300 blackout is HARD to find. I've seen a little steel case, polymer coated. I've used steel in my WASR, heard it was a bad idea in 5.56 AR's, but ok in 3o0 blackout. What says NES? BTW, looking at 145/147/150 grain...
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If it's hard to find, that sounds like a perfect reason to make your own. You use spent .223/5.56 cases to make the 300 Blackout case and go from there. Plenty of info online (as well as methods) for doing this (the case conversion). It's not difficult and once the cases are necked and sized, you're pretty much set.
I understand all the arguments in favor of reloading. I don't reload. May never reload. The start-up costs are prohibitive, and with the amount of shooting I do the cost savings would take years, maybe a decade, to recoup. Not to mention time, space, a marked lack of the requisite OCD, and most importantly, desire.
300 blackout is HARD to find. I've seen a little steel case, polymer coated. I've used steel in my WASR, heard it was a bad idea in 5.56 AR's, but ok in 3o0 blackout. What says NES? BTW, looking at 145/147/150 grain...
Well, over the last couple of days I've ordered 1500 rounds total. 500 brass from Freedom (in Idaho?), and 500 each steel from 2 different vendors, 500 Wolf Polyformance 145gr and 500 Barnaul 147gr, all should be here this week. My 10.5" upper arrives tomorrow or Wednesday, can't remember.
So a strip and clean and then out back to see what happens. Since I have that AWESOME bench @zboys sold me a while back, I'll shoot some, clean some, shoot some more all without having to make the loooooong trek from my backyard to the basement 50ft away. Range report to follow...
No, they really aren't. The startup costs are literally the cost of one decent gun. I have ADD and I've never blown up a gun. I'm about to dive back in because once you
start doing it, it really pays for itself especially on handguns. Now if I didn't get to shoot enough to justify it, then that's a whole other problem. Payoff is rapid, for
handguns, and before you know it, it's paid for, and you're loading 2000 rounds and getting the third case of 1000 rounds for free. And that's using primo shit, if you skinflint you can probably get better return than that, even. On certain cartridges like .357, .44 mag, .500 S&W, .45 LC, .460, etc, your ROI is even more rapid because the commercial ammo of that stuff is so
rapey.
Now, if we're talking difficult rifle cartridges, then yes, your ROI sucks and its painful. That's a different ballgame and requires more resources to do properly.
As far as desire goes, unlike a lot around here I never "reloaded for fun" (to me, that's mostly bullshit) At the time I got into it because I literally had to- I was a dumb ass and didn't stack it deep before Obamascare 1. This left me in a bad place for ammo. So I could either chuffle around looking for overpriced ammo that didn't exist, or I could just say f*** it and reload, paying less than yesterdays prices. The fact that you make better ammo 8 out of 10 times is just frosting on the cake.
Now if you don't shoot anywhere near 1000 rds/caliber a year in at least one common caliber, then I guess it gets less appealing, I get that. If I didn't shoot at least that much I'd probably sell most of my guns though and do something else.
To get back to your original question.... with .300 Blk right now get whatever you can get your hands on. That shit is unicorn tears. I'm with the mexican girl on this one...
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I've never used steel in my 300 blkout only because I only use subs and I do not think there is a load out there that is steel cased subsonic.
I've always used steel in my 223/556 rifles along with brass. Only after about 5,000 or so rounds without a cleaning did the bolt in my 10.3 get stuck in the chamber from dirty slut tula 223 and from being dry. Did a quick mortar, wipe down and oil right there and it was back up and eating the steel. i love beating the shit out of my 10.3 DD barrel/BCM BCG/Aero upper.
My experience mirrors yours. Just a bit of chamber cleaning and it always ran fine. It wasn't until I used it in a carbine class that I had trouble. I still use it if I'm practicing shooting short range relatively quickly. Used that way, the terrible accuracy (>4moa average of 5 shot groups, not cherry picked 3 shot groups, out of my LMT with a 1-4 scope) isn't a big deal.