahead and took the opportunity to put a couple more in her. When you watch the video, notice the arc of that 190 gr bullet as it goes down toward her.
I am really beginning to be a believer in the 300 BO with the 190gr subs for a niche role IF you do it right and make a good shot into the vitals. Head on shots into the chest seem to be pretty much DRT or if they do run it isn't far. That subsonic bullet penetrates very well, so if you hit them head on you are taking out a lot of the good stuff clean through the deer. With the subs, you can keep killing and killing. They may run out of the field to the woodline when you shoot one, but in 10 to 15 minutes they'll come right back out. The biggest thing is timing. A deer is not near as bad about it, but a moving/mousing coyote or semi-spooked hog would require you to track that animal a bit to figure out his movement timing. Otherwise your bullet make land where he was, and not where he is. The head on shot, with the deer gives you the benefit of having a solid killing target no matter if her head is up in alert or down feeding. Around here there is little wind at night usually. I was hoping they get the 8.6mm Creedmoor online, so I could get a barrel for my AI, but if they don't I may look into that B&T SPR300 for a super quiet bolt gun option. I can really see that being handy in certain situations.
Make sure you have it in HD, and if you play it at .25x you can see the bullet better.
.....makes my feet hurt just thinking about wearing sandals around here, had to replace a buggy tire this week from it getting spiked with cactus thorns. They are quite abundant in our crp fields with the sandy po az soil.
