Thread: Quiet effective sub caliber for hunting, is there such a thing?

.222/.223


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338 federal

ask your self this honest question am I playing with firearms' or am I hunting to put some venison in my freezer - if you are hunting to put some meat in the freezer then a suppressed .223 or 308 will do the job - if you want to play then spend your money on whatever takes ya fancy 45.70 try it - have fun

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

ask your self this honest question am I playing with firearms' or am I hunting to put some venison in my freezer - if you are hunting to put some meat in the freezer then a suppressed .223 or 308 will do the job - if you want to play then spend your money on whatever takes ya fancy 45.70 try it - have fun

12in Tikka and extra 4 baffles MK11 dpt can. Mate using this. Very quiet.

What do you call loud? Ive got a 45 70 suppressed and its bloody quiet if you ask me, definitely quieter than a 223 as no crack

back in the mid 2000,s I was running goat control based out of Stratford we went thru a phase of trying sub rounds some got their 223 sakos rebarrelled into I think it was 300 blackout and Wanganui went one further and tried 44mag suppressed Ruger semi autos - did not last long - yes quiet over dogs handy in bush yes but the big complaint - total lack of effective range - goats deer 200 away across a gully safe - pissed of hunters - did not last even six months as an idea - back to supressed 223 and 222

In some ways, killing power ultimately comes down to speed as a fundamental rather than a factor. When a projectile is going relatively slowly such as subsonic, it can create a situation where animal organ tissue is supple enough to yeild to the projectile. Essentially avoiding hydrostatic shock.

Think of it this way...
Would you rather be hit by a bus doing 4km/h or a cyclist doing 45km/h

Both have similar kinetic energy but you would bounce off the bus and the actual impact of the bus agains't your person would not cause much if any injury (here we ignore hitting the ground or getting squashed as we would with a bullet). If you get hit by the cyclist, it will result in significant impact injury from the same amount of kinetic energy.

Another way to look at it, is to take the slower heavier projectile to an extreme that helps us picture difference in slow and heavy vs fast and light.
A rugby ball fired at a goat or deer at ~200fps will have similar kinetic muzzle energy as a subsonic .44 240gn bullet, or ~220fps to have the same MV as a .22 hornet.
No guarantee that it wouldn't kill a deer, but it would be much more survivable (at least in the immediate) than a .22 hornet with any given matching shot placement.


In saying all of the above, I have shot a number of goats with subsonic .22 and correct shot placement (head/upper spine) at correct angle still results in a bang flop.

Personally I think if you are going to use subsonics on the bigger animals, shot placement is crucial and projectile choice is also important.


If you are adamant about not reloading, then 300blk is probably your best bet, with a reasonable variety of factory subsonics and although limited in power compared to the larger calibres, a still useful selection of high velocity options too.

Im told that crossbow are fickle and in the end no more accurate than a hand bow.

That test fire study concluded that for equivalent hunting a 22LR subsonic was more lethal due to shot placement capability.

Mastering a the bow to hunting level is a lot of time & money and range is really only 25m so dont go down that route unless you’re kinda primitive and kinda OCD as well.

Some one told you porkies

I've played with subs and been disapointed, OK if you shoot a lot and can be precise with shot placement at different ranges as they drop a lot.
My experiance has been that penitration is fine, I have done 6mm subs and they killed by tumbling, and 35 cal lead HP's that just make a large hole.
I now just run a jacketed pistol bullet at 16-1700 fps so still quiet, soft shooting and flatish shooting to 75 mtr. The subs I save for finishing shots and possiums.
So for this reason you probably need to be looking at a pistol caliber 357 - 45 cal to try and make as large a hole as possible in a 16" barrel lever action. (not conviced that a 9mm is enough for deer even at short range)

In my case I reload so I run a 35 cal rifle cartridge in a lever action, I generally carry it with the 158gr Hornady XTP Hp pistol bullets over trailboss at 1650 fps in the mag and keep some full power 225 gr loads for the odd longer shot that may come up.
Z

https://www.hornady.com/ammunition/r...nt-gr-sub-x#!/

If you want something subsonic and factory ammo this is as good as it gets

What about the 8.6 blackout

https://owloptics.nz/collections/8-6-blk-8-6-blackout (watch the video)

The cheap recurve crossbows aren't great, even if you are using good broadheads. There are modern crossbows that pack a hell of a punch though, albeit on the high end of expensive. A compound bow does take OCD levels of commitment to become proficient with, but can be as accurate or more so than a high end crossbow. However, for this thread. Ignore pointy sticks, and just look at rifle options. I'd go with a 300 BLK because of availability, and that includes some bespoke projectiles in case reloading does become a possibility. At subsonic velocity, you can't rely on bullet expansion, so you need a projectile that will mechanically deform to increase the wound channel, a bit like a broad head. I'm no expert here, but the BTSP that works well at 2500 fps will punch clean through at 900fps simply because it doesn't have the requisite velocity tto mushroom as designed. 300 BLK rifles are generally made with long slow projectiles in mind, which will help a lot with stabilising them, which means good accuracy. A factory rifle and a factory cartridge means you can actually use it, rather than just have it take up space in the safe because ammo is almost never available. I'm sure that is 2 cents worth, so I'll stop there.

Here is some actual real world experience:

https://youtu.be/E4qTP-NIiGA

He is using 190gr Sub-X projectiles in his 308. Very good results, but do pay attention to his shot placement.

As for factory ammo:

http://www.guncity.com/hornady-300-b...hornady-ftx-20

300 blackout.

Same.bullet as the 308 in the video, same velocity, will have the same performance.

I do agree though that a larger/heavier projectile will likely be better:

https://www.guncity.com/hornady-45-7...-rounds-368347

good old 45-70 the only government one should trust...