salty
Member
The 115 gr. OTM in Remington case #34 CCI primer and 26.5 grains of Varget is a good starting load for those looking to break in a new barrel. Varget is very similar to H4895 and just a bit slower than H335.
Or you can do what the British did with the .303" Mk VII Ball (the standard round in both world wars) and fill the front part of the jacket with light alloy rather than lead. Worked very well, apparently.The only way to cause the Grendel to have a rapid tumble is to increase the weight of the bullet in the rear so that as the bullet loses spin stability it will turn over so that the heavier rear leads. You can do this by incorporating a hollow tip, but that is MUCH more expensive to manufacture and is not Hague Convention legal.
Weren't several of their tests also with longer barreled bolt guns with the 6.5 loaded to higher pressures?Alexander Arms is pretty good at publishing tests that are hevily slanted to show the superiority of 6.5 to rounds like the 308.
Or you can do what the British did with the .303" Mk VII Ball (the standard round in both world wars) and fill the front part of the jacket with light alloy rather than lead. Worked very well, apparently.
If you're just looking for a military assault rifle/LMG round, I agree that the 6.8mm looks fine. The advantage of the 6.5 (provided that you use a suitable, fast-tumbling bullet design) is that you can match the 6.8 in short-range effectiveness plus get close enough to the 7.62x51's long-range performance to replace that too - so you need only one family of weapons rather than two.
I accept that the case shape of the Grendel has been seriously constrained by the maximum length limit, and is not ideal for a military round. But when the next generation of small arms comes along, they will probably be using plastic cased or caseless telescoped ammo, and that will be the opportunity to consider one rifle/MG round with a calibre and ballistics similar to those of the Grendel.
Let me put it a different way - it is more likely to happen than the adoption of another metal-cased rifle/MG round. If the army were ever to propose a conventional replacement for the 5.56mm and/or 7.62mm (whether it's a 6.8mm, 6.5mm, whatever), they would never get it past the bean counters because they would never be able to show big enough advantages to justify the huge cost of a changeover.As far as caseless ammo goes, I'll believe it when I see it. The metallic cartridge has too many advantages to it that would be lost if caseless propellant is used. The metallic cartridge acts as a heat sink which takes heat away from the weapon during ejection, it protects the propellant more effectively in a hot chamber, it is more durable, it keeps the propellant more protected from the elements, and it swells and seals the chamber from escaping gases during ignition. All of these advantages would be lost for only the advantage of weight reduction.......likely not going to happen.
those bullets can be classified as "open tip match" bullets, i thought they let that slide since there are reports of the sierra 77 gr being used in the current conflicts. not sure if that is true or not but if it is, then i would think the 6.5 OTM bullets would be legal too...
"Just in case anyone missed it, I will repeat myself: It appears that both 6.5 mm Grendel and 6.8 mm SPC offer similar outstanding terminal performance in 14.5-16” barrels that is FAR superior to any 5.56 mm loads. I'll be very happy with either one."
For the sake of comparison here are some of my favorite pics from Gary Roberts site.
Make mine a .308 but I'd feel confident holding either a 6.5 or 6.8.
Edit: The 6.8 SPC bullet in the first test photo is not the JAG approved OTM. Also note that Gary calls it an AMAX bullet. I've always laughed at this as any reloader can tell you that Hornady only makes a 110 VMAX. Apparently it's ok to shoot a bad guy with a tipped target bullet but not a tipped varmint bullet. See how both sides of the 6.8/6.5 debate shade things thier way a bit?