- Location
- Van. Is. B.C.
I have been finding some IVI 300 Blackout brass at my local range. I know this is being used by the LEO that occasionally rent our range and was wondering if any military units now also use it?
IVI 300Blk
- Thread starter 270 totheend
- Start date
We've found thousands of them at the range I shoot at in Ottawa. There's usually many thousands of IVI 5.56 and 9mm as well as some 7.62 and piles of machine-gun links regularly. We have some military units that have contracts with our range though including, allegedly, JTF2. Hearing full-auto suppressed gunfire from a closed-off bay is fairly common where I shoot. I don't know which units exactly are using it but I know there's some.
I'm told the fact they don't police their brass at all means they're some sort of special forces as regular infantry are required to return a certain percentage of brass when they're done. I've gotten many thousands of cases for reloading paid for by my tax dollars.
I'm told the fact they don't police their brass at all means they're some sort of special forces as regular infantry are required to return a certain percentage of brass when they're done. I've gotten many thousands of cases for reloading paid for by my tax dollars.
Likely mostly the same dies but they are headstamped "IVI 300BLK". Come to think of it, it's odd they have that headstamp since military brass generally doesn't list caliber on the headstamp.
Then again all the IVI 9mm brass I've seen used is headstamped 9mm.
*edit*
Scratch that. The lead free/frangible 9mm ammo the guys train with on steel is labelled 9mm. The regular FMJ stuff isn't.
The .300 Blackout ammo is marked 300 BLK. Only time I've seen markings like that before is the IVI .303 British stuff which I think is marked "303B" if memory serves.
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No. A 308 bullet in a 224 barrel would boost pressure a bit...
If you fired a 5.56 in a 300, all you would do is fire form a piece of brass.
Pretty sure a 5.56 wont fit in a 300BLK chamber. The shoulder is moved quite a bit back so the bolt wont close by quite a large margin.
A 300BLK will fit in a 5.56 chamber and the result is quite explosive. Lots of photos of blown-up AR's on the internet from exactly this.
A 300BLK will fit in a 5.56 chamber and the result is quite explosive. Lots of photos of blown-up AR's on the internet from exactly this.
Phat Eagle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Fraser Valley, BC
I frequently find IVI .300BLK brass at TMSA. They rent to local PD, so that must be the source. No JTF there!
Google search found this (and a number of other KABOOMS):
R.I.P. One AR-15 Rifle – Another 300 Blackout / .223 Kaboom
APRIL 17, 2014 BY TOM MCHALE
I’ve read a few stories recently about someone, somewhere, shoving a 300 AAC Blackout cartridge into a .223 / 5.56mm rifle and pulling the trigger – subsequently blowing their gun to bits. Some folks call BS and say it can’t happen as the rifle won’t go into battery and fire.
Well, I’m a believer now, considering a guy 3 lanes down from me blew up his fairly nice looking AR today. In the confusion, I was not able to get the brand of the rifle, but that matters little. Containing 55,000 pounds per square inch of pressure is not in the job description.
This was the round below the cartridge bomb in the magazine. I found it on the ground amongst lotsa small pieces of magazine, spring and follower. And quite a few case fragments. As you can see, it absorbed some violence.
Suddenly I heard a “splosion” noise and a scream from a few lanes to my right. Running over to see what happened, I saw a man holding his hand and obviously somewhat shaken up. I immediately started looking at his face as he was somewhat disoriented and all was clear there. His left (support) hand looked like he had fondled a few bricks of charcoal for a while. Thankfully, and maybe miraculously, no cuts or blood anywhere. While his hand was “stinging like crazy” in his words, there did not appear to be any burns of consequence. This is one incredibly lucky guy, especially since I can’t be sure he was wearing shooting glasses. The way they were placed on the table, I’m not sure he had them on when he blew up the rifle.
Here’s the apparent sequence of events, picked up from listening to the rifle owner and the shooter.
The owner had two uppers at the range. A .223 and a 300 AAC Blackout. He obviously hand loads as there were 100 round ammo boxes of each type nearby.
The shooter appeared to be new and somewhat inexperienced. I can’t be sure, that’s just an observation from seeing the interaction after the kaboom. Either the shooter picked up a magazine full of 300 Blackout cartridges, or the rifle owner handed him a magazine loaded with Blackouts. I can’t be sure. They weren’t sure themselves.
The shooter loaded the magazine of 300 Blackouts in the .223, chambered a round, and fired. Then the Kaboom. I was not able to discern, nor was the owner, whether the shooter felt anything abnormal trying to chamber the first round. As the shooter appeared to be inexperienced, I’m not sure they will ever sort that out.
Once we determined the shooter was physically OK, I wanted to get out of their business, so I didn’t get any photos of the rifle, but I can describe the damage. In short, it was pretty much totaled. Perhaps the Magpul front hand guard, rear stock and trigger group can be salvaged. That’s about it.
The magazine blew up, along with spring and follower. And you can see what happened to the other rounds in the picture here. I *believe* the fact that he was using a polymer magazine may have saved the shooter from additional injury. The explosion clearly took the path of least resistance. Perhaps a metal magazine would have allowed more pressure to go in other directions in addition to out the magazine well.
The magazine well on the lower was bulged out. Kind of like an Elmer Fudd cartoon shotgun.
The upper receiver was also bulged out from the explosion.
The bolt and carrier were both trashed – bent all to hell and completely stuck in the upper and barrel extension.
I assume the barrel extension and barrel were trashed, but as everything was fused together, there was no way to tell for sure until they rip things apart. Shoving a .308 inch diameter bullet into a .223 inch hole is asking for damage I would think.
While I was not shocked at the damage to the aluminum upper and lower, I was surprised at how much the bolt carrier and bolt were trashed. That’s hard stuff there.
Here's a 125 grain 300 Blackout cartridge dropped into the same 5.56mm chamber. Too close for comfort?
With the brief opportunity I had to look, that’s about all I could tell. But now I was curious. Would similar rounds allow the .223 rifle to go into battery? I decided to try under much safer conditions.
After removing the bolt and carrier from my Smith & Wesson M&P 15 VTAC (5.56 chamber) I dropped in a .223 Remington round to get a rough visual on where it sat. OK, that worked fine, as expected. Next, I dropped a variety of 300 AAC Blackout loads into the chamber, exerting no pressure at all and just letting the round fall. As expected, the big subsonic rounds didn’t get close to proper depth, however some of the longer and skinnier bullet profiles did – mainly the 110 and 125 grain ballistic tip bullet types. Not to the full and proper depth, but close. Close enough where a little encouragement by an inexperienced shooter could force the bolt into battery.
And here is another. Pictures show the receiver split open.
so a friend of mine came up for me to swap out the FCG in his AR for him. While I’m working at the bench, he’s looking around the gun room. In the process he manages to grab one of my loaded pmags of 300 blk and is walking around with it. I get his firearm done and tell him we can step out to the range here at my house to try it out. He mistakenly grabs the pmag he’d been walking around with instead of his off brand mag full of 223.
Of course I never know he’s even touched a mag full of 300, muchless that he had one in his pocket. He sits down at the bench, inserts mag, chambers a round, no problems at all up to this point.
I’m standing behind him watching the target when kaboom, and smoke rolls from around him and his gun. I immediately knew something was wrong without even seeing the firearm. Once we pulled the mag out I explained to him what had happened (in a cuss your friend for being a dummy kind of way) as soon as I seen what had happened. Very lucky there were zero injuries. We had a little lesson session following this.
And another:
“IF YOU ARE A SHOOTER, A RELOADER OR KNOW ONE, I NEED YOU TO READ THIS PLEASE. On December 31st, 2014, there was a very real opportunity for me to either be killed or very seriously injured. We had been shooting all day testing out some of our new 308s. While we were finishing up our brass call and cleanup, I realized I brought one of our suppressed 10.5” 5.56mm machineguns to test fire. I had already packed up all our ammo, so I borrowed a mag from another shooter that was “clearly” full of 5.56.
Since it was suppressed and we were already done for the day and packed up, I got lazy and decided to not pull my eyepro and earpro back out from their cases. So I fired a few rounds in semi, everything seemed good, so I switched to auto. Braaap, braaap, braaaBOOOM! Catastrophic detonation.
I was deaf, disoriented and in a semi state of shock. If any of you have been hit by a flashbang you know exactly what I am talking about. I quickly checked myself for new holes and made sure both eyes still worked. My right ear had shut off and the ringer was off the hook. Unbeknownst to me, there was a 300 BLK round hidden in the mag. It most certainly chambered fully, and the crazy thing is the barrel was clear and there were no baffle strikes on the can. So a 30 caliber bullet squeezed itself down to .22 and made a 10.5″ high pressure journey and exited and made it all the way through a YHM can. This most likely saved my life. If the barrel was any longer, I’m sure it would have found a new place to deposit gas; most likely right into my idiot face.
The upper receiver bulged out, the carrier split longways and the remaining contents of the magazine were launched out at my feet at Mach 2. I walked away from this (somewhat) unscathed. I was very very lucky because this could have gone a lot worse.
What I took away is this: Always, ALWAYS wear your eye and ear pro, no matter what you are shooting. You never know when it might save your eyes and hearing. If you are going to borrow ammo or reload your own, observe all safety precautions and verify all the rounds going into your gun! I have been shooting a long time, with probably millions of rounds downrange, but I am obviously not immune to my own stupidity. Complacency kills. Stay Frosty out there and Happy New Year.”
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Interesting! I guess if they were hand loaded and the bullet not crimped too hard it's very possible the bullet could just get crammed back into the powder allowing the complete chambering, which would make the high pressures that are about to occur even higher!
