Replies

Glad I could provide some additional info,

The website you found is mine. I occasionally do a search for my own domain name and see where people are linking from and found your posting here.

The 6.5 PPC in an AR15 project you read about really had to with having a vision of something and taking a leap of faith. The original 6.5 PPC itself is not new since it was one of the original developments of the Palmisano and Pindell when they created the PPC cartridge family way back when.

Alexander Arms had been thinking of the concept on their own and through some twist of fate, our path's collided and I was happy to share what I had done with them. The evolution of the vision (s) has become the 6.5 Grendel which will improve on the 6.5 PPC performance.

With the buzz about the 6.8x43 cartridge, people are trying to make comparisons between the two. In some respects, the rounds can be compared, but in reality, I consider the 6.5 Grendel to be a ballistic twin of the 7.62 NATO (.308 WInchester). If you compare a .308 168 gr HPBT to a 6.5mm 108 gr HPBT, you will find they are almost ballistically identical. The 6.5mm 123 gr HPBT is a ballistic twin of various .308 185 gr HPBT bullets. However, in the 6.5 Grendel, velocity runs 100-200 fps higher then the 7.62 NATO for comparable ballistics bullets.

Only differences between the 7.62 NATO and 6.5 Grendel are recoil and terminal energy. The 6.5 Grendel has less recoil then the 7.62 NATO and the recoil of the 7.62 NATO has been and still is one of the issues of this round in military rifles. The 7.62 NATO does have more terminal energy due to greater bullet mass, but the increased terminal energy comes at a cost of higher recoil and increased weight of rifles and ammo. Of course, the really edge of the 6.5 Grendel is it is a drop in swap in an AR15 or M16 and doesnt require a different platform to operate.

Since this thread is really about XM8, the 6.5 Grendel can be used in any rifle with 5.56 NATO magazine dimensions just like the 6.8x43 can. Real question when comparing the two will be, would you rather have a 115 grain HPBT with a .352 BC at 2650 fps or a 108 grain HPBT with a .473 BC at 2650 fps in a 16 inch barrel rifle? Of course, in the 6.5mm, you can also crank up the ballistics going to a 123 grain or 128 grain bullet and still operate from the magazine... In contrast, using bullet data direct from Sierra, their 6.8mm 135 grain HPBT would have a minimum cartridge length of 2.475" which wont fit an AR15/M16 magazine and the bullet still doesnt equal the 6.5mm 123 grain ballistics.

The search for a better mousetrap continues....