The .300 BLK Rossi Brawler: The Unkillable Sport Utility Pistol

By Will Dabbs MD

The Rossi Brawler is a different sort of smoke pole. Imagine if Rossi took your grandad’s favorite single-shot, break-open shotgun and shrunk the action down into a big-boned handgun. Now, visualize that unconventional heater chambered for the inimitably versatile .300 BLK cartridge. In a pervasive world of tedious sameness at your local gun emporium, the .300 BLK Rossi Brawler is refreshingly nonconformist.

The break-open action of the Brawler is the very image of simplicity. There’s just not much on it to break. The rugged steel receiver is encased within a polymer shell. The 9-inch round-profile barrel is thick and ample. The cumulative result is a powerful utility handgun that is accurate, monotonously reliable and as versatile as the ammo you feed it.

 

The Need for Speed

We Americans are addicted to speed. Young men reliably covet fast, deadly cars. Young men with a death wish covet fast, deadly motorcycles. The rapidity with which we get from Point A to Point B is the space where dreams thrive or die.

That curious preoccupation with velocity obviously pervades the shooting sports. Downrange thump is a function of energy which is itself driven by this mystical synergy between mass and velocity. Those physical laws are just as relevant today as they were when a young Isaac Newton dreamt them up some three centuries ago. However, when it comes to shooting stuff, more is not necessarily better. In the world of sound-suppressed firearms, the capacity to meter that velocity becomes a critical factor. The solution is the revolutionary .300 BLK cartridge.

The .300 BLK was developed in 2009 for a group of spooky shooters in the US Special Operations Command. The mission was to create a new round that would allow the M4 chassis to shoot .30-caliber bullets that could be effectively suppressed. The end result offered unprecedented capabilities.

By loading either light or heavy bullets, the .300 BLK can produce either supersonic or subsonic muzzle velocities. Forty-two states allow private ownership of sound suppressors these days. If you shoot a lot and you don’t own a sound suppressor, you should.

A sound-suppressed weapon firing supersonic ammo makes you a better neighbor. That same gun shooting subsonic fodder renders you legit stealthy. The .300 BLK was born to be used with a sound suppressor. Now hold that thought …

 

Details

The Brawler is one seriously manly handgun. However, thanks to its Information Age materials science, it’s not ridiculously heavy. The newest Brawler weighs three pounds empty and is indeed chambered in .300 BLK.

Previous Brawlers ran .45LC/.410. Thanks to a quirky loophole in American firearms law, a handgun with a rifled barrel can legally fire .410 shotshells without any ancillary registration baggage. The resulting single-shot thunderstick offered snake-killing close-range scattergun power while retaining the option of throwing serious .45LC slugs as well. The new .300 BLK version brings comparable versatility to a sound suppressor near you.

A generous over-molded rubber grip helps keep recoil in check. The 9-inch, 6-groove barrel is rifled 1-in-8 and threaded 5/8×24. The Brawler comes with a 4-inch length of Picatinny rail for optics. The whole shebang is finished in a weather-resistant dull black.

The forend and pistol grip are nicely textured. This is a rifle cartridge firing through a handgun chassis. The neat soft rubber insert riding in the back keeps the gun friendly.

 

Accessorizing

I mounted up a Trijicon MRO red dot. MRO stands for Miniaturized Rifle Optic, and it is as good as mankind can produce. Trijicon makes the finest combat glass for the most capable military units on Planet Earth. The MRO features flawless Trijicon quality and an indestructible aluminum chassis.

The sight is fairly stupid-proof. The brightness is controlled by a manual turret. The optic will run for two years on a standard button cell if you forget and leave it activated. Zero adjustments are simple and intuitive with nothing fancier than a cartridge rim. Trijicon offers the sight with a couple of different reticle options in a couple of different hues.

This gun in this caliber simply demands a sound suppressor. I opted for the SilencerCo Scythe-Ti. This high-tech, direct-thread titanium can is lightweight and optimized for precision platforms. It is also just stupid quiet. It’s not possible to shoot the Brawler fast enough to challenge this device.

 

Trigger Time

Running the gun could not be simpler. A right-sided thumb button breaks the action open for loading. Open the gun, drop in a live round and snap it shut. Press off the crossbolt safety, thumb the manual hammer back, point the Brawler at something you dislike and squeeze. The single action trigger will ruin you to mushy striker-fired fare.

Unlike so many other guns, the only thing the trigger has to do is release the hammer. As a result, it sports trivial take-up and breaks (like a little girl’s heart) at around 4.5 pounds. The manual hammer also comes with a generous spur. The transfer bar ignition system means the gun cannot go off – even if you drop it directly on the hammer. If you can tie your own shoes, you can master the manual of arms.

You can shoot this gun offhand easily enough. However, I found it best suited to  a sandbag rest. The end result was indeed a fresh new ballistic experience.

Everything in the universe is physics. Mass times velocity in one direction will always equal mass times velocity in the other direction. That’s not just a good idea. That’s the law. However, the modest recoil impulse from the .300 BLK round combines with the soft grip on the Brawler to make this is positively delightful shooting experience.

Supersonic rounds carry plenty of horsepower to put down a whitetail-sized animal at any reasonable distance. They will, however, produce an annoying sonic crack no  matter what you hang on the muzzle. The speed of sound is 1,125 feet per second in dry air. Anything traveling faster than that magic number will create a noisy shockwave. However, subsonic rounds through the Brawler equipped with the SilencerCo Scythe-Ti are legit movie-grade quiet.

 

Ruminations

The Rossi Brawler would not be my first choice were I to face down a legion of undead ghouls marching up my little cul-de-sac. However, considering that zombies are not technically real, it is much more likely that I would need a compact gun for basic recreation and security. The Brawler would be right at home in your tacklebox or tucked securely behind the seat in your pickup truck.

Additionally, if bagging a buck with a bolt-action hunting rifle no longer seems adequately challenging, give it a whirl with the Rossi Brawler. The single-shot action will keep you honest. Fun, indestructible, accurate and weird in a good way, the .300 BLK Rossi Brawler is indeed a tire iron of a firearm.

 

About the Author

A native of the Mississippi Delta, Will Dabbs is a mechanical engineer who flew UH1H, OH58A/C, CH47D and AH1S aircraft as an Army Aviator. He has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o’clock in the morning and summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times … always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains.

After eight years in the Regular Army, Major Dabbs left the military in favor of medical school. He has delivered 60 babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. Will currently works in his own urgent care clinic, shares a business building precision rifles and sound suppressors, and has written for the gun press since 1989. He is married to his high school sweetheart, has three awesome adult children and teaches Sunday School. Turn-ons include vintage German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Count Chocula cereal and the movie “Aliens.”