So I was about to go forward with the 30-30AI in the Contender carbine platform and then my neighbor says, "Why don't you think about the 300 Blackout?" That got me scratching my head and my fingers twitching the keyboard to see what I could find out. Looks interesting. I could go less expensive and just shoot supersonic, or spend a pile of money and get a can for it and also shoot suppressed on my six little acres and not disturb the neighbors. That would be a plus. Online posters say the Blackout is good enough for deer out to 100 yards, which is a long shot in these parts. But is it really good enough? I've been hunting with a 357 max carbine in the Encore the last number of years to meet our state's straight wall requirement. I get good accuracy shooting 180 grain XTP's at around 2000 fps. My only complaint is that most of the deer I've shot have gone a good 100 yards, and several onto neighboring properties with a poor, if nearly non-existent blood trail. I confess, I have always been a through and through double lung shooter to save meat. So there's that, which makes me think that going with a 30-30 or a 300 BLK is likely to yield similar results under similar circumstances. Back in the day, I always hunted with the 12 gauge slug gun, or the 50 caliber muzzleloader, or the 44 mag carbine as state laws evolved. With those calibers, it seemed like the deer went down within sight (not further than 40 yards) and always left a decent blood trail. I'm still leaning toward the 30-30 but wondering if some of you have had real world experience with the 300 in the deer woods. And if you shoot suppressed, how quiet are they really, when fired subsonic, and can you shoot supersonic and still get some sound suppression? I'm thinking going down that road might be too big a stretch for me. Nonetheless, I'm always interested in hearing what your insights might be on stuff like this.