An Army outgunned, early article pushing the Grendel

[LRRPF52]

LR beat me to it on the 6.8 NGSW, but speaking of the 6mm SAW, I have a gut feeling there's still some interest in the concept in the form of the new 6mm ARC.

I say this cuz recently I've gotten interesting orders for my 6.5 Grendel/6mm ARC UltraBolt from product development types at influential national brands in the AR space, and my feeling is they're continuing to test 6ARC either behind the scenes for the military or simply for an increased presence in the commercial market.

Bill A. always said that if he had it to do over again, he would have given the Grendel case just a touch more length, not necessarily to increase velocity but to better control powders and burn rates and pressures. Well, I personally think a little increased velocity wouldn't hurt, and would recommend FN's .264 LICC as a candidate to do what we've been talking about here — if anyone's asking me.

If you use the same metallurgy that LMT (Enhanced Bolt), FN (SCAR-H bolt), POF (Revolution/Rogue), and Ruger (SFAR) did with AR-15 sized bolts for larger cartridges, any worries about bolt longevity would be erased. The extension will have to be made from the same alloy though if people are pushing the pressures.

In the late 1950s, Army Ordnance sent Stoner on a bit of a wild goose chase once his AR-15 out-performed the M-14 at Benning and Fort Greeley, Alaska. Up until that time, they didn’t see it as a threat and more of just a space-age novelty.

They had him reacting to new cartridge configurations based on .25 Remington, then kept moving the specs around to keep him busy, while they rapidly pushed for fielding the M-14 and getting contracts for large rifle orders for the Army. Even though the circles they had him chasing were meant to do just that, the concepts were in the right direction for a multi-purpsoe assault rifle/LMG/DMR cartridge, at the slight sacrifice of weight and reduced load-carrying capacity/round count.

The .264 LICC uses a .473” case head diameter, which means SR-25 magazine width, but shorter COL. From the soldier’s load standpoint, that means pouches and round count won’t be that much different than an SR-25. Especially with armor, your magazine volumetric considerations have to be taken into account. It’s already hard enough to find space for 5.56 mags when wearing plates, even with just a plate carrier, no soft armor. Regular units are forced to wear the whole shebang with a soft armor/plate combo ensemble that is unforgiving of larger magazine size, especially width.

This is why I think a .441” case head diameter max limit is important to bake into the case configuration, and also keep the COL limited to 2.500” for the larger cartridge meant for DMs and LMGs. That cartridge should not be issued to most of the Infantrymen though. They need a Micro High Performance Carbine with even smaller magazines than the current STANAG 5.56x45mm ones.