Anyone loading for Noveske .300 FB barrels?

[Garrett]

Since Noveske has released a bunch of new .300 Fireball barrels, I thought I'd see if anyone had worked up any loads that were subsonic, and still cycled reliably in them yet.

I recently put together an upper using a 16" barrel, and finally got to go shoot it this past weekend. I was using some of my loads that I'd worked up for my 10" Contender. So at the time I developed them, cycling in a semi-auto was not a consideration. These used a charge of AA#9 and a 220 gr. SMK. The gun has a full-length A1 rifle stock / buffer tube, and I am using the Noveske (non-adjustable) gas block that was provided with the barrel.

I did not have my chronograph out but around 1/3 of the shots were supersonic. Also, I was only getting reliable cycling around half of the time. This load is averaging 1052 fps. through my 10" Contender, so it doesn't surprise me that it is going to go supersonic through a longer barrel at least part of the time. However, I was hoping for better cycling reliability.

I have loaded up some ammo using H110 and AA1680 with a few different bullet weights, and I'll hopefully get a chance to chrono them this week.

But to save me any more time, has anyone already worked up a load that runs well in the Noveske 16" barrel and stays subsonic? What type of setup on the rifle?

Thanks. I'll report back my findings as well.