Subsonic Hunting Calibers

I'm thinking of switching out my silenced Tikka 6.5x55 Swedish and would like suggestions on calibers and rifle models that perform well in subsonic.
I want something light, mainly to shoot red deer or hog with.
My idea is to have ability to hunt undetected when SHTF.
Also it should be fairly cheap and easy to reload, and I need to find a good silencer for it.

Kaliber ideas:
.44 Magnum
9,3x57 Mauser
.357 Magnum
450 Bushmaster

Rifles:
Ruger 77
Mossberg Patriot 450 Bushmaster
Henry Big Boy Steel

 

One trick is to load heavier bullets. They naturally come out of the muzzle slower and hold their speed better. The added weight also gives better penetration. You might do better with a .38 rather than a .357. The shorter case might work better than the longer case as too little powder can be as dangerous as too much powder. The same is true with the .44.

 

For simple reloading......stick with straight wall case, you also get much longer case life.

I actually went through the same goal that you currently are. In the end, I finally decided that if you only fire one shot it is impossible for others to know the direction it was fired from.

From that point I went with rifles firing pistol cartridges, and as Caribou suggested using the heaviest bullet available at subsonic speed. I also went with H&R single shot rifles.
There are other ways to achieve the same goal, one being to use a pistol cartridge adapter in a 12 ga. single shot shotgun.

For light weight and easy to hide in a backpack. I have a H&R rifle (Limited run) with 16" barrel, chambered in .300 AAC Blackout. They offered them with a factory scope base. They weigh less then 4 pounds and quickly disassemble to 16" compact package. And they also came with a threaded muzzle. Sweet piece of machinery for well under $300.00 Yankee Dollars. And everyone makes 220 grain subsonic .300 AAC Blackout Ammo of very high quality.

What is funny about my whole effort in this project is, my friends kept saying I was a dumbass because there are no people here to hear a gunshot. On top of which I generally just shoot from the cabin window.

 

Just curious, why do you need subsonic round (thus suppressor) for hunting? Is there any specific regulation / law pertinent to noise level there?

 

No, no regulations, but it's a quite small patch of land (3-4 hectares/10 acres) and I want to be able to fell game without anyone noticing for several reasons.
One is that I'm planning on "poaching" outside season if there's some sort of situation where we can't buy food in stores.

Another is it's close enough to wake some neighbors when shooting my 308 in the night when hog hunting.

Also I'm a better shot with my suppressor since it remove most of the recoil. Shooting the 6.5x55 suppressed is almost like shooting a 22lr

 

If you want to stay with a centerfire caliber I would recommend the 300 Blackout. I use my AAC 762SD suppressor with mine and it is below the hearing range of a 22 rifle. For red deer size animals with a light skull build like red deer I would actually recommend a suppressed 22LR bolt action. If you have a night vision scope you can hunt at night, up close and as silent as you can get. My savage Mark II (with subsonic ammo), is so quiet that all I hear is the round impacting on target. At night, no one knows I'm even there.

Dale

 

Dog gone right!!


This was a wake up call for me.....big time!!

I was trying to down load some .41 Magnums for a Blackhawk pistol...and discovered the powder I was using did not download well but instead works best near full case capacities. H110.

I got what some call a "Squib Load." Talk about a nervous moment.....I was not sure by the subdued Pop...that the bullet had even gotten out of the barrel. Fortunately I had a fiberglass rod which I could stick down the barrel and check for obstructions all the way back to the cylinder.

Could have been disastrous had I not caught it and loaded another round in an Obstructed barrel.

Lessons learned....but agree...

Too little powder can be as dangerous as too much powder.....

Be Warned.

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

Shultz & Larsen, excellent moderated centre fire rifles in a variety of calibers. If you can find them they're the absolute dogs bollocks for larger game. Light weight and screw cut for mods.

 

Thanks for the helpful feedback, especially the safety stuff.
Regarding the calibers etc there's some strict regulations on what game I can hunt with different ammo in Sweden, and what I can use with a supressor.

I cannot use my suppressor with "class 3-4" ammunition, meaning bullet lighter than 3.2 gram (49 grains) and no lower than 800 Joule@100 meters. 22LR is class 4 so not possible to get a supressor licence for, and not allowed to shoot anything bigger than rabbits with.

Today I'm contemplating .45 colt, but I think I'll stick with what I have until the Corona virus scare stabilizes. (Cases are increasing 20%/day right now)

 

On a slightly different thought, I highly recommend 1/8" stainless steel cable. If you make a large loop on the ends and place it on a game trail at about head high for a deer they will snare themselves and then you can silently kill them with a spear. I also highly recommend spears for a lot of other things by the way. If you want to go all out attach the cable o a spring snare type set up with a sapling for the spring and it will kill the deer for you. If you don't want to do that another step up is to use cable locks that once pulled tight don't back up.

Bows and crossbows also make for relatively silent kills and pellet guns that are not the 1000FPS models are also pretty quiet and good for small game.

I've actually done some reloading towards more silent shooting rounds and found that you get much better results with longer barrels with sealed chambers. Revolvers, even with a silencer attached are not all that silent. the gas escaping between the cylinder and the barrel lets some of the sound escape. We did manage to make a few quieter 45 ACPs but you had to either load them single shot or extensively modify the gun. I never did get a 38/357 round the was very quiet out of my 7 1/2" Blackhawk. Even on the 45ACP conversions, the slide slap makes more noise than you would think.

If you want to get the best possible effect I recommend a break-action like Rossie or H&R in 44-mag. The 44-mag can be down loaded or you can use 44 Special and down load them and still have a decent stopper. they make a hard cast 320-grain bullet that would be quite a stopper even at lower velocities. The longer barrel will burn up the powder and that will further lower the noise effect. In a near-perfect world your powder load will be completely burned when the bullet is about one inch from exiting the barrel.

https://www.pennbullets.com/44/44-caliber.html

 

I don't know if this resource will help but I find it interesting. This talks to how long a barrel it takes to burn powder, sort of.
http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/calibers.html

 

VERY interesting! I looked at the 357 mag and in almost every case you started losing velocity after 16". This is sort of what I thought because may Winchester Trapper has a 16" barrel and my near but slightly lower speed reloads always seemed somewhat less ear-blasting.

The washer cable lock is great too I am going to make some. I had other plans for locks but this is even easier and better.

 

Powder load? Well, enough to make sure it gets out the barrel!

Here is the silencer I use:

 

Cool, now if I can just find a rifle chambered for the 505 Gibbs I will have a subsonic sledgehammer for big game. OR I guess I could load it for a Barrett 50 BMG rifle...that would feel a little sacreligeous though.

 

Wow, i think I'm in luck. This .50 cal was just released and approved for hunting elk in Sweden.
Has anymore heard about the 50 Mayhem cartridge?

https://translate.googleusercontent...ayhem/&usg=ALkJrhiR5cpmuh1X3_k032oyiv9Lzy5Vlw

 

I have a big lever action in 50-110 Winchester. Here it is compared to a 45-70.

 

OK here is Lehigh Defense. I do not see the 50 Mayhem specifically. I used their search engine and didn't find it.

https://www.lehighdefense.com

I did find this "50 Alaskan 725 gr Controlled Fracturing Subsonic Ammunition"

https://www.lehighdefense.com/index...5gr-controlled-fracturing-subsonic-ammunition

 

No one should make light of the .50-110 Winchester -- especially in the lever-action repeating rifle. Such weaponry is particularly necessary when hunting rabbits.

When speaking of hunting such ferocious creatures, I am of course referring to the egg-laying Leporidae Gargantuous. How this hideous creature became the origin of the Easter Bunny legend is anyone's guess. I am not of course referring to the common rabbit / hare. A .22 rimfire will dispatch the latter. But giant bunnies are bad! We all know this and fear their random aggression.

I myself load 180 round nose .308 cartridges in the rifle I carry on my daily constitutional walks. Giant bunnies lurk in the forests and meadows nearby. I must tell you that I feel decidedly under-gunned in doing so. RandyT, on the other hand, has chosen a far more reasonable defensive weapon in his .50-110 Winchester lever-action rabbit-rifle.

In the following artist's depiction, we witness the horrible 1934 attack on Hiram Thomas and his daughter Amy -- may God's Mercy be upon them in Heaven. Amy had been a bit of a bad girl in having stolen one of the rabbit's eggs, however she did not deserve such a horrible ending beneath the behemoth's bunny paws.

 

It's a long story but I didn't choose the 50-110, it chose me.

 

Any of you heard weather black powder/Pyrodex is flying off the shelves....I've not noticed...but I do know about smokless and ammo running off the shelves.

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

50 - 110 thump factor visual aids

 

I suspect that store may have made their own caliber? Never heard of it before.
Probably use those projectiles you mentioned @Old Geezer

 

That is a serious lever rifle in .50-110...calibration.

While I have little use for something of that uncommon a calibration...no doubt about it's power to deliver very very serious energy at lower velocities....with that bullet weight.

That is exactly what I learned in shooting my .50 Hawken cap lock rifle....that one does not necessarily need hypersonic velocities.

However....the problem with that kind of rifle is finding ammunition. Only a handful of places would stock such an rare calibration.

Were it me... as I do with my Thompson Contender in 7mm TCU calibration...I would be stocking up on empty brass wherever I could find it and rolling my own ammo.

Fortunately for me 7mm TCU, though no longer factory made, is nothing more than a .223 brass necked up to 7mm or .284 diameter.

However ..again....that brass is pretty much one of a kind ...and so too the .348 Winchester. Exclusive vendors for this brass would have to be found if one was to keep plenty of ammo on hand via reloading. I expect both calibrations .50-110 and .348 Winchester can get expensive should one have to buy factory ammo for it.


There are places wherein one can purchase or order new brass for those calibrations..but it is not something kept in many reloading stocked stores. One would need to go to more exclusive vendors for brass...and with the WEB....they can be found out there.

This is something capable of being overcome for the knowledgeable prepper..pre staging materials.

Those are pretty rifles.....and hard hitters too.....lots of foot pounds of energy delivered....serious foot poundage.


Oh....one more thing...

I have the handbook of cartridge conversions and both .348 and .50-110 are not easy to convert from other cases or hard stock....rather complex as compared to other calibrations..but it can be done for the dedicated in the art.

Hence I say put back plenty of empty brass should one choose to roll one's own ammo...or plenty of factory ammo if one can find it...also afford it.

This is why, for the most part, I choose my tools in a commonly available calibration for prepping. Preferably something available coast to coast.

7mm TCU and .41 Magnum are my exceptions and I have put back plenty of Starline Brass for my .41 magnums and also .223/5.56mm is very easy to be found.


Keep them in the X ring....

My non Ishmaelite .02,
Watcherchris

 

Oh....about the 7mm TCU caliber for which I previously posted.

Handgun hunters have found that the .223 is very lacking in energy delivered for the handgun hunter.

Over the years people have experimented with converting .223 brass to accommodate a 6mm bullet...also a 6.5mm bullet and now also a 7mm bullet...

All this in an attempt to get more energy delivered on target for hunting... even if it means a velocity drop.

And this is definitely what someone has done with the .50-110 rifle....serious energy delivered even at slower velocities.

This is also the rationale behind the 300 black out...energy delivered versus velocity.

Don't let anyone BS you....warp speed is not everything.....at real high velocities it even tends to burn out barrels quickly.


My non Ishmaelite .02,
Watcherchris

 

it's certainly not a "survival" rifle but more of a fun gun. Even so I have a good supply of cases, bullets and bullet molds.
The 348 is a dog IMO, I have a Winchester 71 in that round. I originally picked up the rifle to convert to Johnson's 50 Alaskan but things pulled me in other directions. I do lots of things for fun.

 

People like to experiment. Some calibers, you just know that you are going to have to roll-your-own.

Y'know, were I living in Alaska and had reason to fear running into a giant bear, I'd be carrying a repeating rifle in a large caliber capable of giving me some chance of survival. The bullets would be heavy and flat-nosed. Fifty caliber? Sure, why not!

Cases for .50-110:

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/139/9/CASE-50-110

https://www.dixiegunworks.com/index...5+.50+-+110+Winchester+Bertram+Cartridge+Case

https://www.sinclairintl.com/reloading-components/brass/rifle-brass/index.htm?k=50-110&ksubmit=y

Bullets 50-110

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010401560

Bullet molds for the fifty (.512)

https://www.midwayusa.com/s?TargetL...istedItemsPerPage=0&CustomerSelectedSort=True

Gas checks for .50 bullets -- if you are putting some speed on a bullet, even a hard alloy bullet, you'll want to use gas checks, else you'll lead the barrel royal.

https://www.sagesoutdoors.com/50-lr-caliber-gator-gas-checks/

Cases for .348 Winchester

https://www.brownells.com/reloading/brass/rifle-brass/348-winchester-brass-case-prod105568.aspx

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/76070

Here's an interesting article on the .50-110
https://thebiggamehuntingblog.com/50-110-winchester/

"The .50-110 fired a lighter 300gr bullet nearly 300fps faster than the 405gr bullet the .45-70 used and had a correspondingly flatter trajectory. For instance, with a 200 yard zero, a bullet fired from the .45-70 would hit nearly three feet lower than a bullet fired from the .50-110 at 500 yards."

"It is even possible to make your own .50-110 Winchester brass by resizing .348 Winchester brass. The cartridge also uses a standard large rifle primer."

 

I have a few boxes of brass. here's some unprimed brass un opened new in box, often wondered what it may be worth. have no intention of selling but am a curious sort.

 

Yeah....Olde Geezer....if I lived in Alaska I too would have to own something with a big and heavy diameter...weight bullet.

My .357 Magnum revolver and or lever gun would not suffice...even my .41 Magnum up there.

.45-70 or bigger...

Now that I think about it....you do not even hear about the .444 Marlin much now days....but more about the .45-70.

I knew a fellow who bought a 14 inch long Thompson Contender barrel in .444 Marlin. Wow!! Talk about a glutton for punishment.

Mine in .35 Remington is a bruiser...big time. Very glad I did not try to further go that route in the Contender.


You know....in retrospect......our forefathers..had some really big ones hanging ...to go out in the scrub with single shot cap or flintlock...in any caliber...wherein such big and dangerous game abounded.

My hat is off to them....


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

I am a "gun nut" specifically having obsessions about always having a rifle nearby. I've a BRNO '98 sitting behind me as I write. The thing was re-barreled with an FN 7.62 NATO. A friend turned down the bolt and equipped it with a commercial safety. Plus, he found and sold me a laminated stock. Locking scope-rings were placed -- and oh-Lord! are they ever tight -- had to rotate the rings into their bases with a pole. I put a used scope on it that has a #4 German reticle. It is a tack-driver / minute-of-angle machine.

Given the above, you'll understand when I tell you that I went sort'a OCD yesterday finding info about North American big bore blasters. Looked at the 45-70 Magnum, 450 Marlin, the 444 Marlin, and a few others. The thread mentioning the .50-110 set-off my obsession. Gotta watch recoil for I've had to have both rotator cuffs repaired. One shoulder was in catastrophic condition. The shoulders weren't due to rifle recoil. The puppies just wore out. I'm back to using the rototiller, though.

I've seen black bears in the wild. However I saw a HUGE boar bear in a zoo a few years back whose size simply astounded me. I thought to myself, "How does one drop such a monster?!" Then to consider the brown bear, which is far larger than the black bear. Yep, I would want something just this side of a cannon were I out and about in such environs.

I was also looking into slug shotgun loads, however for several reasons, I remained with the large-bore rifle as the better solution. Slugs for black bear, sure; however, for a big brown bear, one needs a repeating cannon. The bullet must be capable of breaking bones and keep going on to take out the boiler-works.

Here's a shotgun load with a whopper projectile:

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1002073452/

Porported: 12 ga., Black Magic Magnum, 602-grain slug, carrying 3,000 ft.-lbs. of energy at 1500 fps

Then there's your 10ga with a 766 grain artillery shell
https://www.sportsmansguide.com/pro...gauge-3-1-2-1-3-4-oz-slugs-5-rounds?a=1594540

Federal claims that the 766 grainer will do 1280 ft/sec. So let me do my calculations ... that's 2787 ft/lbs of energy. Hmmm, well it could drive deep. Still, I'd stick with a big-bore rifle.

 

Wow!!!!

10 Gauge can be found...???? Do they even make 10 gauge shotguns anymore??? I expect one would have to special order them if they are even still being made...


Talk about punishment!!!!

Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite

 

H&R
http://www.hr1871.com/Firearms/Shotguns/pardnerTurkey.asp.html