AAC ‘Honey Badger’ .300 BLK PDW
The Advanced Armament Corporation had their new Honey Badger on display at the AUSA expo. The PDW style AR-15 is chambered in .300 BLK AAC and features an ultra-short 6" barrel and retractable stock. It is designed to be a quieter and more versatile substitute for the H&K MP5SD. It was designed with the subsonic .300 BLK loads in mind, but is a compatible with the more powerful supersonic loads.
[ Many thanks to TenPoundMonkey for photos and info. ]
Anyways Great gun with a great design that bridges the gap between ShitP5SD and AR15. You can really tell the whole MP5 styled Hand guard and stock but this looks 100x’s better! (and has a way better round in it ;D)
So when does the California Edition come out? ;D
I’m just messing. Nothing like this will ever be allowed in California ever again… I wish things would go back to the old america!
But anyways the gun looks amazing and sounds amazing! I was leaning more towards the Long hand guard version, but now, I’m liking the short hand guard better
Anyways Great gun with a great design that bridges the gap between ShitP5SD and AR15. You can really tell the whole MP5 styled Hand guard and stock but this looks 100x’s better! (and has a way better round in it ;D)
As long as the rounds are not DU! Semper Fi do or die ooh ahh!!!
id just like to call you out marines say semper fi but would never say ooh ahh so just one of my pet peeves i have to correct that when i see it
Right, they say oorah.
I’d rather get the new SMG coming out from Zastava Arms, it’s the Cinnamon Wolf, it’s caliber is 221 Fireball, it also comes with a 1 inch barrel, bipod, and full set of furniture by Command Arms, and optic by NC Star naturally.
Then what is the purpose of the 300 BLK if it does not defeat plate body armor?
The US military along with all major militaries must use ball ammo. I am not a fan of that but it is what it is. I thought the purpose was a better punch. But if it does not defeat plate armor, what are we looking at? 5.56 has a subsonic round and application. Why design a PDW and its own round?
None of the mid range rifle rounds penetrate plates unless they are specifically built too(SLAP projectiles and the like). That is the point of plates, to stop rifle calibers.
Subsonic 5.56 wouldn’t do much to a coyote let alone a human being, and they don’t cycle semi auto platforms. The BLK is designed to allow a standard ar design to cycle subsonic rounds(with heavier bullets that acually have punch), and also cycle full power rounds with more punch than a 5.56 or 6.8(with shorter barrels) without any changes to the firearm.
Dear Santa………..
Some of the comments above are amazingly foolish and ignorant. All it takes is the most basic understanding of combat arms and history to realize the significance and benefits of the 300 AAC BLK. Go to http://300aacblackout.com/ for full details. I don’t work for AAC – but I do appreciate the advantages of using the 300BLK from the local target range to the battlefield.
Only real deficiency is length, it’s probably a couple of inches longer than a MP5SD, a real problem when room clearing. Someone should really put this into a ambidextrous bullpup. Or maybe a square suppressor would help make it shorter.
It’s actually almost 3 inches shorter than an MP5SD (both with stocks extended)
what about collapsed.
I have no doubts that collapsed its more than compact enough anyway.
honey badger…he’s eating that snake and doesn’t give a s—t…
That makes for a gnarly PDW in my opinion. certainly more effective than the 5.7 or 4.6mm rounds in kinetic energy and range.
Don’t like the colour but the concepts pretty cool otherwise, stocks quite interesting, when collapsed I think it looks like a buffer tube from an AR pistol with a buttplate glued to it. Interesting to see how long it extends to and if its quick adjust, there looks to be a button on the side so I think it probably is quick adjust.
LOVE the color. Dear Santa, please grant me a Honey Badger, and a tax stamp.
Thanks,
Megan
I love the stock, but the fact that it is called the Honey badger makes me love it even more.
KLR-There are subsonic 5.56mm loads in 87 and 100 grain variants.
Sure, but they won’t cycle the action of an AR that is setup to shoot ‘regular’ supersonic ammo. Plus, like you said they are 80 or 100 gr bullets, versus the 220gr subsonic of the 300 BLK.
I was clarifying that subsonic 5.56mm loads do exist. So yeah…what’s your point?
His point is that subsonic 223 is probably the most pointless round in existence.
yes
I REALLY like that stock. Is that an AAC design or will someone be producing it for aftermarket?
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This gun Is definently NOT for sniping! WTF?
You’ve been playing too much Call of Duty friend… Join the rest of us in the real world please
looks cool… if you like the receiver it’s a MEGA (i think anyway)
Nice gun, but Honey Badger don’t care.
The Honey Badger meme would work a lot better if this was chambered in 556, seeing as you can’t really say the gun will eat any ammo you throw at it, given that AAC is a specialty round with relatively few producers of ammunition.
Watch it fire in slow motion, oooh what’s that on its rail? It’s pretty badass.
Why would AAC build a 5.56 gun? The whole point of this gun is to show the abilities of the .300 BLK.
Well, it’d be kinda funny if the original “Honey Badger” YouTube video had much to do with the naming, given the guy’s voice (NSFW): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg
Might as well carry a .357 for all the velocity you’ll get with a six inch barrel.
.357 with a 30 round magazine and select fire? and quiet?
This is acceptable.
Supressed 44 mag.
Actually you raise an interesting question. What muzzle velocity and energy can you achieve with .300 BLK subsonic ammo from a 6″ barrel? Is it better than you can achieve from, say, a hot .45 ACP with similar bullet weight and in the same barrel lenght?
Not just muzzle velocity, weight and SHAPE of the bullet too. A subsonic .45 acp ain’t penetrating jack. In fact, .45 ACP is easily stopped by light IIA soft body armor.
It’s not just a 6 in barrel. It’s designed to be used with the suppressor attached. So you have a 6 in barrel added to the length of the suppressor. Velocity should be substantially higher than a .45 acp.
@18D
Considering that the job of a supressor is to absorb excessive gas pressure in order to supress the boom of the supersonic wavefront, I frankly don’t see how the extra lenght of the supressor would be of any help accelerating the bullet beyond the 6″ barrel.
A suppressor is ALWAYS going to add velocity over not having a suppressor. The suppressor acts as extra barrel length would.
This suppressor looks pretty long, so I would think you would see over 100 fps increase, if not more. Accuracy increases with a suppressor as well.
18D the suppressor usually doesn’t add enough velocity to make a difference. And the whole point of a suppressed PDW like this will probably be special ops where they would probably use subsonic ammo. I say this because when 300 BLK is run at supersonic loads it mirrors almost perfectly 7.62×39. Uses the same bullet weights and sends them at the same velocities and they are really close to the same diameter. But I think that the field for 7.62×39 suppressed PDW is a very crowded one and you can find much better options than the honey badger.
Subsonic 300 BLK ammo is 220gr bullet at 1000 or 1050 so almost exactly the same as a 45 +p round. except smaller diameter bullet. Oh and the rifle can be FA, dang quiet, and has a 30 round mag… Or a 60rd or a 100rd one since I believe 300 BLK can be used in the new surefire mags.
Sounds like a great ccw gun!
Sorry brother, but a suppressor that long Is going to add quite a bit to the speed of the projectile. The operator will have the choice of whatever ammo he wants and therefore will probably choose what’s most effective for the job. That being said, in the CQB role, subsonic might be used in favor of being quieter. I don’t see the point though, of using a subsonic load in this weapon for reasons that you stated already.
@ 18D
According to Remington the muzzle velocity of 300 BLK subsonic ammunition is 1,070 fps from a 16″ barrel and 1,010 fps from a from a 6″ barrel.
http://300aacblackout.com/resources/PDS%2021502-%20A300AACM8%20300%20AAC%20BLK%20220-gr%20OTM-1.pdf
I think you are overestimating the effect of suppressor boost. If a 10″ longer barrel doesn’t push the muzzle velocity beyond the speed of sound then it’s pretty safe to assume that the suppressor on the Honey Badger won’t do that either.
rifle round vs. pistol rounds???
Just a quick question. Is this a piston or a DI? The tube is awfully short for a DI rifle but if it is a piston then why is the tube there at all? Just my initial thoughts.
On another note…
I like this idea! It takes what I see as all the benefits of the 300 BLK and capitalizes on them! But I do have to say it looks like AAC is just trying to get a big contract for their fun little round. It seems like they are trying to get it to go mainstream. Course who can blame them? They want their pet round to be a success!
You’d still need to have some room for a recoil spring and the bolt carrier with a piston-op AR. I doesn’t look like they relocated the recoil spring to under the handguard.
Thanks JasonM and suburban! Your right about having to have some space for the carrier to move back to. For some reason I was thinking they would redesign the carrier to be shorter so the buffer tube would not be needed. I think I was looking at vertical bolts like the one on the steyr ACR and the TKB-022.
It’s DI
So does that mean that the engagement ranges for .300 BLK is less than that of 5.56×45? I hear the term “rainbow” a lot when people talk of 7.62×39, and if this round duplicates those ballistics than it seems to me like a round that introduces more drawbacks as improvements. I understand it’s meant to be a suppressed round, with capabilities to go supersonic and do well, but such specialized rounds are hardly able to get widespread usage. I mean, 5.56×45 doesn’t even do subsonic yet they are pretty widely used in suppressed applications.
If you can load up a .300BLK to have at least the effective range of 5.56 then I’d be pretty excited about it. If it could start talking to 6.8 SPC or even 6.5 G then, hell.
I wonder if somebody could work up a combat optic configured for subsonic .300 Blackout. With some kind of Stadiametric rangefinding reticle like the russian scopes.
line up your target out to the theoretical max range of 300 yards, adjust your hold according to the stadia and lob a round their way.
then for close in, use the optic as a red-dot.
Either that or have bullet drop compensation with an elevation knob (which is slower but more precise) and an offset red dot for close in.
Robert (silvers) with Leupold has been developing a 300 BLK-specific scope with reticle that is calibrated for both supersonic and subsonic. One side of the reticle has subsonic drops, and the other has supersonic drops. No adjustment needed.
@KLP – 300 BLK is a shorter-range round than 5.56×45. It depends how you define ‘effective range’.. 300 BLK supersonic rounds can remain supersonic out past 600 yds, but I think 300 is probably the realistic useful range.
And the US mil still claims that the M4 is ‘effective’ at 600 yds.
But, the point of the 300 is to provide quiet/effective subsonic performance and then just with a mag switch be able to reach out a few hundred yds. All with a larger projectile than 5.56…
If you are realistically regulary engaging living targets past 300, 400 yds, then 6.8 is a better choice.
Question.
Why is it pretty much every new gun coming out these days is something built on top of an AR lower? Are companies just getting lazy with designs and just want to use the AR lowers kicking around, or is there some reason?
This isn’t a case of operator familiarity, as I don’t think any military is truly going to buy this gun.
Well, one thing that the old AR-15 platform has in favor is it’s ergonomy. Of course, I’d prefer if the selector switch was larger, ambidextrous, and with a shorter turn between sets -45º turn from safe to semi, and the same to auto is too much, I prefer the H&K type in that regard-, but holding an AR-15 is pretty easy and natural. Also, since the patents to the AR-15 have expired, it cuts down in costs if you just modify this now “open source” design instead of designing and building one from scratch.
Now, I don’t know what they did with it’s gas operating system. It looks like a standard DI system which I don’t trust with carbine-lenght 5.56×45 setup, but maybe the pressures are less critical with subsonic .300 ammo.
The AR lower has good ergonomics minus the charging handle (near perfect if you add some choice mods) and is a reliable and well understood platform. Anyone with any training knows how to run one, and of course then there’s the available accessories.
Like the other poster said, it has one of the best ergo if not the best ergo rifle in the world.
It takes a lot of money to actually create a new type of rifle that does the same thing as the AR15. The tooling up will cost them millions. It makes no sense to spend that money knowing full well they might only sell less than 100 PDW a year.
Also, the lower is the serialized, DROS and NICS required part of the firearm. Since everything else is just easily ordered parts, the market is freer to improvise on that common lower.
That looks like the New Magpul MOE-K grip on it
What level of body armor has the .300BLK defeated (tested/rated)? It seems to me that AAC has solved a lot of issues if the .300BLK defeats plate armor at close distances.
With a heavy bronze solid at subsonic or something similarly nasty, it aught to be effective enough.
Despite being AR derived, this looks kinda neat.
It being AR based could be seen as a plus, especially in military circles, since familiarity with the M4 and AR SBR’s is a given and training with them directly translates to this weapon, no need to operate a different weapon system. (MP5) Weapon cross training baby!
It’s only real deficiency would probably be weight at the front this slows down point speed. Hope that suppressors titanium. From the looks of the light weight handguard, they seem to be conscious of this.
And nice job with the stock, many would have not bothered, it’s nice that they made the effort. A fully integrated, compact, very rugged stock by the looks of it, that also appears to be a counter weight too.
I probably defeat all softbody armor. Standard in these type of rifle cartridge. It will not defeat hardbody armor. It doesn’t have the velocity.
if you really need to penetrate even hard armor- they are working on a SLAP round for 300 BLK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvxq7-Ior-g
I’m pretty sure the .300 BLK isn’t design to penetrate hard armor.
Jdun, did you even watch the damn video he provided? It went right through the plate.
I wonder what the opinion would be from an operator specializing in naval boarding considering the CQB environment with the possibility of needing to fire across the deck. Although I suppose you’d have sniper support in situations like that.
Aim high? I’m expecting a rainbow-like trajectory similar to that of the 9×39 subsonic (actually not quite as bad as that) with a heavy round though it should track fairly true.
well, you need to compare apples to apples- this is made as a direct MP5-SD replacement, so comparing the 220gr subsonic rifle bullet to a 115gr 9mm bullet- you’ll get more power at range with the rifle bullet, and it will keep velocity better than the pistol bullet.
If you need to reach out at all, you can use supersonic ammo and engage out to a few hundred yards… Supersonic will get you something in the area of 7 to 9 inch drop at 200yds.
Dang, it even looks a ton like an SD.