McInnis said:
Thaddeus Beauregard said:
McInnis said:
Thaddeus Beauregard said:
McInnis said:
If only there was a big bore rifle that can shoot subsonic ammo in a well established cartridge.
Not even remotely comparable. The heaviest bullets typically loaded in .357 mag are 180gr, sometimes up to 210. Subsonic 8.6 BLK bullets range from 285 - 350 gr. .357 mag lever rifles typically have 1:16 twist. 8.6 BLK has 1:3 twist standard. With the right bullet pairing, that fast twist combined with long, heavy bullets designed to expand widely creates devastating terminal performance .357 mag can't begin to match. .357 mag has less than half the effective range as 8.6 subs due to aerodynamically inefficient handgun bullets.
.357 has much less bullet expansion, wound channel size, effective range, bullet mass, and energy. It's not in the same universe.
Oh my sincerest apologies. Never did I intend to impugn the 8.6's awesomeness as a devastating hunting round.
You cited .357 mag as a "well established" subsonic alternative that would fill the same niche. Regardless of .357 msg's virtues, which are several, and regardless of 8.6's disadvantages, which are several as well… .357 mag does not and cannot fill the same role as 8.6, nor was it designed to do so. If you are going to use it as a "better alternative" to 8.6 BLK example, then it's fair to point out that it is an "apples to pepperoni pizza" comparison for anyone who might be interested in the topic. 8.6 BLK was specifically designed to be fired from SBRs, suppressed/subsonic, while stabilizing extremely heavy bullets, and having greater effective range and terminal performance than .300 BLK. It uses bullets specifically designed for it, to get max expansion at its combination of fast spin rate and slow velocity.
8.6 has issues worthy of being impugned and it's understandable that for many it's not worth the hassle. Still, with the right bullets, there is no other cartridge currently available that does the same thing it was designed to do.
Is the list of things you can kill with heavy frangible bullets fired from a BLK that you could not kill with a 180 grn hard cast bullet traveling at 1,000 fps that long? If it is then you could step up to this. It's even more well established than the .357 mag and I found one in black.
Not even remotely close to a comparable alternative. Obviously you don't understand the design intent of the cartridge. Sure, at close range, what one will do, the other will do. But .45 LC goes supersonic in a rifle length barrel. At the same time, just like the .357 mag and all other pistol cartridges you can name, it is constrained by very low BC pistol bullets in order to function in revolvers and tube magazine lever guns. In addition, it has a rimmed case, so it won't feed from either a bolt action or AR magazine, same as .357 mag. It has less than half the effective range, and the rifle won't deliver anywhere close to the same achievable accuracy. Then there's the fact you can accomplish all of the advantages 8.6 brings in a sub 12" barrel, with less noise still. My 8.6 rifle is half the length of that lever action and about 20% lighter, with an 11" barrel. The wound cavity produced is at least twice the size that a .45 LC produces, even compared to .45 "+P." I have multiple .45 LCs. The niche the 8.6 fills is a super compact, light, subsonic, quiet, lethal feral hog dispatching machine accurate and effective beyond 200 yds. I use mine with thermal scope and it is a devastatingly lethal beast. No revolver cartridge can possibly combine all the same attributes mainly because of revolver cartridge COAL constraints, very low BC and SD revolver bullets, and slow twists.
