03-31-2021, 02:34 PM
I don't care about optimal powder burns and which caliber best utilizes its potential in whatever barrel length. I care about downrange performance. That either begins with your intended range, or your intended barrel size. If you're working within a specific intended target range, you can select your caliber and corresponding barrel length to give you the terminal performance that you need. With most hunting bullets with a minimum expansion velocity of 1600-1800 FPS, that means you can use 6.5 Grendel for hunting medium sized game down to around the 10-12 inch barrel range if your target is <350 yards give or take. Even with a 16 inch barrel, .300 Blk is a 200 yard deer gun, at best.
If you start with barrel length and work forward, you can see if your target range will fall within your intended use or not, which of course, all depends on your muzzle velocity. From what we've seen in super sonic loads, 6.5 Grendel is always matching or beating .300 Blk in the same bullet weights at the same barrel lengths. That just means that the 6.5mm bullets with the better BC's are going to quickly outpace those .30 caliber bullets, giving you better down range performance both ballistically when it comes to wind drift and drop, and terminally when it comes to energy and expansion. So you can say that Grendel will never outperform .300 Blk, but that's just not true unless you put some qualifiers as "in subs/supressed" or "equivalent powder loads".
So if we're just talking about what can they actually do at the muzzle, either with equivalent factory ammo OR whatever handload you got for max velocity, 6.5 Grr will always match or beat .300 Blk, which means that the high BC bullets are just always leaving the 30 cal ones behind... so you'll always get better range and better terminal impacts at the same range when comparing them.
Now don't get me wrong, .300 Blk is an excellent caliber. For suppressed use its phenomenal. It uses more standard .223 AR parts and mags, that's a pain in the ass with building a 6.5 Grr. It handles subsonic loads more easily than other calibers. It's a potent medium game cartridge out to about 150-200 yards. It's probably the most popular AR cartridge next to .223, meaning you've got a wider selection of factory ammo and barrels to choose from. But to say "You aren't going to outperform the 300BO with shorty 6.5 Grendel." that's just not true. Yeah it may make a big fireball but if by performance we actually mean downrange performance... 6.5 Grendel all day.
If you start with barrel length and work forward, you can see if your target range will fall within your intended use or not, which of course, all depends on your muzzle velocity. From what we've seen in super sonic loads, 6.5 Grendel is always matching or beating .300 Blk in the same bullet weights at the same barrel lengths. That just means that the 6.5mm bullets with the better BC's are going to quickly outpace those .30 caliber bullets, giving you better down range performance both ballistically when it comes to wind drift and drop, and terminally when it comes to energy and expansion. So you can say that Grendel will never outperform .300 Blk, but that's just not true unless you put some qualifiers as "in subs/supressed" or "equivalent powder loads".
So if we're just talking about what can they actually do at the muzzle, either with equivalent factory ammo OR whatever handload you got for max velocity, 6.5 Grr will always match or beat .300 Blk, which means that the high BC bullets are just always leaving the 30 cal ones behind... so you'll always get better range and better terminal impacts at the same range when comparing them.
Now don't get me wrong, .300 Blk is an excellent caliber. For suppressed use its phenomenal. It uses more standard .223 AR parts and mags, that's a pain in the ass with building a 6.5 Grr. It handles subsonic loads more easily than other calibers. It's a potent medium game cartridge out to about 150-200 yards. It's probably the most popular AR cartridge next to .223, meaning you've got a wider selection of factory ammo and barrels to choose from. But to say "You aren't going to outperform the 300BO with shorty 6.5 Grendel." that's just not true. Yeah it may make a big fireball but if by performance we actually mean downrange performance... 6.5 Grendel all day.