09-28-2023, 08:59 PM
The Grendel is generally a better deer-hunting cartridge. Hunters want a clean kill which typically needs 750-1000 ft-lbs of energy at the target. The 6mm ARC was not optimized for hunting deer, though. It just needs to disable and potentially kill a human. When NATO was looking for a PDW cartridge, they determined that a "disabling" energy could be under 100 ft-lbs, which is how the P90 supposedly had an effective range of 400m. Hornady designed the 6mm ARC to meet whatever convoluted definition was in its contract. Working backwards from what Hornady has written and what has been said in podcasts, the equation they were given values hits per weight of ammo over kinetic energy at and beyond some specified distance, likely over 600m. That is why they can claim that the 6 ARC is more lethal than 7.62x51 and the 6.5 Grendel. They admitted that they started with the Grendel, but the need to reduce drop and windage at the specified distance pushed them to 6mm.