TESTED: Better is Best With the Faxon Sentinel in 8.6 BLK!

Ever since SHOT Show my friend and fellow professional gunwriter Dr. Martin Topper wanted to try out and write about the 8.6 Blackout round and the AR-10-pattern Faxon rifles made for that caliber. Before he could finish, time and life caught up with Marty, and he passed away after a brief illness. I asked our editor and mutual friend Nino Bosaz to complete his work, and we both thought that it would be written to not only talk about the Faxon 8.6 Blackout rifles, but to honor the life, legacy, and work of Dr. Topper.

Faxon Sentinel in 8.6 Blackout

Like all great writers, Dr. Martin Topper lived a full life that he used as a background to discuss modern topics, equipment, and firearms intelligently and accurately. He was born in the Midwest after the end of WWII, enjoyed the frontier life, so he got a Ph.D. in anthropology. Using his degree, Marty spent many years living and working on tribal lands where he developed his love of shooting, hunting and the outdoors. After a career in government service, including as a sworn LE officer, he began a career as a gun writer in the mid 1990’s, penning over 300 articles on various topics but excelled at evaluating firearms.

A mutual friend and fellow respected gunwriter, Fred Mastison noted: “He was one of the best writers in the industry, he carried himself with serious sense of professionalism, but always kept a friendly attitude. In many ways he was a role model, and we are certainly diminished by his loss.” Soft-spoken and modest, Marty was a gun writer’s gun writer, quick to help others and share his knowledge with those wise enough to seek his counsel. He was impressed with the 8.6 Blackout round, and the Faxon platforms produced to chamber it, as I found out myself.

Enter the 8.6 BLK

The new Faxon rifle chambered in 8.6 Blackout is elbowing its way into a field that is already crowded with excellent, well-seasoned and successful loads. The 8.6 Blackout, also called the 8.6mm Creedmoor, was developed by Q and is made for use in either bolt-action rifles or for AR-10 style rifles. The 8.6 Blackout is designed for barrels using a 1:3 or 1:4 inch twist rate and bullet weights between 160–225 grains for supersonic loads and 285–350 grains for subsonic loads.

If you are a hunter, competitive or casual shooter, you can already match your need with a plethora of efficient ammunition calibers and firearms. However, when it comes to optimizing accuracy for hunting, competition, or target shooting, better is best, and that is what the Faxon Sentinel 8.6 Blackout offers, a better option within its performance envelope. But still, how does a shooter make that determination, and just why and in what categories does the 8.6 Blackout excel?

5 W’s of New Cartridge Introduction

When considering adding a new and different caliber cartridge to your inventory, a shooter should consider the five W’s used in information gathering, problem solving and even proper journalism. If you can answer them satisfactorily, then it’s something worth considering.

WHO Makes it?

Knowing that the firearm is developed and produced by an established and reputable firearms company and the ammo is available from multiple sources can ease fears of buying a new caliber. Bob Faxon started Faxon firearms in 2011, concentrating on superb engineering and precise machining to produce AR-style rifles as well as other products. The 8.6 Blackout was designed and developed by Q, using a .338 projectile, .308 bolt face, and modified 6.5 Creedmoor brass. The 8.6 BLK packs a serious punch in both subsonic and supersonic loads. A “big brother” to the .300 Blackout, the 8.6 Blackout is currently offered by Discreet Ballistics, Callaway Ballistics, Firehole Arms and Gorilla Ammunition. The 8.6 BLK is in the process of being certified by Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI) to standardize interchangeability, increase reliability and quality.

WHAT Purpose is it Made For?

There is no such thing as a perfect round or “best” caliber. Once I purposefully asked a dumb question to the U. S. Army Marksmanship Unit of what was the “best” ammunition, and they literally rolled their eyes and answered the ONLY possible intelligent answer. They said, “for what…?” Exactly. Every firearm and ammunition need to be matched with the purpose. A lot of shooters who are dissatisfied with the performance of a firearm or ammunition simply didn’t match the ammunition to the mission, ending in a less than optimum result. The 8.6 Blackout is NOT optimized for long distance as its performance falls off beyond several hundred yards, but for short to medium range, it’s a heavy, big bullet leaving the muzzle at about a couple thousand FPS that stays flat, accurate and powerful for a couple of hundred yards.

The muzzle device on the Sentinel in 8.6 BLK.

HOW is the Performance?

The Faxon 8.6 Blackout Sentinel that I shot operated well, and with an excellent muzzle brake, the recoil is absolutely minimal. In contrast, I pulled the trigger on a .50 Beowulf with a standard birdcage flash suppressor on a hog hunt that honestly left a black and blue bruise on my shoulder. The current crop of well-engineered muzzle brakes really tames powerful loads, so a shooter doesn’t even think about the shoulder punch but keeping the sights on target. The ability to have a big, powerful round delivered accurately without a huge recoil is a very nice plus. With the right muzzle brake, the recoil energy is less than a .308.

WHERE Should it Be Used?

The 8.6 Blackout is made for intermediate range use. Its envelope of optimum ballistics goes out to a couple hundred yards, shooting flat until there. The supersonic 6.8 BLK slug keeps 1,000 foot-pounds of energy past five hundred yards and goes transonic past six hundred yards, but it does drop 5 feet at 400 yards while retaining about thirteen hundred foot-pounds of energy. The heavier bullet is a godsend for shooting for large game and in situations where environmental factors or even foliage could dramatically affect accuracy. Small, light bullets are easily deflected and don’t carry the energy like the 8.6 blackout .338 slug that can go through leaves and land like a locomotive. The 8.6 BLK is to the 6.5 Creedmoor as the .300 BLK is to the 5.56.

WHY Should it Be Used?

The unique factors of the 8.6 Blackout are its incredibly fast and dramatic terminal performance due to the 500,000 RPM spin rate of the bullet leaving the muzzle. That is due to its 1:3 barrel twist rate, meaning that the barrel rifling does a complete turn every three inches. For comparison, a typical twist rate for 7.62 (M-14) is 1:11 and .338 caliber rifles is 1:10, while the fast 5.56 round has barrels from older M-16s of 1:12 to 1:7 twist rates for current heavy (longer) bullets. The large, subsonic 8.6 BLK is optimized for short barrels and suppressors, providing a hard-hitting, compact platform with a very low noise signature.

HOW Does it Shoot?

The best way to answer this last question was to go hunt some Georgia hogs. Flying up in my buddy Tony DeBose’s Eclipse jet, It was a real night hunt with no sitting around a feeder. It was locate, fix, stalk and shoot. My guides were Army Infantry Veteran Jack Calhoun and Joseph Parker, and we used Jack’s Pulsar Thermion XG50 3-24×43 Thermal riflescope on the Faxon 8.6 Blackout Sentinel rifle with a 16-inch barrel. I shot Discreet Ballistics 8.6 Blackout, 300-grain, FMJ, Subsonic target load, with a 12-inch barrel velocity of 1,000 FPS AMV.

We visited several fields and first bagged a coyote, but then found a sounder of thirty hogs tearing up a farmer’s field. Picking out a good 350-pound boar with long tusks, we stalked for a few hundred yards and stopped when the herd started to get restless. At about 100 yards the big boar paused long enough for a steady, sure shot and the 300-grain 8.6 put him down. A few more shots and two more hogs down, we concluded and proved that the 8.6 Blackout – even the FMJ subsonic target load – was an excellent short- to medium-range hunting round. What was notable was the extremely gentile recoil and amazingly quiet report (even without a suppressor), but the one-shot terminal ballistics against very durable and tough game was the obvious advantage. The 8.6 BLK definitely proved itself better than other rounds, and better is best.

Hog hunting success with the Faxon Sentinel.

Final Shots

Marty was right, the 8.6 Blackout is an effective round, and proving it with a bunch of pals like Tony, Tyler, Jack and Joesph, was a great way to honor Dr. Topper. His legacy will be just this, accurate and safe shooting with the latest ballistic treasure, and passing that joy and information to others. As Shakespeare said “He, only, in a general honest thought and common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world, ‘This was a man!'”

For more information, visit Discreetballistics.com and faxonfirearms.com.