300 Blackout Ballistics Chart: Velocity & Energy by Load

The 300 AAC Blackout (300 BLK) is a .308-inch-bore rifle cartridge developed by Advanced Armament Corporation to put more close-range energy on target than 5.56 NATO while still feeding from an unaltered AR-15 magazine, standardized by SAAMI in a cartridge and chamber drawing issued 17 January 2011 and revised 20 May 2022, and used today in short-barreled and suppressed rifles across a range that runs from light supersonic hunting loads to heavy subsonic ones.

300 Blackout ballistics chart

Every number below is the ammunition maker’s own published figure for that exact item, read off the maker’s product page. Nothing here is estimated, averaged, or carried over from another load. The loads are split into separate tables by test barrel, because in this cartridge the barrel is the difference between two figures meaning the same thing and two figures meaning nothing to each other.

Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.

Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.

That second table is Sellier & Bellot item SB300BLKB, a 147-grain full metal jacket, published with a G1 ballistic coefficient of 0.407 and a G7 of 0.204 from a 16-inch test barrel.

Provenance: the velocity, energy and ballistic-coefficient figures on this page are the manufacturers’ own published data, taken from Underwood, Fiocchi, Sellier & Bellot, Federal and Nosler product pages and checked on 20 September 2026. Every energy cell was reconciled against grains times fps squared divided by 450,437, and all agree with the published energy to better than 0.3 percent. Ballistic coefficients are the makers’ measured values and are never derived here. No figure is shown beyond the last range its maker publishes. Hilltop Armory LLC is a licensed FFL dealer in Pineville, Missouri, FFL 5-43-119-01-6B-18066; we sell these loads, we have tested none of them, and we speak about these brands rather than for them.

Brands in this cartridge with no published ballistics

Hilltop Armory carries Winchester 300 Blackout ammunition, and there is no Winchester row on this page. The reason is simple: Winchester does not publish velocity or energy for these items on its own product pages, and this page does not print a number a maker has not published. The same applies to the SIG Sauer, Magtech and AMMO, Inc. loads in this cartridge, whose figures could not be read from the maker’s own site when this chart was built. If you need ballistics for a specific box, ask us and we will tell you what the maker publishes, including when the answer is nothing.

Why the test barrel matters more here than in almost any other cartridge

A 300 Blackout velocity figure means nothing until you know the barrel it came from. SAAMI’s centerfire rifle standard sets a 24-inch test barrel as the default for exterior ballistic data, then lists 300 AAC Blackout as one of a handful of exceptions with a 16.000-inch (406.40 mm) standard test barrel. Sixteen inches is therefore the industry reference length for this cartridge, and Hornady, for one, heads its 300 Blackout tables “Test Barrel (16″)”. Of the loads on this page, only Sellier & Bellot states the length on the product page, and it states 16 inches. Nosler states 24. The rest publish a number and no barrel. Read those rows as each maker’s own claim rather than as a ranking, and expect a real rifle with a 9-inch or 10.5-inch barrel to fall short of all of them.

One reading is worth making directly. Underwood publishes 2,360 fps for its 115-grain load, against a SAAMI reference instrumental velocity of 2,270 fps for a 115-grain 300 Blackout from the 16.000-inch standard barrel. Underwood does not say what barrel produced its figure, so the 90 fps gap could be the load, the barrel, or both, and there is no way to settle it from published data.

What these numbers mean for the shot

The supersonic side of the cartridge is a 200-yard proposition. The Fiocchi Hyperformance Hunt 125-grain Hornady SST leaves at 2,200 fps and still carries 809 ft-lb at 200 yards on a published BC of 0.305, and Fiocchi puts it 7.8 inches low at 200 yards and 27.6 inches low at 300 from a 100-yard zero. Fiocchi carries that load out to 500 yards, where it is down to 1,165 fps and 377 ft-lb, well past the velocity band an SST was designed to open in. The lightest load here, the Underwood 115-grain Controlled Chaos, is the fastest at 2,360 fps and 1,422 ft-lb, but Underwood publishes the muzzle figures only, so there is nothing to plot past the muzzle and no ballistic coefficient to model it with.

The heavier supersonic load trades muzzle speed for a flatter energy curve. The Sellier & Bellot 147-grain FMJ starts slower at 2,077 fps and holds the highest retained energy of any load on this page at both 100 and 200 yards, 1,161 ft-lb and 947 ft-lb, on a published G1 BC of 0.407. It is also the only one of those two figures anchored to a stated barrel. Comparing it with the Fiocchi row is a comparison between a 16-inch test barrel and an unstated one, which is a caveat worth carrying rather than a reason to avoid the comparison.

Subsonic 300 Blackout is a different cartridge in the same case. The Federal Subsonic 190-grain Fusion Tipped leaves at 1,000 fps with 422 ft-lb, under a third of the muzzle energy of the 125-grain supersonic loads, but sheds it slowly on a 0.494 BC, holding 363 ft-lb at 200 yards and 302 ft-lb at 500. Federal publishes it 36.3 inches low at 200 yards and 112.8 inches low at 300 from a 100-yard zero. That drop, not the energy, is what limits a subsonic shot. At 200 yards you are holding three feet of elevation, and a 25-yard error in the range estimate moves the impact several inches.

Nosler’s 220-grain subsonic: published from a 24-inch barrel

This load sits in its own table because Nosler states its test barrel and it is not the 16-inch reference length for the cartridge. Nosler gives 24 inches with a 1-in-8 twist, which means these figures read higher than the same ammunition would from a 16-inch barrel, and higher again than from a short suppressor host.

Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.

Nosler’s published figures for the 220-grain Ballistic Tip run to 800 yards; this table stops at 500 because past that the drop is over thirty feet and the number stops being useful to a shooter. Note one oddity before comparing it with anything: 1,020 fps is also SAAMI’s reference velocity for a 220-grain 300 Blackout from the 16.000-inch standard barrel, and Nosler states 24 inches. Both figures are published, and they cannot both describe the same barrel. Nosler does not publish a ballistic coefficient for this load on its product page, and none is estimated here.

SAAMI reference velocities from the 16.000-inch standard barrel

If you want one yardstick to hold every maker’s claim against, this is it. These are the instrumental velocities listed for 300 AAC Blackout in SAAMI’s centerfire rifle standard, measured in the 16.000-inch standard test barrel. They are reference figures for the cartridge, not a specification any individual box has to meet.

Twist rate, chamber and pressure limits

SAAMI’s cartridge and chamber drawing for 300 AAC Blackout specifies a .300-inch bore diameter and a .308-inch groove diameter, five grooves, and a twist of one turn in 8.00 inches (203.2 mm), right hand. Maximum cartridge overall length is 2.260 inches and the case is 1.368 inches. That 1-in-8 twist is what the heavy subsonic bullets need: Nosler tested its 220-grain load in a 1-in-8 barrel, and Sierra published its 300 Blackout load data from a 16-inch barrel with a 1-in-8 twist. Slower twists do turn up on barrels sold for this cartridge, and they are the usual reason a heavy subsonic load will not group.

Pressure: SAAMI sets the maximum average pressure for 300 AAC Blackout at 55,000 psi by transducer, with a maximum probable lot mean of 56,400 psi and a maximum probable sample mean of 58,500 psi. Crusher pressures are not established for this cartridge. There is no recognized +P standard for 300 Blackout, so a load advertised as hotter than the rest is still working inside that same 55,000 psi ceiling if it is made to the standard.

Chamber marking is the whole safety story with this cartridge. SAAMI’s interchangeability list names exactly one other chambering that may generally safely be fired in a 300 AAC Blackout firearm, 300 Whisper, and the reverse also holds. Nothing else appears on that list, and neither 5.56 NATO nor 223 Remington is on it in either direction. This matters because of how the cartridge was designed: as Sierra puts it in its published load data, the 300 Blackout was built so that AR-15 and M16 magazines work at their standard capacity, and converting a 5.56×45 NATO rifle takes nothing more than swapping the upper receiver and barrel. The magazine, the lower and often the whole rifle look identical either way, so the barrel marking is the only thing that tells you which cartridge you are holding. Read it every time you change an upper, and keep 300 Blackout and 5.56 ammunition in separate, labeled containers.

Short barrels are the normal case for this cartridge rather than the exception, and every figure on this page comes from a test barrel of at least 16 inches, or from a maker who does not say. A 9-inch or 10.5-inch pistol or SBR barrel will give lower velocities and lower energies than anything printed here, and how much lower depends on the load. None of the makers above publish short-barrel data, so this page does not estimate it.

300 Blackout vs 5.56: what the published figures can and cannot settle

The question people type is 300 Blackout versus 5.56, and it is worth being exact about what can answer it. 5.56×45mm NATO is a military specification, not one of the cartridges standardised in ANSI/SAAMI Z299.4, so there is no SAAMI reference velocity to set beside 300 Blackout. The SAAMI cartridge that shares the case head and the magazine is 223 Remington, and that is the second column below.

Two makers’ catalogue tables cannot settle it either, because no two of them use the same barrel. SAAMI can: one standards body, one standard test barrel per cartridge, one instrumental velocity convention measured at 15 feet.

Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.

Two things stand out, and neither is a velocity. The pressure ceiling is identical at 55,000 psi, so 300 Blackout is not a higher-pressure cartridge. And SAAMI measures it in a 16.000-inch barrel against 223 Remington’s 24.000 inches — eight inches less barrel for the same pressure. That is the entire design argument for the cartridge, and it is also why a 300 Blackout velocity quoted without its barrel length tells you nothing.

What the table does not settle is anything past the muzzle. SAAMI publishes one instrumental velocity per bullet weight and no downrange data at all, and the makers charted higher up this page stop between 200 and 500 yards. A comparison beyond that would have to be invented, so there is not one here.

We stock the other side of this comparison too: 5.56 ammo, 223 ammo.

300 Blackout ballistics questions

What hits harder, 5.56 or 300 Blackout?

At the muzzle they are closer than the argument suggests. Using SAAMI’s own reference velocities and computing energy from them, a 125-grain 300 Blackout at 2,185 fps carries 1,325 ft-lb from a 16-inch barrel, and a 62-grain 223 Remington at 3,000–3,240 fps carries 1,239–1,445 ft-lb from a 24-inch barrel. The heavier bullet reaches a comparable figure from eight inches less barrel. Past the muzzle neither SAAMI nor the makers on this page publish a matched comparison, so there is no honest single answer.

How many inches does a 300 Blackout drop at 200 yards?

It depends entirely on which load, and the two ends of the range are far apart. Sellier & Bellot publishes its 147-grain FMJ from a 16-inch barrel at −7.8 inches at 200 yards with a 100-yard zero. Nosler publishes its 220-grain subsonic Ballistic Tip from a 24-inch barrel at −34.0 inches at the same distance and the same zero. A drop figure without its zero range and its bullet weight is not usable.

What is the effective range of a 300 Blackout?

No manufacturer on this page publishes an effective range, because it is not a measurable specification. What they do publish is where their own tables stop. Fiocchi stops at 200 yards. Sellier & Bellot stops at 400 yards, where its 147-grain load still reads 1,364 fps and 607 ft-lb. Nosler carries its 220-grain subsonic to 500 yards, where it reads 894 fps and 390 ft-lb and is still subsonic.

What are the subsonic 300 Blackout ballistics?

Two subsonic loads are charted above with their makers’ own figures. Federal’s 190-grain Fusion Tipped, item F300BMSR3, leaves at 1,000 fps and 422 ft-lb and is still making 928 fps and 363 ft-lb at 200 yards. Nosler’s 220-grain Ballistic Tip Hunting, item 61050, leaves a 24-inch barrel at 1,020 fps and 508 ft-lb. SAAMI’s own reference figures for the heavy end agree: 190 grains at 1,040 fps and 220 grains at 1,020 fps.

What caliber is 300 Blackout equal to?

It shares a groove diameter and nothing else. The SAAMI test barrel for 300 AAC Blackout has a .308-inch groove, the same as 30-06 Springfield, 308 Winchester and 30-30 Winchester, so all four take .308-inch bullets. They are not equivalent in anything that matters to a chart: 300 Blackout runs at 55,000 psi from a 16-inch barrel, where 308 Winchester runs at 62,000 psi from 24 inches.

Where to buy these loads

Every load in the tables above is stocked at Hilltop Armory. Browse the full 300 Blackout ammo range, which carries makers beyond the ones charted here — the tables are limited to loads whose manufacturer publishes figures that could be verified, not to everything on the shelf.