Ammunition Review: Phantom Defense 300 AAC Blackout – “Rowdy Boi” 110 gr Tac-TX NAS3 Case

For most of this Fall, I’ve been hunting almost exclusively with a single shot 10″ SSK-50 (T/C Contender) 300 Blackout pistol. It’s been a great challenge taking white tail deer, pigs, and pronghorn with the pistol, topped with a simple red dot optic.

As I find the 300BO a marginal round, I’ve been looking for every advantage I can get. That’s why the Phantom Defense’s 300 Blackout “Rowdy Boi” round caught my eye. Phantom Defense makes some pretty bold claims in their advertising for this round, and I was highly interested to see if the product lives up to them. So far, so good.

The Rowdy Boi is one of the more commonly used hunting rounds offered by Phantom Defense. That makes a lot of sense, as it’s topped with the Barnes Tac XT bullet. I’m not sure that bullet was originally designed with hunting in mind, but it’s gained popularity for that use. The same controlled expansion and barrier penetration that make it good for “tactical” scenarios make it ideal for folks using .30 caliber ARs, regardless of the chambering itself.

For this load, Phantom Defense has gone with nickel alloy stainless cases. These cases are twice the strength of brass cases, weigh less, won’t corrode and they resist deformation far better than their brass counterparts. Phantom has loaded a great modern bullet in a great modern case.

Since I used a single shot break open pistol for all of the testing and don’t own any other 300BO chambered gun, there was no testing to make sure the cartridge would cycle in an AR pattern rifle. That said, given the speeds produced, the pretty well-established case, and projectile used, I see no reason why it wouldn’t reliably cycle in a semi-auto rifle.

As far as accuracy, the big limiting factor on my setup is the simple non-magnified red dot optic and the fact that it’s a pistol. Out to 100 yards, the pistol produced 4-inch groups when shot from a bag. That’s as good as these eyes and these hands can do. Swapping the red dot for a 2.5X long eye relief scope, five-round groups were cut in half. I suspect that the round would print much smaller groups from a rifle with a more magnified optic.

Using my Garmin Xero C1 Pro chronograph, I measured the velocity of 20 of the supplied rounds. From the the SSK 10-inch barrel (chambered for 300 Whisper) the lowest velocity measured was 2,328fps, the highest velocity was 2,345fps. That 17fps range wouldn’t impress an F-Class shooter, but it beats the heck out of the Remington Core Lokt factory ammo I tried next to it. Over 10 rounds, the Big Green ammo had a 90fps spread.

Phantom Defense advertises that the NAS3 case along with the Barnes Tac-XT “achieves significantly higher velocities than conventional brass.” “Significantly higher” is subjective, but that 2,328fps from this 10″ barrel is about 70fps faster than any other 110gr commercial round I can find, and more than 100fps faster than most.

That means the Rowdy Boi is delivering right at 1,000 ft-lbs of energy at 100 yards at my home range in central Texas. That’s more than enough to take any Mule or Whitetail deer, quartering or broadside.

This Fall, I’ve done most of my proper hunting (as opposed to just culling for commercial properties) with the SSK-50 Contender clone. Taking pronghorn and deer with a single-shot pistol in 300BO mounted with only a red dot has proven to be a challenge, but a welcome one.

Throughout the month of November, two whitetail does and one good buck fell to Phantom Defense Rowdy Boi at ranges from 70 to 150 yards. Each broadside and quartering shot resulted in a complete pass-through, with blood trails a blind man could follow.

As I said, I’ve never been much a fan of the 300BO cartridge. It’s aways seemed like there are just better options for everything the round can do. But I have to admit the Phantom Defense Rowdy Boi lives up to the hype. It delivers a bit more punch with a proven projectile. I’m supremely confident in this cartridge’s ability to take big game, even to ranges I would have previously questioned with the 300BO.