![]() The bullet opens enough inside the suppressor to cause baffle strikes and erratic accuracy. This wouldn’t have been too big of a problem had it not been for the damage that happens when a suppressor is attached to the barrel. Those hopes soon turned to disappointment when testing showed that those bullets started to open upon leaving the muzzle when spun in a 1-7 inch twist barrel. A look inside the SIG Sauer V-Crown bullet design, at left is a 300 BLK and to its right is a 9mm Parabellum. It looked like someone had found the answer to this complicated problem. These bullets would open on impact at subsonic velocity and had good terminal effects. There were a couple of small and innovative manufacturers that experimented with monolithic bullets that had heavily scored internal cavities. The heavy and super-stable bullets just drilled right into ballistic gel with no expansion or fragmentation, and very poor terminal effects. The hope was that if terminal performance expectations were kept low enough, the 220 grain-ish bullets might deliver. There was some hope though that it wasn’t so stable that it couldn’t tumble and perhaps break apart. 30-cal match bullets designed for magnum rifle velocities with correspondingly thick jackets, to fragment. However, that fast of a twist rate also caused the slow bullet to have poor terminal effects because it was so stable, that it wouldn’t yaw, tumble and break apart on impact. Accuracy became acceptable at subsonic velocity when the heavy bullets had the stabilization that the 1-7 inch twist provided. Hearing protection complicates communication between teammates.īy the time enough testing data came in on barrel twist rates, the Special Operations guys decided a 1-7 inch twist was necessary to stabilize the subsonic heavies the way they liked. It has the added benefit of being hearing safe, even inside a small room, where anything supersonic would require hearing protection. Good terminal performance at subsonic velocity allows soldiers to shoot suppressed with almost no signature. The one problem that had everybody stumped was how to get a bullet to expand at subsonic velocity. ![]() SIG’s highly unusual 300 BLK V-Crown bullet features a polymer tip to initiate expansion, a two-stage ogive to aid feeding and reliable expansion at subsonic velocities. With its larger projectile and ability to function reliably at both supersonic and subsonic velocities, the 300 BLK appeared to be just what the doctor ordered. The shooting industry worked closely with the Special Operation community to produce it. This cartridge has its roots in the Special Operations community where the need exists for a cartridge that feeds reliably out of AR-15-pattern magazines, uses the same bolt and magazine, and offers improved lethality over the 5.56x45mm. Many are familiar with the rise of the 300 AAC Blackout. SIG Sauer’s ammo division has an impressive staff that has already demonstrated their ability to find solutions where others have failed. Who runs the show, the experience of the people involved, funding and engineering prowess are all critical aspects that will absolutely affect the ammunition’s large-scale performance. To fully understand what separates one brand of ammunition from another, you have to take a look at the company that makes it. Also, performance out of one firearm in a single, or even a handful of experiences, is far from a good indicator of performance on a broader scale. Ammo often gets classified as “good”, or not, based on how it shoots out of a rifle or pistol, with very little thought or discussion about what it takes to create that ammo in the first place. Ammunition is one of the most misunderstood categories in the firearms industry.
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