Grendelizer
Member
Tony Williams writes: "This is all fine and well, but how many soldiers fire their rifles at 1,000 yards?
The vast majority of fire-fights with rifles are within 300 yards. That's what the 6.8mm has been optimised for. I strongly suspect that the practical difference between the 6.5 and 6.8mm at up to that range isn't significant.
Yes, the superior ballistics of the 6.5 are nice to have in an MG or a sniper rifle, but if you need to reach out to 1,000 yards you're surely reaching for a .338 or a .50, or calling for some mortar support."
Tony, everything you say, as quoted above, is true, and thus it would appear to weaken my argument. However, let me use yet a third analogy to make my point: Let's say a car dealer is having a sale on Mercedes, and you can now buy a Mercedes for the price of a Volkswagen. Which would you choose? The Volkswagen is the 6.8 SPC, and the Mercedes is the 6.5 Grendel. The cost is the same, and yet one gives extra performance at NO EXTRA penalty. So why not? Even if you only drive to the corner and back most of the time, why not have the extra performance in case you'd like to go motoring on the open road? This extra performance comes at NO EXTRA cost! Both the 6.8 and the 6.5 are fired from the same platform! Why purposely choose the lesser when you DON'T HAVE TO?
And, yes, my argument is strongly dependent on my proposition that the 6.5 Grendel be a unified military cartridge, issued not only for assault rifles, but also for your SAWs and designated marksman/light sniper rigs. The very fact that the 5.56 is already used, in practice, as a unified cartridge for these three roles, only reinforces my contention that any round replacing the 5.56 should also be the one that BEST fills all three roles.
The 6.8 is, absent any competition, a wonderful step up from the 5.56. But the fact is, the 6.5 Grendel exists. I just don't get why some who claim to be neutral and open-minded, are, in practice, doggedly defending the 6.8. Is it the caliber? Is it that you must have a new round in 6.8 or nothing? Would it help if someone created a 6.8 Grendel, in other words, a 6.8 x 39 Improved PPC with a 130-grain bullet? Is that one-third of a millimeter really that important to you to give up huge ballistic advantages?
I can only see two reasons for this: Either (1) Technical, or (2) emotional.
(1) Technical.
a) You say the 6.8 has been optimized (sorry, American spelling! ;-) for fire-fights within 300 yards. I still don't understand exactly how it is, and exactly how the 6.5 isn't. Again, it can't be the bullet, because we can put any bullet in any cartridge. It can't be the caliber, because even if the one-third millimeter larger caliber is an advantage, it's also an advantage throughout its range, and isn't an advantage solely related to being optimized for 300 yards.
b) It can't be the slightly smaller shoulder, because if that aids in feeding reliability at 300 yards, it also aids in feeding reliability at 600 yards, so it doesn't represent specific optimization. (Further, I do not, without solid test results, grant you any quarter in feeding reliability over the 6.5.)
c) It can't be its faster initial velocity, because if you argue that a faster initial velocity helps it fragment better than the 6.5, I can create a bullet that fragments just as well within the 6.5's velocity envelope. And besides, the 6.5 passes the 6.8 in velocity already at 100 yards, even though it starts out 100 fps slower.
I can't see any technical reason why someone would prefer the 6.8.
So your attachment to the 6.8 must be (2) Emotional. Perhaps because you think it might be adopted by SOCOM, thus you feel that the 6.8 is somehow more "cool," that it has a certain cachet. Well, suppose you got yourself an admittedly inferior cartridge just because you thought it would be adopted and then --- oops! --- it wasn't. Then you'd be doubly bitter that, not only was it not adopted, but now you're stuck with a lackluster cartridge. Even if the 6.5 Grendel is not adopted, at least it stands on its own merits and will provide much satisfying shooting from 0-1000 yards, from the AR platform.
I wish Dr. Gary Roberts or Cris Murray were here to tell us exactly how the 6.8 is optimized for 300 yards and how, somehow, the 6.5 Grendel isn't. It boggles me.
John
The vast majority of fire-fights with rifles are within 300 yards. That's what the 6.8mm has been optimised for. I strongly suspect that the practical difference between the 6.5 and 6.8mm at up to that range isn't significant.
Yes, the superior ballistics of the 6.5 are nice to have in an MG or a sniper rifle, but if you need to reach out to 1,000 yards you're surely reaching for a .338 or a .50, or calling for some mortar support."
Tony, everything you say, as quoted above, is true, and thus it would appear to weaken my argument. However, let me use yet a third analogy to make my point: Let's say a car dealer is having a sale on Mercedes, and you can now buy a Mercedes for the price of a Volkswagen. Which would you choose? The Volkswagen is the 6.8 SPC, and the Mercedes is the 6.5 Grendel. The cost is the same, and yet one gives extra performance at NO EXTRA penalty. So why not? Even if you only drive to the corner and back most of the time, why not have the extra performance in case you'd like to go motoring on the open road? This extra performance comes at NO EXTRA cost! Both the 6.8 and the 6.5 are fired from the same platform! Why purposely choose the lesser when you DON'T HAVE TO?
And, yes, my argument is strongly dependent on my proposition that the 6.5 Grendel be a unified military cartridge, issued not only for assault rifles, but also for your SAWs and designated marksman/light sniper rigs. The very fact that the 5.56 is already used, in practice, as a unified cartridge for these three roles, only reinforces my contention that any round replacing the 5.56 should also be the one that BEST fills all three roles.
The 6.8 is, absent any competition, a wonderful step up from the 5.56. But the fact is, the 6.5 Grendel exists. I just don't get why some who claim to be neutral and open-minded, are, in practice, doggedly defending the 6.8. Is it the caliber? Is it that you must have a new round in 6.8 or nothing? Would it help if someone created a 6.8 Grendel, in other words, a 6.8 x 39 Improved PPC with a 130-grain bullet? Is that one-third of a millimeter really that important to you to give up huge ballistic advantages?
I can only see two reasons for this: Either (1) Technical, or (2) emotional.
(1) Technical.
a) You say the 6.8 has been optimized (sorry, American spelling! ;-) for fire-fights within 300 yards. I still don't understand exactly how it is, and exactly how the 6.5 isn't. Again, it can't be the bullet, because we can put any bullet in any cartridge. It can't be the caliber, because even if the one-third millimeter larger caliber is an advantage, it's also an advantage throughout its range, and isn't an advantage solely related to being optimized for 300 yards.
b) It can't be the slightly smaller shoulder, because if that aids in feeding reliability at 300 yards, it also aids in feeding reliability at 600 yards, so it doesn't represent specific optimization. (Further, I do not, without solid test results, grant you any quarter in feeding reliability over the 6.5.)
c) It can't be its faster initial velocity, because if you argue that a faster initial velocity helps it fragment better than the 6.5, I can create a bullet that fragments just as well within the 6.5's velocity envelope. And besides, the 6.5 passes the 6.8 in velocity already at 100 yards, even though it starts out 100 fps slower.
I can't see any technical reason why someone would prefer the 6.8.
So your attachment to the 6.8 must be (2) Emotional. Perhaps because you think it might be adopted by SOCOM, thus you feel that the 6.8 is somehow more "cool," that it has a certain cachet. Well, suppose you got yourself an admittedly inferior cartridge just because you thought it would be adopted and then --- oops! --- it wasn't. Then you'd be doubly bitter that, not only was it not adopted, but now you're stuck with a lackluster cartridge. Even if the 6.5 Grendel is not adopted, at least it stands on its own merits and will provide much satisfying shooting from 0-1000 yards, from the AR platform.
I wish Dr. Gary Roberts or Cris Murray were here to tell us exactly how the 6.8 is optimized for 300 yards and how, somehow, the 6.5 Grendel isn't. It boggles me.
John
