The fact that the 6.5mm Grendel came out in 2002, and the 6.8 is a rather new round also, added to the fact that a lot of thought went into these rounds specificly taking into mind a replacement of the 5.56mm as the main NATO round, and trying to find that middle ground between the 5.56mm and the 308cal means that anybody seriously thinking that the 5.56mm still is superior to either of these should think again.
It is obvious that only the large ammount of money and time that would go into replacing the current 5.56mm is the only reason why NATO armies arent already going for a 'six mm'.
And if indeed people want to keep their existing M-16s, that's why the 6.8mm was designed in the first place! One can re-bore a 5.56mm AR-15 into a 6.8, or just change the barrel, and even the magazine can be changed from 5.56mm to 6.8mm with minimal work.
So, there is no really huge work to change into 6.8mm...
I gather that the 6.5Grendel is slightly superior of the two '6mm' contenders, but it's clear that these two represent the most logical step for upgrading the NATO standard...
A guy shot a record 30mm group from 600 meters with 6.5mm grendels... Also, it has design roots in penetrating medium body armour and still inflicting damage at a reasonable distance in it's research...
I'm shure that the US special forces had similar tests when they were designing the 6.8mm too...
I myself would go for the Grendel, but the 6.8mm would make NATO troops at the hot end of the debate happier too I'm shure!
ps,
This guys site is quite convincing!
" Ruck, I'm not clear about what you're saying. Are you saying that the 6.5 Grendel happens to work OK with "regular" 5.56 mags, or that the 6.5 Grendel was intended to work with regular AR mags?
Just to make sure nobody gets the wrong idea: the 6.5 Grendel is intended to run ONLY on 6.5 Grendel-specific magazines because the case body is fat, like 7.62x39 Russian. C-Products makes them for Alexander Arms.
For more information, please see my website: 6.5 Grendel.
John
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6.5 Grendel: The State-of-the-Art Combat Cartridge ".
Take a look!
This wikipedia site is also very informative, it has a link to their 6.8mm page too... I'll put some graphs I downloaded from the wikipedia site (and a pic of a Grendel sniper rifle). Enjoy!
HERE IS A CHART FROM WIKIPEDIA
I did not make this chart myself, and find it somewhat strange that it claims that the 5.56mmNATO has more punch than the 7.62x39mm (AK-47) at 300 meters! I mean everybody knows that at distance an AK-47 can punch through more concrete or a thicker tree than the 5.56mm...
But, maybe I dont understand the graph, so...?
Still, pretty interesting if it is objective...