Grendel as a Universal Infantry Cartridge

[JASmith]

I would like to see someone design a lead core and full metal jacket 6.5 bullet with a .5 BC and who can mass produce it while maintaining quality standards.

That's why I'm very curious about how the M855 A-1 is performing. The web references indicate it has a steel insert for both a penetrator and a rather sharp nose. It's drag characteristics are claimed to be at least as good as the M855, which is a lot better than the shape factor suggested by the M80.

....favoring velocity over bullet weight for ball ammo use. That opens up another debate...

I can see good reasons why 2750 t0 2850 ft/sec at the muzzle are considered OK velocities for bullets with the M80 and M855 class of drag characteristics. Among other things the 300 meter drop increases rapidly at lower velocities and the payoff for increasing velocity gets progressively worse above this.

...I understand the requirement is set at 1100 for GP machineguns. I am questioning the rationale for that distance... ...Guys can't see that far, can't estimate the range well enough to be effective, can't even see tracer well enough at those distances to determine if they are even close...

I think you're right, we should have debates on both the preferred muzzle velocity for military-class bullets and on what constitutes effective shooting in an environment where the targets are generally concealed difficult to see.

While important to the current thread, discussing them in detail here may make tracking the key points challenging. The "6.5 and Politics of Procurement" is an example of a thread with a lot of good info, but the digressions made it so long that it is truly difficult to pull out the gems.

Cheers!
Joe