The “killer app” here is that the ammunition actually works, despite the conventional wisdom. That’s accurate enough to be “minute of bad guy” at any distance where subsonic ammo is going to make a difference. Allegiance says that a 1:7 twist rate barrel is most important for accuracy, putting a tighter spin on the bullet as it leaves the barrel than would a more common 1:9 barrel designed for high velocity projectiles.įrom my 1:7 twist gun I was getting a solid 3 MoA spread downrange, which is remarkably good for (A) a short-barreled AR and (B) subsonic ammunition. It just doesn’t make sense.Īlso important is stabilization of these extra long, extra slow projectiles. I doubt anyone would spend the cash ($48 for a box of 20) on these specialty rounds without having a can in hand. Adding a silencer seems to be the best way to improve reliability when shooting SilentStrike. That extra back pressure a suppressor provides is really important when there isn’t much gas volume produced by the cartridge.Įven with a longer barrel, reliability still isn’t assured, as you can see in this picture above. Their 110 grain ammo worked perfectly in my test rig as pictured at the top of the article, but remove the silencer and reliability became spotty. Especially when you’re on the extreme low end of the spectrum for velocity and barrel length, small differences can have a big impact. When I was talking with Allegiance before the samples arrived we discussed how those three factors - bullet weight, velocity, and barrel length - play an important role in ensuring the reliable operation of the firearm.

The trigger (which was a prototype in for testing) had some issues, but it had problems with standard ammunition as well, so I’m not going to count that against the SilentStrike. As you can probably tell from the video above, the 110 grain ammo functioned perfectly in my standard 10.5-inch AR-15.

Allegiance sent two flavors to test, a 110 grain compressed tungsten version and a more traditional jacketed 97 grain version. Out on the range we tested the ammo in a number of different conditions. That’s an intriguing mix, and while I didn’t have enough samples to take some hunting, I was able to confirm that the projectiles will harmlessly fragment on impact with a steel plate. Instead of a standard solid lead projectile the bullet is made of compressed tungsten powder.Īccording to Allegiance this allows the round to penetrate soft tissue for self defense or hunting scenarios while still fragmenting on impact for harder targets like steel plates for training. Something that makes SiletStrike extra special is the projectile Allegiance uses. No alterations are required to the firearm, all you need load the ammo in a magazine and you’re good to go. 223 Remington ammo (interchangeable with 5.56 NATO, a concept I’m sure will fill the comment section below with many opinionated responses on why I’m an idiot and completely wrong) with some interesting characteristics.Īllegiance’s SilentStrike line of ammo is designed as a drop-in subsonic replacement for your rifle’s standard diet of 5.56 NATO cartridges. They’ve started producing a couple different flavors of subsonic. That’s one of the reasons why the 300 AAC Blackout round has become so popular: how easy it was to go from supersonic to quiet-as-a-churchmouse subsonic without changing the gun.Īllegiance Ammunition doesn’t seem to have listened to the conventional wisdom. In order to slow down that projectile so that it doesn’t break the sound barrier (and create the sonic “crack” that makes even suppressed guns sound loud) you would need to increase the weight of the bullet, and getting the balance just right is extremely difficult.

Subsonic 223 rounds