-
Having trouble using the site?
Contact support
6.5 Gendel or 6mm ARC..... which?
- Thread starter BIg_John
- Start date
Target?
Hunting?
Bench?
Loaner rifle?
Kids rifle?
What's the purpose?
Hunting?
Bench?
Loaner rifle?
Kids rifle?
What's the purpose?
The 6 ARC will give you better accuracy, longer barrel life, more bullet choices, and is just as effective in making the kill at further distances. That is why I leaned towards the ARC. The Grendel is a fine rifle as well, but if doing a bolt action I would say the ARC is a better candidate.
Actually, the barrel life is shorter.
Not shorter enough to bother factoring it into the equation.
I can't imagine one being quantifiably more accurate than the other either. My 6.5 Grendel is pretty accurate.
The ARC has a very good barrel life, it rivals the .223. It is said that the ARC will get 10,000 rounds plus out of a barrel. I have one with 4000 rounds through it with no real signs of wear or erosion, fire cracking.
People say that about a whole bunch of chamberings. They are full of shit too.
Buy the one you can get ammo for and know you made the right choice. If there is an intrinsic accuracy difference, most shooters won’t be able to shoot the difference. Over the life of a barrel, you’ll spend an order of magnitude more money on ammunition ( regardless of the choice).
Barrel life. A barrel can “look good” and shoot like crap. A barrel can look like crap and shoot well. Some guys will have a barrel go from 1/2 to 3/4 moa and call it shot out. Others are happy with sub moa, or sub 2 moa. Barrel life claims are all over the place because there is no agreement on the meaning of ”shot out.” I mean everyone can agree that a barrel with no rifling left, and that throws fliers into the next county is shot out.
6MM arc burns the same amount of powder through a smaller hole than the 6.5 Grendel. Its not going to have remarkably better barrel life than the Grendel.
That first picture looks like the angel cut at the lead. Would be about as impressive at 4k rounds, as the gas port erosion.
Get both. I did and anyone claiming one is more accurate than the other needs to stop reading ads in Guns and Ammo. 6mm anything will never have better barrel life than an equivalent 6.5mm, not sure why we would need to argue about that.
6.5 Gr barrel life is really good, probably up there with .223 and .308. I don't see any possibility that a 6 ARC would have better barrel life than a 6.5 Gr all else being equal.
A 6.5 Gr will also not be any more or less inherently accurate that a 6 ARC and the bullet choices are essentially equal, though of different weights.
Purpose should drive your decision. If you're more interested in hunting with it, I think 6.5. If target would be more useful, I'd run the 6.
IMO both are good, because both are basically the same thing. Similar powder charge, pressures, projectile form factors. All else being equal, the ARC with it's smaller bore should have higher chamber pressures, which would usually indicate faster throat erosion. Neither round may be hot enough in the end to make this argument worth having. You could drive both harder in the bolt, and both would benefit from that somewhat over the 52k limit in the DI platforms.
I'd maybe build a long-throated Grendel in a bolt. 2.400ish OAL opens a ton of new bullet seating possibilities, and being able to run it at higher bolt gun pressure too? Lots of additional potential, low recoil, long barrel life, down range performance, but shorter brass life.
The ARC holds the edge atm for on the shelf factory ammo, because Hornady is hell bent on supporting "their" 6mm Grendel, and are pumping it's proprietary caliber harder, for now. Understandably. I wouldn't hesitate to hunt with their "Match" ARC ammo, either. You could always build a 6ARTurbo and buy ARC ammo and just fire form... (Don't do this. But you could...?)
I don't think there's enough difference in real world terms to decide one way or the other. Which one do you want to run?
Personally if I was going to run a bolt 6mm, especially in the 30-ish grain capacity, I'd run a BR/A/X and easy mode it. If I wanted more speed, I'd run GT or Creed, or even 243Rem. If I was doing a 6.5mm bolt, I think I'd be too tempted to move up to a larger case. There's just so much more potential available in the longer heavier bullets moving faster. x47/.260/even x55 for the old school appeal...
It would be fun to see a 6.5GT. It could be like AMC in their hay-day. We could even use their naming system - call it the '65GTM, for #GayTigerMagnum... It could have a rainbow colored, Javelin-esque hot rod on the box with a stylized GTM badge on the hood and rear quarters. Then, next year we could bump the shoulder angle and make GTA. Then GTX. (I think we're on to something here, guys. Somebody needs to get George on the horn)
IMO both are good, because both are basically the same thing. Similar powder charge, pressures, projectile form factors. All else being equal, the ARC with it's smaller bore should have higher chamber pressures, which would usually indicate faster throat erosion. Neither round may be hot enough in the end to make this argument worth having. You could drive both harder in the bolt, and both would benefit from that somewhat over the 52k limit in the DI platforms.
I'd maybe build a long-throated Grendel in a bolt. 2.400ish OAL opens a ton of new bullet seating possibilities, and being able to run it at higher bolt gun pressure too? Lots of additional potential, low recoil, long barrel life, down range performance, but shorter brass life.
The ARC holds the edge atm for on the shelf factory ammo, because Hornady is hell bent on supporting "their" 6mm Grendel, and are pumping it's proprietary caliber harder, for now. Understandably. I wouldn't hesitate to hunt with their "Match" ARC ammo, either. You could always build a 6ARTurbo and buy ARC ammo and just fire form... (Don't do this. But you could...?)
I don't think there's enough difference in real world terms to decide one way or the other. Which one do you want to run?
Personally if I was going to run a bolt 6mm, especially in the 30-ish grain capacity, I'd run a BR/A/X and easy mode it. If I wanted more speed, I'd run GT or Creed, or even 243Rem. If I was doing a 6.5mm bolt, I think I'd be too tempted to move up to a larger case. There's just so much more potential available in the longer heavier bullets moving faster. x47/.260/even x55 for the old school appeal...
It would be fun to see a 6.5GT. It could be like AMC in their hay-day. We could even use their naming system - call it the '65GTM, for #GayTigerMagnum... It could have a rainbow colored, Javelin-esque hot rod on the box with a stylized GTM badge on the hood and rear quarters. Then, next year we could bump the shoulder angle and make GTA. Then GTX. (I think we're on to something here, guys. Somebody needs to get George on the horn)
Ok... decision made. I just couldn't get my head around a couple of points to buy the 6 ARC.....
1. I have 500 rounds of 6.5 Grendel Ammo
2. The Grendel case is larger than the 6 ARC.
3. I have the option to shoot .7 BC bullets in the Grendel
The last 48 hours I have searched everywhere for a 6.5 Grendel gun... Ended up finding one local and pulled the trigger.....
Howa 1500, 22" 1-8 twist barrel
DIAMONDBACK TACTICAL 4-16X44 FFP
Honestly, I sure wanted the Savage 110 Switchback, but wanted the Grendel more.
I have a 6.5 PRC..... so have the Grendel's.... very , bigger... big brother.
............
Hornady has a 147 gr, .698 and a 153gr, .704....
I'm will single feed, so not worried about fitting in a mag.
Betting I can get 2,300fps with the 153 and if so.... it is still running 1,000 fps at 2,000 yards at my range at 5,000 feet elevation.
........
I'm will single feed, so not worried about fitting in a mag.
Betting I can get 2,300fps with the 153 and if so.... it is still running 1,000 fps at 2,000 yards at my range at 5,000 feet elevation.
........
You can only seat them out as far as that factory barrel will let you… will it be enough? I dont think you could push them fast enough, unless you had a custom barrel made.
I'm on my 3rd Grendel AR-15. It Kills Antelope really well when driven correctly.
The last batch of Hornady Black ammo I purchased was sub 10 FPS SD over my chrono.
The last batch of Hornady Black ammo I purchased was sub 10 FPS SD over my chrono.
Berger has the 153.5's and Barnes 145 Match Burner is also a great underdog at a good price. Badlands 135 though... is best, although an arm and a leg. (I'm not running a Grendel, thinking about one for a gas gun, have a SAUM Imp for bolt)
I ran a .205" freebore 6.5 Grendel reamer once just to see if the 153gr class bullets had a fighting chance and with like 1 or 2 powders you could safely get 2400-2450fps in a 28" barrel... However, everything about it was a fight. You could see vapor trail very well, and splash was definitely better than the 6 ARC, but that was the only real benefit. Equal MV ES attributed to like .1-.2 mils worth of elevation more than the ARC at 1000yd just because the trajectory was more rainbowed. Fun little project but the ARC was much easier to achieve medium/long range performance.
