Just wanted to know what caliber is being used for your night time hunts. .223/5/56, 300 BO, 7.62x39, 7.62x51, etc.

I was planning to use either my 300 BO or 7.62x39, but now thinking about what other caliber for night hunts with thermal sights in particular, or even any of the latest night vision capable scopes.

Same I use in daylight...

300blk, 6.8 spc, 22LR, and as of this weekend 10 mm out of Glock 40mos with RMR. Works excellent with helmet mounted PVS-14.

6.8 SPC if walking around any

6.8 day and night most often.  300 BLK when working close to residential neighborhoods to keep quiet for the humans' sake. Even when shooting suppressed subs, it's not like they ( your prey ) just stand there and let you pick them off one by one; you may get one or two before the alarm sounds and they vacate the area. A 220 gr bullet hitting an animal like a pig makes a pretty loud noise, so you might as well shoot something with enough punch to put them down at a range further than 50 yards.  Find a round that's accurate, effective and readily available, then do some night shooting at targets and figure out what your range limits are with whatever NVD you're using.

6.8 most often with 5.56 second

I'm pretty much stuck on 308 for nighttime thermal usage.  Little heavier but I don't mind because I think it's worth it.  

22LR, 9mm, 556, 300BLK, 12GA have all been used

6.8 with 85gr. TSX coming out of my suppressed 12.5" at 2,900 FPS.

in order to remain sub sonic and have enough power for wild boar in short distances, i use 44.cal wildcat.
something resembling 44 automag.
500 or 300 grain cast bullet in trimmed at 39mm (1.53')
and reamed .308 brass.

300 BLK is my go to platform.  I don't shoot subsonic though, just not quiet enough to justify the power loss.


5.56 is my backup/loaner rifle.




A third of my kills end up being being with a shotgun.




A small percentage end up with a spear/fist/K-BAR/1911/drowning.  


 

450 Bushmaster.  Cant get enough.  They guys I hunt with use 223, 6.8, and another with 450B.

That is screaming.  What load?  ARP barrel?  With 29.7 grains of RL#7 and an OAL of 2.294", I get 2850 fps out of my 12.5" ARP and that is starting to flatten primers.

OP- to answer your question- I started with supersonic 300BLK in a 10" barrel with 125 grain SST handloads at 2090fps.  Used it for a couple of years and finally decided to try a 12.5" 6.8.  Glad I did.  Current load with it is 27.5 grains of AA2200 under a 120 grain SST at 2380fps.  One shot drop percentage increased about 50% when going to the 6.8.  At 100 yards, the 125 300BLK delivers 949 ft/lbs and the 120 6.8 delivers 1,161 fps- an increase of 22%.

That being said, I am in the process of trying to build a suppressed 12.5" SBR 308Win LR308 that should tip the scales just under 7lbs with suppressor but no optics and empty mag.  If I can push that 125 grain SST to 2,500 fps out of the 12.5" 308 barrel, it should be delivering close to 1375 ft/lbs at 100 yards.

Three-oh-mother f'n- eight!

i only have .223/5.56 right now

but I really want a .308 the extra horsepower gives me peace of mind when stomping around the woods at night.

Sam,

TX needs a local NG division.  

Just saw that you are in Florida- whereabouts?  I'm in the Tampa area and we've got a tight little crew of well-equipped night hunters.  

Suppressed  .223 AR or a bolt .308 Crusader. My IRD MKII Hunter is interchangeable between them and the AR has an IR laser for snapshots via PVS-14.

This is the most wonderful ammo that not only makes such incredible velocity, but is also easily MOA or better at 100y if I do my part, not to mention the terminal ballistics of the Barnes projectiles.



The barrel is a Noveske DiamondBlack-coated SS with a Type-II chamber and 1:12" twist in an upper built by Wes Grant at MSTN several years ago.  Unfortunately the ammo is no longer available since Nosler bought out SSA, but fortunately I bought an extra 2k rounds on top of what I already had when a little bird recommended that I stock up a few months before the change in ownership.

I shot this one about two hours ago with my 10 inch .300 blackout which will kill about anything with a neck shot. If you can't get to within 50 yards of a deer or hog at night then you are doing something wrong. The larger calibers are a lot more forgiving on a running hog though. It's planting season now, so I am just trying to kill or wound as many as possible anyways. Hence the 30 round mag instead of the lighter 10 round I usually carry.

I'm using a LMT 308 with a MKII suppressed.  It's heavy as the devil but I don't have to chase anything.

Thank you all for the replies so far. I guess I was wondering if I could use either an atn x-sight 2 or atn thor hd thermal on my 12ga shotgun. I figured I could use it on anything I have from 308 down. One area I'd like to do some hog, coyote, varmint hunting is on a military base and they don't allow us to use rifles unless it's guided during deer season, but we can use shotguns throughout the year. This has helped a lot and also made me spend more money than I originally planned!

I noticed a lot of guys using the 6.5.  I do not have one and do not have any personal experience behind one however, a friend of mine that works on a ranch here in Texas that I hunt.  Uses a 6.5spc wind has had multiple bad experiences with terminal performance and killing ability on deer with it. I have been in on the experiences numerous times as well.  We cull  more than one hundred deer a year off this ranch. (Yes hundreds)  so we get a lot of trigger time and experience with ammunition/bullets/calibers etc. he uses the Hornaday 115s which appears to be an A max Bullet with the red  tip.  Deer punched in the vitals with this cartridge just take it like is a paunch shot.  I have never seen a deer die quickly with this round in the non CNS hits.  The post mortems are always unimpressive, small wound channels, no muscle hemmorage, very little destruction. He uses a 16" gun so velocity is standard.  Does anyone else see these type results.  I'm not bashing the cartridge, just relating observations, I am intrinsically interested in terminal ballistics. The joke is "Dantana is shooting his 6.5 get the tracking dogs ready" and the guy can shoot, that's not the issue.

As far as my choice I use 556 80% of the time, neck shots when possible with varmint bullets.  300BO subs and 308 for the other 10 and 10 percent.  I find that the 556 neck shot drops hogs every time, only to have 50-60% get up again and try to drag themselves off a short distance. I carry a suppressed handgun to finish when needed. The 308 is a superior killer, the 300BO with subs is the worst (obviously) I shoot a lot of full auto and 300 black subs are like a 22 rimfire on full auto, the red star at the fair has no chance, so it evens the kill ratio.

My go to is 6.8. I have a 300 blackout hate it. I also use .223. Waiting on my stamp so I can run my .458 socom suppressed.

What can are you using on the 458? I have a 10.5" and was excited when the hybrid came out but unfortunately it's not rated below 16".

9" barrel 300 BO with Hornady 110 grain Vmax for coyotes/bobcats/pigs works great.

I asked Bowers Group about using their VERS 458 suppressor on a 10.5 inch barrel and they said it as long as it doesn't exceed 2,600 FPS I was good.  Also works as a 9mm / 45 ACP subgun can.