What for those who may have a 6-pound gun with a 16-inch barrel to hunt all the things from whitetails to Cape buffalo? And think about it may shoot supersonic or quiet-subsonic searching ammo. That’s the Q founder, Kevin Brittingham’s, imaginative and prescient for the 8.6 Blackout cartridge. And although it has began as a wildcat, the brand new cartridge has already taken massive recreation and manufacturing facility ammo is changing into obtainable.
So is that this one other marvel cartridge that received’t take off? Or is it the .300 Blackout we at all times needed? Only time will inform. Until then, right here’s extra data from Brittingham, who developed the 8.6 Blackout together with his workforce at Q.
8.6 Blackout Basics
The 8.6 Blackout makes use of a .338-inch-diameter bullet in a shortened 6.5 Creedmoor case. It will be shot at tremendous and subsonic velocities.
“We settled on shortening up the 6.5 Creedmoor case because it’s a little more efficient than the .308 case,” says Brittingham. The size of the case centered round becoming in an SR25 journal.
Bullet weights for 8.6 Blackout vary from 155 to 350 grains, and velocities vary from round 2,400 fps to round 1,000 fps. Brittingham says the subsonic masses are simply as quiet as .300 Blackout with higher terminal efficiency.
“I think it’s the best utility cartridge ever developed,” Brittingham says. “We wanted a cartridge that could work in a compact, lightweight gun with a short barrel and could shoot supersonic or subsonic out of bolt guns or gas guns.”
“The idea with the supersonic loads is to get magnum cartridge capabilities from a standard pressure cartridge in a lightweight gun,” he says. “And have a subsonic that’s very lethal. Basically every lesson that we learned from .300 Blackout whether its barrel twist or bullet design, we put into this.”
“It started as a joint project with a foreign military, and some of our special operations groups are now involved with it,” Brittingham says. “That’s always exciting to us, but we really wanted to do something for the commercial market for hunting. To give you the ability to shoot big animals with short barrels and lightweight guns.”
Hunting Applications
The 8.6 Blackout was designed for use for searching with each subsonic or supersonic ammunition. Utilizing heavier bullets and sooner rifling twist charges (extra on this later) it was additionally designed to outperform .300 Blackout.
“With some subsonic loads we’re getting 1 MOA at 300 meters, which is where we think the max is for subsonic hunting,” Brittingham says. “That extends the .300 Blackout’s range by three times. It kind of makes .300 Blackout obsolete for hunting honestly.”
Brittingham’s first animal with subsonic 8.6 BLK was a zebra, which he shot at 30 yards. Zebras are surprisingly giant, robust critters, however that animal solely went 30 yards after a broadside shot. “I shot one at 207 yards and he went 30 or 40 yards,” he says.
The supersonic ammo is greatest for large recreation and taking pictures to 500 yards, nevertheless Brittingham says he plans to check the subsonic on massive, harmful recreation, too. He’s already put a number of Cape buffalo down with supersonic masses.
“I’ve killed four Cape buffalo with supersonic,” Brittingham says. “I’ve shot them from 9 to 40 yards.”
Of course, we received’t know the true accuracy potential of the load till we (and others) get to vary check it. But at the very least for now, Brittingham’s claims are spectacular.
Twist Rate and Barrel Length
A typical .308 searching rifle has a 22-inch barrel with a 1:10 twist price. An 8.6 BLK rifle can have a 12- to 16-inch barrel with a 1:3 twist price (a lot sooner twist price than a typical rifle).
According to Brittingham, growing the rotational velocity elevated muzzle velocity and helped subsonic bullets increase. The Q engineers started testing with a 1:10 twist after which went to a 1:7 twist. With that change they discovered of their gel exams the preliminary wound cavity elevated by two occasions. When they went to 1:3 the wound cavity tripled.
“We settled on 1:3 twist, although probably 1:2 is optimal, but with 1:3 all the commercial copper solid bullets and bonded bullets we tested stayed together and with the 1:2 some of them came apart out of the barrel,” Brittingham says.
Experienced shooters are most likely questioning about spin drift. “It’s a 500-meter cartridge,” Brittingham says. “With a supersonic load and a 16-inch barrel, after 400 yards you’ll have to consider spin drift.”
Another space of concern with new cartridges is barrel life, which Brittingham says might be wonderful.
“Just like .308, you’re probably not going to burn one out,” he says.
The 12-inch barrel is Brittingham’s most well-liked size. But he recommends a 16-inch barrel if you wish to shoot farther distances, particularly with supersonic ammo.
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Ammo Options
Brittingham’s favourite supersonic bullet is the 210-grain Barnes TSX. With that bullet, he will get 1950 fps out of a 12-inch barrel.
“To me, it’s like shooting somewhere between a .308 Win. and a .300 Win. Mag,” he says. “But it’s a 5-pound gun with a 12-inch barrel.”
Brittingham has examined bullets from 155 to 225 grains for supersonic masses. He’s shot as much as 350-grain bullets in subsonic. “I’ve shot 30 animals in Africa with subsonic 8.6 with Hornady 315-grain Sub-X bullet,” Brittingham mentioned. That 315-grain Sub-X isn’t obtainable but, but it surely’s anticipated to be a part of Hornady’s .338 Sub-X line.
Maximizing subsonic ammo efficiency is a problem as a result of decrease velocity and protecting the ammo from going supersonic in longer barrels.
“Here’s the problem with subsonic ammo: You need to load for barrel length to get the best performance,” Brittingham says. To clear up for this, he says there might be barrel-length particular ammo obtainable.
The Upshot
New cartridges pop up on a regular basis, and currently, they’ve trended towards flat taking pictures and long-range efficiency. The 8.6 Blackout is totally different. It’s meant for medium-range purposes and lightweight, quick rifles. It has promising outcomes from Brittingham’s testing, however solely time will inform if it may acquire sufficient traction to really tackle the .300 Blackout.