How could or should the 6.5 mm Grendel be improved?

[JASmith]

Aren’t the Barnes’ line of bullets lead free? I would think, based on the description, that the 120gr TAC-X would be comparable to the SOST/barrier blind rounds. Would that round not be a starting point for a military purposed round?

Am I off base on this?

Not completely... Designing and prototyping a new bullet is an expensive and arduous enterprise.

What we can do is note the likely ballistic coefficient and mass of the anticipated bullet and use bullets with similar exterior ballistics for preliminary testing. This would help tell us if it is worth the bother.