Ultra-short 300 Blackout barrels | Round-up Part 3

In the third part of this ongoing series detailing as many commercially available ultra-short (sub-7″).300 Blackout barrels as possible, I’m only adding one more barrel to the lineup, a 5″ slinger from Veritas Tactical, assembled into an impressive upper in conjunction with SLR Rifleworks, utilizing their 4.25″ Helix forend.  I was also able to acquire one more ammunition type, Federal’s American Eagle line of 220 gr. subsonic rounds.  This round received chronograph treatment from most barrels, and accuracy testing from the Veritas Tactical/SLR upper.  Further data will show up in the final article.  Be sure to jump back and check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

Much like I’ve mentioned in the previous two articles, the accuracy and chrono data is preliminary and not totally exhaustive.  The barrel’s aren’t broken in before accuracy testing (just the rounds used for chrono data).  The final article will likely show improved accuracy for all barrels after a break-in period and a good cleaning.  I’d like to shoot more groups for accuracy and more strings of fire for chrono data, I simply don’t have hundreds of rounds for each barrel.

Here’s the tech specs for today’s shooter.

Veritas Tactical 5″ barrel:

• Stainless Steel 416R
• 1:8 Twist
• 5R Rifling
• Patent-pending “Micro Gas-Tube”
• .936″ gas block journal
• M4 feed ramps
• 5/8×24 threaded muzzle
• 14.2 ounces (barrel alone)
• Price: $189.99 (barrel alone)

The Veritas Tactical upper was put with the same SBR lower I’ve used for all other barrels in this project, with the same Geissele SSP trigger used as well.  I did make a change in the optics department, swapping out the Trijicon ACOG for a Leupold VX-3i LRP 4.5-14x.  All firing was done from the Stinger shooting rest, as per my SOP for this series.

First let’s look at the chrono data for the American Eagle line of subsonic rounds, as run through all five uppers.

American Eagle 220 gr.

• V7 6.5″   – 844 FPS average, Standard Deviation (SD) 41.8
• R2B 6″   -848 FPS average, SD 26.8
• KAK 4.75″ – 760 FPS, SD 36.2
• KAK 6.25″ – 813 FPS, SD 6.1
• Veritas 5″ – 783 FPS, SD 21

The rest of the chrono data for the day was all done with the new barrel from Veritas.

Ammo Inc’s Jesse James 110gr: 1696.8 FPS, SD of 52.9

Federal All-Copper 120gr:  1622.6 FPS, SD of 10.2

Ammo Inc’s /Stelth/ 220gr:  831 FPS, SD of 18.1

Remington “White box” 220gr: 834.4 FPS, SD of 25.5

Fiocchi 220gr:  790.8 FPS, SD of 17.9.

The Fiocchi round was the only one that failed to lock back the bolt carrier on the last round when firing unsuppressed.  This didn’t repeat later during accuracy testing, so an extremely dirty bolt could have exacerbated low gas pressure.

I ran 5 types of ammo through the Veritas/SLR combo.  Below are group sizes in inches (@ 50 yards) and MOA for the average.  Notable groups (good and bad) in bold.

Veritas Tactical:

Jesse James 110gr:  1.61″ & 2.5″, 3.92 MOA average

Federal 120gr: 1.7″ & 1.7″, 3.25 MOA average

Ammo Inc /Stelth/ 220gr: 1.8″ & 4.7″, 6.2 MOA average  (some bullet yaw)

Discreet Ballistics 190gr: .92″ & 2.2″, 2.97 MOA average (did not cycle unsuppressed)

Fiocchi 220 gr:  3.1″ & 2.95″, 5.77 MOA average.

Some similarities are to be noted between this barrel and others tested in this series.  The Federal 120 gr. copper round is still the most consistent, group-to-group and between various barrel lengths, with exception to one zany group out of KAK’s 4.75″ barrel.  Subsonics have shown (understandable) tendency to lose a little stability when fired from barrels 5″ and under.  The 190 gr. round from Discreet Ballistics continues to impress, both in volume (quietest, unscientifically) and in recoil, where it is by far the lightest.

Veritas Tactical makes a very nice barrel/gas system.  The same goes to SLR Rifleworks, who’s handguard is both light and strong.  Price wise, the barrel comes in the middle of the pack, above Right 2 Bear and below V Seven Weapon Systems.  Performance thus far has been on par with the rest of the pack, which is a good thing.  As with the other barrels, I’m expecting improved performance after the round count racks up.  I’m off to find some ammo!

-Rex Nanorum

@rexnanorum