A few years ago it was the great .380 tsunami. Then it was .300 BLK. Right now? Maybe a resurgence of pistol caliber carbines. What’s the next “I liked it before it was cool” fad? My guess is. . .
fat, heavy, and slow. Bullets, that is. Suppressed. With the meteoric rise in suppressor ownership — a trend of its own, for sure — I think the next big thing will be maximizing downrange energy while capping velocities to just shy of supersonic.
Why subsonic? Especially with a larger bullet, the crack of it breaking the sound barrier is actually extremely loud, as we attempted to show here.
Sure, a 220 grain bullet from a .300 BLK doing 1,000 fps hunts better than a 147 grain 9mm going the same speed, but we’re still talking about .45 ACP energy levels. How about a 600 grain slug from a .458 SOCOM? Or a 700 grain .50 Beowulf? Suppressed. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I’d dang sure like to see integrally-suppressed AR uppers for these calibers and/or more readily-available suppressors for these calibers with ammo manufacturers loading as much bullet as will fit in an AR magazine, with room for enough powder to push it between 1,000 and 1,100 fps.
What do you think the next big trend will be?