Does the military actually use 300 Blackout?
I would like the know the ratio of 5.56 guns to other calibers in civilian hands, and also in military inventory. I am also extremely skeptical that anybody in uniform has ever changed mags from subsonic to supersonic in the course of duty.
I don’t find either useful. I have better rifles for hunting. I like my ARs as varmint rifles/sub 400 yard steel shooters. If I was restricted to one rifle and I didn’t hunt much, I may consider a grendal.
Yes the military is actively using 300 Blackout right now. However they don't use it in the same way civilians use it. Civilians usually build a 9 to 10 in blackout gun so that it's more universal And can use supersonic rounds. However that doesn't make sense because even 300 Blackout supersonic rounds are pretty horrible in terms of efficiency, bullet drop, and effective range.
The military exclusively uses 300 Blackout for covert operations with the subsonic rounds suppressed to be extremely quiet and sneaky and hit enemy soldiers at up to 200 yds away and still drop them. That's exactly why it's the replacement for 9 mm SMGs.
So where civilians are screwing up, is assuming that the cartridge is a universal platform, but it isn't really.
Meanwhile 6.5 Grendel is being used in the Serbian military CORRECTLY as a universal cartridge that works out of both short barrels and longer barrels effectively at medium ranges for short barrels and longer ranges for longer barrels.
So as usual it's just the civilian mindset that doesn't seem to understand military intent.
So let's just take two different scenarios as examples. In the first scenario, military personnel needs a sneak around at night making as little noise as humanly possible taking down enemy soldiers hiding out in buildings or out in the forest. The objective is to sneak up on them and put them down without anybody you ever knowing. 300 Blackout with a very short barrel and a suppressor with subsonic rounds is what will be used for that mission.
For a general firefight in a city where stealth is not prioritized and you need a capable round in a compact package that can deal with both combat indoors and outdoors, then the military goes with our new squad weapon - the Sig Spear in 6.8x51mm otherwise known as the 277 Fury.
And trust me, you don't want to be a civilian trying to use 277 Fury as your go-to rifle. Mainly this is because 277 Fury is a cartridge that basically uses a modified 308 casing. So you have stepped up from an AR-15 to an AR-10. It is an extremely powerful partridge with extremely high velocities and extremely high ballistic coefficiences as well, but it kicks similar to a 308 because the cartridge was based on a 308. And if you're a soldier train in the military that's going to be fine for the most part, but as a civilian that kick is going to be too much for rapid follow-up shots for a lot of people.
And that's before we talk about ammunition costs and 277 Fury is expensive as all hell. The very cheapest ammunition you can even find right now is $1.25 per round.