The .300 blackout is the hot new cartridge for the ar15. It’s a stouter .30 caliber cousin of the 5.56 native to the ar15. It’s a hell of an upgrade and gives you essentially a .30-30 performance in an ar15 with only the change of a barrel.
Adding an optic to the .300blk makes it a potent game getter that the 5.56 can’t hold a candle to. Many of the problems with bullet blow up, penetration and imprecise bullet placement that plagued the ar15 for hunters have largely been remedied with the .300blk.
Here are a few of the best scopes for 300 blackout rifles. Keep reading on for more details on selecting a scope for this cartridge. There are also reviews for each mentioned here.
Optic | Best For | Price |
|---|---|---|
AR-15 Blackout | ||
300 Blackout subsonic | ||
300 Blackout bolt action | ||
Long range shooting |
Choosing the Best Scope for .300 Blackout
Adding an optic to a rifle chambered for .300blk gives you a great rig for 0 to 300 yards in roles for hunting, self-defense and target shooting with a pumped up 5.56 case blown out to full .30 caliber dimensions.
The scope itself becomes the interface of the operation and it makes the whole gun easier to shoot because it simplifies the aiming process. Instead of aligning three different points all you need to do is align two.
Scopes also add in magnification to help you see better. Remember, seeing the target better won’t help you if you have bad shooting fundamentals. All you’ll be able to do is see your misses clearer.
Deciding on a Rifle Optic
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It's more important to nail down what you’re most likely to do because the .300blk is a very versatile cartridge but most scopes aren’t. A scope best for quick handling subsonic rounds will suffer at 300 yards for hunting or precision shooting.
For those planning on taking long shots, which for the .300blk is 300 yards, you may want light magnification. If you have a short barreled rifle or a gun that will only shoot subsonic rounds then a red dot or holographic sight will be great.
If your rifle is an ar15 then a hardened optic may be order because they are hard use rifles that get dinged and dragged through the woods over every rock and tailgate in the woods. The best scope for a .300blk h&r handi rifle can mean a cheap red dot or light magnification with less armor. Think about what kind of hunting or shooting you’ll be using for the .300blk and then pick a scope to go around it.
Unique Problems
The .300blk was designed from the outset to be a suppressed weapon. It is the only semi-automatic cartridge to be able to cycle both super and subsonic rounds without changing anything except the rounds themselves.
This creates a huge ballistic difference when you start trying to zero an optic. The best thing you can do is nail down a single round and stick to it and if you change rounds you need to re-zero your optic. The difference between a subsonic 220gr load and 110gr bullet clocking at 2,200fps is literally feet at 150 yards.
If you’re using the .300blk as a ballistic upgrade for hunting this isn’t a problem because hunting with subsonic .300blk rounds are akin to hunting geese with a .410 shotgun. You should never, ever, ever hunt with subsonic .300blk, it’s nearly identical to a .45acp.
Using a Suppressor
If you are in the exclusive club of stamp collectors and have a suppressor, zero your rifle with it on. Suppressors can work wonders for smoothing out accuracy by attenuating the barrel harmonics and stripping off the exhaust gasses from around the bullet.
If you zero your rifle with the suppressor on and then take the suppressor off you’ll have a point of impact change that can add up to a wounded animal at distance. If you’re headed to one of the few states that either doesn’t allow suppressors for hunting or the even fewer who don’t allow them at all then you should re-zero your rifle. You have a responsibility as a shooter or a hunter to be as accurate as possible.
The Top Scopes for the Job Reviewed
Optic | Best For | Price |
|---|---|---|
AR-15 Blackout | ||
300 Blackout subsonic | ||
300 Blackout bolt action | ||
Long range shooting |
Trijicon VCOG .300blk Reticle
Best Scope for an AR 15 Blackout
An ar15 with a rifle length, 16 to 20-inch barrel, chambered in .300blkis a thumper out to 300 yards. Whether for hunting or professional duty you’ll want a rugged rifle scope that delivers a feature set that includes mild magnification for longer shots but dials down and is still fast enough to use at close range.
The Trijicon VCOG is short for ruggedized variable combat optical gunsight and delivers premium optical magnification, an industry best ballistic reticle and stupid reliability for shooting paper or for what these scopes are normally used for, people.
Trijicon is a world leader in optics known for exceptionally tough, bright and useful scopes and sights for all type of firearms. They’re one of the few companies to offer extensive reticle designs tailored for ballistic data as part of the standard line up of scopes.
Drawing from the world of combat proven performance of the ACOG, Trijicon made it better by making it with variable magnification. This marries the best features of the ACOG, a rugged combat proven scope with a well-designed ballistic reticle and adds magnification.
This is a potent mash up for a 0 to 300-yard gun. The scope is run off a single AA battery, which an engraved pictogram makes it dead simple to change, and it runs for an acceptable 700 hours. The scope has an awesome built in mount that is available with quick detach thumb screws.
The 24mm objective bell gather light surprisingly well and the 6x power has no fuzz or distortion that cheap scopes are prone too. The 1x is fast enough for up close hunting or shooting but if you need to dialup the magnification the large fin built onto the eye piece adds a level of fast use-ability that other scopes lack.
Aimpoint M4
Best Scope for 300 Blackout Subsonic
One of the greatest abilities of the .300blk cartridge is the use of semi auto subsonic rounds. If you’re only going to use subsonic ammunition, then a red dot scope is one of the best options you can have.
A fast handling red dot sight is one of the best sights for action shooting because of how dead simple and reliable it is. There’s no mirrors, prisms, or magnification equipment to break. There’s no parallax to worry about when you shoot, where ever the dot is the bullet will go.
The point and shoot nature of these scopes is exactly why the Military has adopted them in as many numbers as they have. For a .300 blackout rifle that essentially dominates 0 to 300-yards the red dot is one of the most logical, and perhaps the best choice a shooter can make. Especially for subsonic rounds only that will range out to 100-yards absolute maximum the red dot is the best type of scope available and no one makes better red dots than Aimpoint.
The Aimpoint M4 is part of the companies most high end lines that completely feature mil spec components and quality. This is the preferred red dot sight of Uncle Sam for the Army. This might be the most battle proven red dot sight in existence.
Aimpoint makes a fantastic product for hard use rifles. The numbers of the comp M4 is a testament to it’s usefulness. It is a full sized red dot that takes the most available battery you can find, the AA, and lasts an astounding 80,000 hours. Essentially if you were to turn this thing on and prop it up in the corner it’ll last 8 years without burning out.
The M4 ships with the kill flash anti-glare filter for the objective lens, a mount for a flat top receiver and a spacer to get the proper sight height for co-witness. This is a great scope for anyone who needs a professional grade sight for quick handling carbines.
Leupold VX-3i 2.5-8x36 170678 with Mark 2 IMS
Best Scope for 300 Blackout Bolt Action
A subsonic .30 caliber slug out of a bolt action rifle is a great option for hearing safe plinking, small game hunting but won’t cut the mustard for medium game hunting or long range shooting. The .300blk runs out of gas and gets a rainbow trajectory at the 300 yard mark depending on the load. For a subsonic round this is right at 80 yards.
Any scope with magnification for the .300blk needn’t be excessive or overly large because the high magnification is worthless. At 300 yards as an absolute maximum a 2-7x power scope is a great option because it gives you a wide field of view and not too much power that have to “hunt” for the target but a definite advantage over no magnification.
Leupold’s new for 2016 VX-3i line of scopes is a step forward in optics for usability and light transmission. The VX-3i incorporates new designs making the scopes lighter, stronger with features like large adjustment knobs for quick magnification changes.
The light transmission through the scope has been optimized for the human eye. Essentially instead of just flooding the scope with lots and lots of light they focused on filtering and making the light the most usable through the light spectrum that hunter’s use to find game in the woods.
The new coating within the scope allows the objective bell to shrink without losing low light performance; making the scopes smaller and lighter without sacrificing any of the features or performance.
These scopes work extremely well and should be at the top of the list for any hunter looking for a great all around scope for killing game or plinking. The 2.5-8x36 model is at home on a bolt action rifle chambered in .300blk and ready to range all the way out to the cartridges maximum effective range. This is by far the best leupold 300 blackout scope.
Nikon P-300 BLK 2-7x32 BDC SuperSub
Best Scope for Long Range 300 Blackout Shooting
Nikon is a world leader in optics and optical equipment and makes some of the most diverse ranges of BDC reticles for shooting. They’ve become well known for their optic line made specifically for ar15’s and that’s because they deliver an awesome level of performance for the money.
Their offering for the .300blk is a 2-7x power scope sized to fit on a light weight rifle. It weighs in at just a nick over a pound at 16.1oz and measures just under a foot at 11.5 inches in length.
The scope comes with the laundry list of features you’d expect from Nikon. Everything from a double O-ring sealed fogproof and waterproof interior to fully multicoated lenses just make it easy to love this scope. The feature that is most interesting on this scope is the spring loaded turrets to dial in shots.
The turrets work well, they’re positive and spin well but they’re huge. They almost don’t belong on a carbine style optic and they’re a weird combination for the low magnification range and small objective bell. The scope still comes in at a decent weight so they’re not weighing it down and they work well for gloved use because of how large they are but they do seem a little out of place.
Being 7x power magnification with a ballistic calibrated reticle and target turrets, this scope is good to go out to 300 yards. You can use this scope to hit way further because of the combination of 80 MOA and reticle but the .300blk runs out of energy for reliable hunting or duty use. If you have a need to really reach out with the .300blk this is the scope for you.
The .300blk is a ballistic upgrade for the ar15 with no compromises over the 5.56. The hardest part of the .300blk is choosing an optic because of how many things it can do. The round does many things well and is limited largely by its sights or optics. The best thing you can do is pick the load you want to shoot and then choose the best scope for the 300 blackout job you have.
