only1asterisk
member
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2003
- Messages
- 2,412
A thread for all those interested in these rounds, their development and their use.
Hopefully the guys that have more practical experience with some of these rounds will chime in. Good solid information on these rounds is hard to find. The responsible parties have been jealously guarding their “secretsâ€.
I like the Remington design. The case has about a 20-21 degree shoulder with fairly minimum body taper. The neck is good and long, but trying to load the cartridge short enough to fit within the magazine of the M16/AR15 family of rifles requires a bullet with an abrupt ogive.
The 6.5 Grendel has a case that is both shorter and wider than the 6.8 Remington. This, together with its sharp shoulder angle, represents greater difficulty in getting the cartridge to feed from the magazine. The benefits are a slight increase in case capacity and the ability to use a wider variety of projectiles.
Remington claims that the 6.8 hits 2800 fps with a 115 grain bullet. I don’t know what Remington is feeding this thing, but I find when I model the cartridge I get about 150 fps less. Maybe Remington uses a new powder or has a proprietary method of stuffing more powder in the case, but there are internet claims that Remington preproduction ammunition lives up to these numbers.
The people that push the 6.5 Grendel claim 2600 fps with a 120 grain bullet. This seems to fall right in line with cases capacity and moderate pressures in software models.
The development of the 6.8 Remington has been cloaked in pseudo-security. Getting solid information is about as easy as pulling teeth. There are claims of its use by US military units in the Middle East and other such things. True or untrue, I still like the round in theory. If the round takes off like I hope it does, it will be a major benefit users that adopt it.
I’m going to build a 6.5 Grendel. It isn’t going to be an AR, but a CZ. I don’t think the round will ever feed as well as the Remington offering, but in the single stack magazine of the CZ 527 it should feed well enough for a deer rifle. It also formable from existing brass a bit easier them the 6.8 and has the additional advantage of being available now.
But as for a fighting rifle, I have to keep my fingers crossed for the 6.8 Remington SPC.
David
Hopefully the guys that have more practical experience with some of these rounds will chime in. Good solid information on these rounds is hard to find. The responsible parties have been jealously guarding their “secretsâ€.
I like the Remington design. The case has about a 20-21 degree shoulder with fairly minimum body taper. The neck is good and long, but trying to load the cartridge short enough to fit within the magazine of the M16/AR15 family of rifles requires a bullet with an abrupt ogive.
The 6.5 Grendel has a case that is both shorter and wider than the 6.8 Remington. This, together with its sharp shoulder angle, represents greater difficulty in getting the cartridge to feed from the magazine. The benefits are a slight increase in case capacity and the ability to use a wider variety of projectiles.
Remington claims that the 6.8 hits 2800 fps with a 115 grain bullet. I don’t know what Remington is feeding this thing, but I find when I model the cartridge I get about 150 fps less. Maybe Remington uses a new powder or has a proprietary method of stuffing more powder in the case, but there are internet claims that Remington preproduction ammunition lives up to these numbers.
The people that push the 6.5 Grendel claim 2600 fps with a 120 grain bullet. This seems to fall right in line with cases capacity and moderate pressures in software models.
The development of the 6.8 Remington has been cloaked in pseudo-security. Getting solid information is about as easy as pulling teeth. There are claims of its use by US military units in the Middle East and other such things. True or untrue, I still like the round in theory. If the round takes off like I hope it does, it will be a major benefit users that adopt it.
I’m going to build a 6.5 Grendel. It isn’t going to be an AR, but a CZ. I don’t think the round will ever feed as well as the Remington offering, but in the single stack magazine of the CZ 527 it should feed well enough for a deer rifle. It also formable from existing brass a bit easier them the 6.8 and has the additional advantage of being available now.
But as for a fighting rifle, I have to keep my fingers crossed for the 6.8 Remington SPC.
David