A friend of mine from Jackson that I shoot with has a Grendel. It is superior to the 6.8, depending on the platform you're shooting. He bought an Alexander Arms complete rifle in 6.5 w/ the 16" barrel. I think he's a tad disappointed with it, since with the shorter barrel it really doesn't live up to the claims that Alexander makes for the Grendel. That said, I think the Grendel probably DOES live up to Alexander's claims when fired from the longer barreled variants.jbpmidas said:
The 6.8 is a .277 (same as .270 Winchester) bullet fired from a modified .30 Remington case; the .30 Rem. being just a rimless .30-30. Bullet weights are rather light, so you're not getting the ballistic advantage of heavy-for-caliber bullets that you can get in a lot of other calibers. Basically, considering the origin and other specifics of it's design and construction, I think of it as a suped-up .30-30 using spitzer bullets. From what I understand it's pretty much a 300 yard round as far as practical effectiveness.
The Grendel is superior when fired from a 20-24" barrel, making use of it's better ballistic capabilities due to the higher velocities generated from the longer barrels. With the 6.8 I don't know if going to a longer barrel makes a significant difference in performance, since there's only so much performance you're going to get from the light-for-caliber bullets it fires. And, keep in mind, the 6.8 was designed from the get-go to be utilized in a 14.5-16" barreled platform.
:2c:
