6.5 Grendel versus 6mm ARC for whitetail

[LRRPF52]

Personally 6.5mm is as small as I care to go and that only with good Bullets.
Everyone’s preference is their own. When I first started deer hunting I found heart/lung shot deer seemed to run further when shot with 243 or 6mm Remington.
When we stepped up to 270 Winchester & larger their death runs were shorter. No absolutes - my experience at the time.
Cover is very thick where I hunt. A longer run makes it much harder to find & recover the game.

Your experience mimics the South Carolina deer hunting survey.

.243 Winchester and 6mm Rem seemed to have longer travel distances from the shot compared to .270 Win, 7mm, and .30 bores.

They have pretty small deer down there too.

If I were more of a varmint hunter who also shot deer in rifle season in a State with small deer and I relied on ammo from handloads, I think I might lean on the 6mm ARC or some 6mm AR Grendel wildcat.

If I didn’t hand load and deer sizes were larger, I would definitely go 6.5 Grendel and not look back. Shoot one of the lead-free bullets in lighter weight with good expansion, or shoot 120-130gr cup and core bullets like the Hornady 129gr SP, 123gr SST, 120gr Nosler BT, 129gr SST, 129gr ABLR for deer.

You can look through the game surveys we’ve done here over the years to see what bullet weight and travel distances from the shot hunters have experienced with 6.5 Grendel. Most deer are DRT or drop within the first 25yds. Most common bullet has been the 123gr SST.

For the South Georgia region, if you do varmint-hunting throughout the year with deer season hunting in addition to that, the 18” or 20” Grendel makes sense for the varmints, and is more than plenty for the deer. Spit out an 85gr Sierra Varminter at 2900-2996fps, 90gr TNT at 2880fps, or a 95gr V-MAX at 2850fps for the little critters, then switch to a larger bullet for deer for the meat.

The varmint bullets work very well on killing hogs though, since Grendel velocities are more moderate compared to the larger case capacities that would cause them to fragment more explosively.

Lots of choices, most of which our ancestors would think were some kind of super rifles compared to what they had.