Interesting find, 300 Blackout history

[Dolomite_supafly]

So I have known that the design of the 300 Blackout was far from new. It was yet another rework of a previous design.

 

The 300 Blackout is identical, as in the load data and ammunition, to the 300 Whisper or the 300/221. The 300 Whisper was developed by J.D. Jones in the late 80's and early 90's to do the same thing the 300 Blackout is doing today. Even back then users were loading supersonic loads but the majority of users were shooting HEAVY subsonic ammunition. An interesting note is the fact that the majority of 300 Whisper guns used 10 twist barrels and not the 8, 7 or 6.5 twist barrels of the 300 Blackout. And with the 10 twist it worked fine.

 

And the 300 Blackout goes back even farther. Prior to the Whisper you had the 30/357 Paxton which uses a necked down 357 magnum case and is capable of shooting subsonic rounds like the 300 Whisper, 300 blackout or 30/221. Pretty sure the 30/357 Paxton was developed in the 50's. The 30/357 is what people call the 300 Blackout rimmed and although some use trimmed 357 maximum brass to get to the 1.368 case length the case length of the 357 magnum will work just as well. So other than a rim these are identical as far as performance go.

 

And for the longest time I thought this was where the 300 Blackout's lineage stopped, well that ended today. A fellow 300 Blackout shooter had some documents related to the 300 Blackout as pdf's. He uploaded them and as I was reading I found the great grandfather of the 300 Blackout, grandfather to the 300 Whisper and father to both the 30/357 Paxton.

 

And the new relative of the 300 Blackout is the 8x35 Ribeyrolle. It was developed, and rifles chambered for it, in 1917. Ribeyrolle was working with Chauchat and Sutter at the time of its development. It was to be chambered in a full automatic gun designed for trench warfare and was called the "trench broom". And although there were guns produced in the caliber none were ever adopted because is was not accurate at 400 meters.

 

Here is a picture of the 8x35 Ribeyrolle:

And anyone who is familiar with the 300 Blackout, 300 Whisper or 30/221 can see the obvious resemblance.

 

I always say there is nothing new as far as cartridges go. Very few cartridges are new and novel anymore. All you need is to go look into the past, copy it and give it a catchy name to make a mint.

[Static_USMC]

Thanks for the history

[Guest tangojuliet]

awesome