Stickman teased us for a bit today on WEVO with talks of a new item sitting in front of him, but he couldn't talk about it quite yet. Well, he was talking about the new 300 AAC Blackout Cartridge, and linked to the story he wrote up for Gear Scout.
Image from Gear Scout |
Here's the kicker:
As interesting as a new caliber is to some of us, it gets better. Start thinking about a M4 with a 9″ barrel that has 37% more energy than 5.56mm M855 from a 16″ barrel (the standard M4 is a 14.5″).The new cartridge is 7.62x35mm. From the Gear Scout article:
Current ammunition types are the 123 gr. MC 300BLK, 155 gr. OTM 300BLK, and 220 gr. SUBSONIC OTM 300BLK.The plan was to build something with similar ballistics to the ol' 7.62x39, and that could use current magazines without a loss of capacity. AAC already has a can in the works as well (looks like buying them up was a smart move by Cerberus more and more every day.)
Usually I'm pretty skeptical about new calibers, but they put a lot of thought into this one. On top of using standard 30 round mags, it also uses standard AR bolts, so all that is truly needed is a barrel swap for the budget conscious armorer.
Anywho, lots of info and great pics over at Military Times Gear Scout.