Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturers of the new Victra 20-gauge shotgun suppressor. There were hundreds of new suppressors on display at SHOT Show, and it seems like the NFA gold rush is well and truly happening. All of those new NFA items need ammunition, and several manufacturers have new loads meant for suppressed use. Let’s look at some of those new options.
Silencer Saturday @ TFB:
Suppressor Ammunition
One of the persistent fallacies about silencers is that they always slow down bullets. This originated with some older silencer designs that did function that way. Subsonic ammunition was not common in many chamberings, particularly in military supplies. Firearm designers used ported barrels to bleed off propellant gases and slow the bullet down, making ammunition that would have been supersonic in other guns become subsonic in these silenced weapons.
There are still some guns that work on this principle, like the Angstadt Vanquish family. But it is much more common to use a muzzle-mounted silencer rather than an integral barrel/silencer, and to source subsonic ammunition. That ammo is typically loaded to 1,050 FPS or less for muzzle velocity. The speed of sound is generally in the 1,100 FPS range, but it can vary with factors like humidity and elevation. Keeping the published velocity at 1,050 FPS or less is generally slow enough to stay subsonic and avoid a sonic boom caused by a bullet exceeding the speed of sound.
Factory Loads
Ammunition sold specifically for subsonic use is not a new thing. It is already very common in rimfire loads and in certain cartridges associated with suppressed shooting, like the .300 Blackout. This year, we have seen several new products hit the market in this space. Thanks to the uptick in silencer sales, there are more people than ever who need to feed guns with silencers, and the ammo manufacturers are answering that call.
Federal has an entirely new line of ammunition for 2026, branded simply as Federal Subsonic. There are four caliber options in this initial batch, though others will probably join the lineup in the future. Both the .308 Winchester and .300 Blackout feature the Fusion Tipped projectile, while the .30-30 and . 45-70 loads use the standard Fusion bullet.
The Fusion bullet has a bonded construction. The outer copper jacket is chemically bonded to the lead core so that they do not separate while penetrating through the target. The Fusion series has a generally positive reputation among hunters, though the bullet does feature the highest ballistic coefficients. The Fusion Tipped adds a polymer tip for a sleeker profile and higher BC, and it also aids the expansion of the bullet on impact. This is an added bonus for the slow impact velocity inherent in subsonic ammo. Using a bullet with a pointy tip in lever guns can cause problems like accidentally setting off rounds in a tubular magazine, so that would explain Federal using the older bullet design in the chamberings commonly seen in lever actions.
Remington is also expanding its Subsonic Rifle line. They already offered a 220-grain .300 BLK load, but new chamberings are on the way. The three new loads for this year are a 250-grain .360 Buckhammer, 190-grain 308 Winchester, and 300-grain .45-70. The .308 is the most surprising option in that lineup, and given the weight of that bullet and the low velocities involved, it seems unlikely that it will cycle a sem-iautomatic.
CCI already makes a wide assortment of specialized .22LR ammo for silencer use, but they added yet another option at SHOT Show. Hunter Subsonic uses CCI’s Small Game Bullet (SGB), a flat-nose 40-grain lead projectile, fired at 1050 FPS. The flat point offers good penetration on small game animals without the meat destruction of a hollow point.
Hornady has also offered subsonic options for a while, but did not introduce any new loads in the 2026 product releases. They did add a .338-inch bullet weighing 307 grains in the Sub-X product line for reloading use. This projectile was already loaded in .338 ARC ammunition in Hornady’s Subsonic ammunition line. The Sub-X projectile is a polymer-tipped rifle projectile designed to expand at low impact velocities. Hornady offers the Subsonic lineup in .300 Blk, .30-30, 7.62×39, 338 ARC, .350 Legend, .450 Bushmaster, and .45-70 with the Sub-X bullet, and 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP with XTP hollow point projectiles.
Reloading
On the topic of reloading, rolling your own can be a great way to shoot subsonic, particularly if you need a cartridge that is uncommon in factory loads. Hodgdon’s online Reloading Data Center has an entire subsection for subsonic rifle load data. Along with cartridges you would expect to see, there are interesting loads for .223 Remington, .243 Winchester, .30-06, and .458 Winchester Magnum.
I have a .458 Win Mag that would be a lot of fun with the barrel threaded and some subsonic ammo, but I have not been fast enough on the trigger when my MidwayUSA back-in-stock notifications hit, and I continue in my quest to find some Trail Boss powder for that project. In fact, subsonic .338 Lapua loads with Trail Boss powder were so much fun to shoot when a friend brought some to a range day, that my wife has been asking me to get a .338 LM ever since.
Apart from Trail Boss, depending on the caliber, other options like H322, Benchmark, Accurate No. 2, and Titegroup are also usable. As always, be careful with reloading, be sure you know what you are doing, and follow published data. It is very easy to make a mistake with the very small powder charges in these loads and throw a double or triple charge, which can destroy a gun and the shooter.
Thanks for joining us for another instalment of Silencer Saturday. We’ll see you back here next week.
DEALERS: If you want your link to buy YHM suppressors included in future Silencer Saturday posts, email: silencers@thefirearmblog.com
