6.5 Grendel shares powder selection with .308 Win and .223 Rem. You would be hard-pressed to find another cartridge for the AR-15 that has as good of powder options.I would not. In fact I sold mine for this reason.
The fact is the 6.5G does not have enough ass to be able to push high BC bullets fast enough. So you will either need to run lower bc bullets faster or 130 class slow. Forget the 144/153s. So you are essentially losing out on pretty much all the good 6.5 projos with the exception of the 130 berger AR hybrid. The powder choices arent great and the good shit is hard to find.
6 ARC will push a 105/109 hybrid right under 2800fps. It will have less recoil, higher BC, shoot flatter, have better wind deflection and much greater first round hit out past 800. You can also use better powders suited to the burn rate with 6 arc that are easier to find.
The 6 ARC has made the 6.5G obsolete IMO. Its just a much more efficient round when you look at the entire package.
A 24” 6mm AR bolt gun will push 105-109gr around 2800-2850fps. A 24” AR is more like 2750 on the top end. If you want speed from the 6mm, you need to go to the 6mm AR Turbo with 40˚ shoulder and a longer 25-28” barrel. I’ve been shooting and spotting for both Grendel and the 6mms dating back to 2009 for Grendel, and the early 20teens for the 6mm AR.
A 24” 6.5 Grendel will push the 130gr RDF at 2500fps and a 107gr SMK to 2870fps. They both (6mm and 6.5mm) hit 1 mil of wind drift at around 550yds in the lower altitude bands, 625yds at 4400ft, and 675yds at 6300ft (all at 60˚ temps). Both are supersonic past 1200yds at sea level-500ft lowland atmospheric densities. That includes the 107gr 6.5 SMK using G7 data.
Here is Hodgdon’s new data for 6.5 Grendel with CFE223 under the 107gr SMK, constraint to 2.250” COL from a 24” pipe:
CFE 223 | 2.250" | 29.3 | 2,489 | 37,200 PSI | 32.2C | 2,740 | 47,500 PSI |
Here’s the 100gr Nosler Partition data:
CFE 223 | 2.240" | 29.5 | 2,625 | 39,800 PSI | 32.9 | 2,873 | 49,500 PSI |
You can increase the COL to 2.275” with the 107gr SMK, get another .5gr in there, and still be at relatively-low chamber pressure with excellent performance. Even at 2740fps, you hit 1 mil of wind drift at 525yds, just like a 109gr Hornady ELD-M 6mm. The 109gr ELD-M has .1 Mil wind advantage at 800yds over the 6.5 107 SMK.
The advantage to the 6mm 103-109gr class of bullets is 130gr 6.5-like BCs, but with minimal sight picture disturbance when not using a muzzle brake. The disadvantage to the 6mms is that even though on paper they retain their momentum well, you don’t hear it or see much evidence of it in the scope past 500yds. They are very anemic at distance in terms of audible and visible impact, and this is even true with 6mm Dasher or any of the 6 BR and 6-08 variants (.243, 6mm CM, 6x47-all of which I have shot or spotted for over the past 15 years). There just isn’t enough fontal area to produce impressive impact on steel.
You really have to get into the 123gr 6.5mm and above for that. I had plans to do a 6mm all these years because of how pleasant the shooting experience is with 6mm Grendels, but once I started shooting 107gr and 110gr 6.5mm more on-target, I realized the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze for me. The BC on the 107gr SMK 6.5 is a bit higher than Sierra states, especially when you look at Litz and real-world.
I like 6mm AR/6mm ARC, but there will never be 124 factor loads for the cartridge. To say a cartridge with 3 or 4 factory loads for it will make one with 124 factor loads (and steadily growing) obsolete doesn’t compute.
I will say that for competition, you’re faced with the light recoil and tight sight picture vs ROs maybe not catching some of your hits. You can legitimately make your hits at distance and an RO won’t see it in certain conditions. As long as competitions keep the plates closer (a trend that has been that way in PRS/NRL for years now because of 6mm anemic performance), you probably are better off with the 6mm. If you like shooting some of the longer distances and actually want to see and hear the impacts, the 123gr-130gr 6.5mms are noticeably-more satisfying across the course on steel.
.25 cal would have been a better choice for what people are looking for with higher BC in the PPC/Grendel case, but it’s .007” difference than .264”, so it would be duplicating a lot of existing performance, and the magazine well limits of the AR-15 don’t allow proper projectile placement with the new class of high BC .257 bullets.
Short story: If you put a souped-up 6mm AR Turbo spitting 110gr next to a Grendel shooting 123gr or 130gr, the 6mm shooter will envy the downrange feedback that the 6.5s deliver, and the 6.5 shooter will appreciate the light recoil of the 6mm, which he can also have by shooting 105-110gr with similar performance out to 800, both of which are still supersonic past 1200yds. The Grendel just does it with 4,000psi less chamber pressure. Barrel life is more in the 8,000-23,000 rounds range, depending on steel hardness.
A little update to 105-115gr class projectiles in 6.5 Grendel would erase any advantages to the 6mm, and they are splitting hairs already right now.