I know that 6.5cm outperforms the 308 win basllistically and is the go-to for professional shooters. However, in a tactical/combat situation, is the 308 still superior and that is why none of the military units are using 6.5? Or is it just that 6.5cm isn't accepted by the military and that is the only reason? I am just wondering if its so superior then why are no LE/MIL agencies using it?

Not trolling, just cant find any tactical applications of 6.5cm.

Thanks.

I think the biggest reason is availability. 308 or 7.62x51mm is a NATO round and used everywhere. If SHTF there's plenty of ammo to feed the guns. While 6.5mm is a much smaller market and harder to find ammo. Guns are useless without ammo.

I totally understand that but military snipers use 300 Win Mag and 50 cal and those are not NATO rounds that are available everywhere. 5.56 is also not something you're going to find in Russia or other NPE's.

As a non tactical guy who just pays attention and shoots a lot of 6.5 for fun: For shooting people in "tactical" situations the .308 does what needs to be done good enough that its not worth the hassle for the people who do that stuff to change. If they are going to change they move to something besides a short action caliber. Police snipers don't take long shots where the 6.5 is going to make any difference and military is its own beast with procurement and logistics driving things more than one caliber being a few mils flatter past a certain point.

Juice just isnt worth the squeeze for anyone but small units/depts with the freedom and budget to play around. Seems some people in the military have been playing with the .260 but nothing on a big scale.

As stated above. I read somewhere that sone units had rebarreled a few rifles In 260 to pick taliban at longer ranges.

Would love to read the results somewhere but haven't found anything.

Military I would imagine is mostly logistic, and they have all sorts of other tools that they can use. 

LE it really has no advantage.  I can't remember what the average LE engagement distance is for an LE sniper, but it was close enough 308  make perfect sense.

Barrier penetration requirements will keep tactical bullets heavier than simple trajectory requires.

I am running 308 now and like it. I am going to do another custom build and can't decide if I should go 338 lapua or 300 win mag. Too many options nowadays...

Probably neither.

Why is that?

338 is awesome for long range shooting. But ammo isn't cheap for it. 300 win mag is still pretty good for long range and ammo is a bit cheaper. But yeah both are good if you want to go further than what a 308 can do. 

*sigh*

.300 win mag is in the US system, and part of why the Army maintained long action bolt guns. .50 bmg IS a NATO round it uses the NATO designation of 12.7x99 NATO. 

6.5 isn't used because it's none of those and the buy in is deep on 7.62 and the current trend is on hotter ammo that will perform better at 1500+ yards. 

6.5 is great, but the juice isn't worth the squeeze changing the entire pipeline over 7.62. It's the same issue as 6.8 vs 5.56.  The biggest benefits are on paper not where the rubber meets the road. 

No need for either for banging steel or punching paper,  300WM is particularly antiquated.  338 is pointless without more extended ranges.  My next build is going to be a 300 Norma Mag and that will be more of a 1000 and well beyond rifle. 

Yeah I agree, I never said it was for steel/paper though.

Yeah I just cant see the 6.5cm being something I would like. It is hard to ignore ballistics though. I was just wondering how 6.5cm would compete against 308 in a tactical/combat situation or if its been tested/used.

What does "tactical/combat" mean to you? It means many things to many people, all different. I'm sure it's been examined by many but as stated the gov has such stockpiles of 7.62 that it won't change anytime soon.

And why wouldn't you like a 6.5 Creedmoor round? Are you actively taking out bad guys or trying to shoot through barriers in your daily job? If you are you're probably mandated to use a gov caliber like the 7.62. If not I don't really see what you're arguing here.

Look at energy tables on a 143 gr 6.5 round going 2750-2800 fps vs a 175 SMK going 2600-2650 fps. The energy on the target at various distances is what you should be examining

I am not arguing anything. People shouldn't speculate what or why a person wants something. I specifically asked if the 6.5cm is being used in a tactical setting, if not, why not, etc. This thread wasn't started so people can tell each other what to buy or for what reasons. Simple as that. Stay on topic and all is good.

I was researching and couldn't find any uses of 6.5cm being used in combat/tactical so I was asking, hence the thread. Combat/Tactical is pretty straightforward to me.

.260s have been used in combat, but good luck finding info on them.

So would you agree that round choice doesn't matter as much as people make it out to because 90%+ of rounds end up in dirt not meat? 

Not sure how my post was getting off topic or what I was speculating, but to each his own I suppose lol

And you just sort of reasoned yourself out of your own argument (when I said argument, I mean what you're presenting here in the topic as in the law term, not verbal conflict as you took it). Combat/tactical is not "pretty straight forward" to military units. It could be CQB, shooting 100-600 yards, extreme long range, etc in a variety of settings. That's why I asked you what combat/tactical setting you are referring to. If you'd state the intended use we'd be much more beneficial to the thread in talking why or why not a 6.5 CM would be used in YOUR combat/tactical situation.

Is that too hard to ask?

And FYI: you specifically asked "I was just wondering how 6.5cm would compete against 308 in a tactical/combat situation" when you quoted MadCap72, thus why you need to define what is combat/tactical, what ranges, what targets, what barriers to defeat, etc in order for us to describe how it'd compete against a 308

Read my OP:



That is pretty straightforward. Looking for tactical/combat applications of 6.5CM being used or actual research as to why the military/LE isnt using the caliber currently.

I did define it, I asked for situations that are tactical/combat where 6.5CM is being used. Not that hard to interpret :)

Oops. Internet double tap.

Guess you can't read your own post quoting Madcap72...lol

Here it is for ya...

So you in fact asked two different questions: 1) is the 6.5CM used in combat situations and 2) how would it compete in those situations against a 308

I tried addressing question 2 by asking you what the scenario is so accurate comparisons can be made

I'm not debating you, but don't attempt to be cute and take me for being unable to comprehend the questions that are clearly asked...

The juice isn't worth the squeeze in a logistic setting and 7.62 does what the mil needs it to do.

Heck, .308 does what I need it to do and it is so prevalent and easier to find which is why I will never change from it.

I concur. I love a dialed in 6.5CM with a nice optic...but it'll never replace the 308, at least not likely in our lifetimes

Exactly, and the original question was never answered or really addressed. There are technically a million different combat situations and my question clearly was directed towards ANY.

Nice deflection. So you ask a question, then ask another question but get pissy when people try to get info to help clearly answer your second question?

That's funny

Best of luck in your comparison. It's again going to come down to energy, but you seem to not being able to comprehend that

Not a deflection at all. I said in the OP I understand ballistically its better, was looking for uses of it in combat. Not sure how that is deflection but ok. Have a good one.

The 6.5X55 Swede was in military service from 1894-1995.  Seems like quite a history of tactical use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6.5%C3%9755mm

I appreciate that, but I was hoping for more US military/LE tactical/combat use. They also took that round out of use it looks like in 1999. Thanks for the link, I am going to look into it further that is quite interesting.

But then when one looks for it, it's no where to be found easily. 

Here's some ballistic tests of the Grendel.

Here

A 308 puts a bigger hole in the target than a 6.5mm while the modern 6.5s have better ballistics than a 308.

The military buys (a good fraction of) a billion 308 rounds per year.
a) the military has very few 6.5 guns and loads and loads of 308 guns (7.62 really)
b) the military supply chain is not geared up to make (a good fraction of) a billion 6.5 rounds
c) the stockpile consists of 308 rounds not 6.5 rounds.
d) most 308 use is at a range where the advantage of the 6.5 would not be realized.

Maybe next war preparation cycle.

I would think a 6.5 Creedmoor would outperform a 308 in a tactical situation. First off the foot pounds of energy from both is very similar to about 400 yards but after that the 6.5 starts leaving the 308 behind. At 1000 yards with my ballistic data a 6.5 Creedmoor has about 250 ft lbs more energy then a 308. So now at further distances you have less drop less wind drift and more foot pounds of energy. The 6.5 bullets have a high sectional density which means it penetrates well. The 6.5 stays supersonic to further ranges. It does all this with less recoil which can be important when spotting your own shots.  There are some more reasons I think the 6.5 is better but ultimately it comes down to you'll get more hits on target especially at further ranges and in windy conditions. These things in my opinion make it better then a 308 in a tactical situation.

Which kind of tactical situation? 70m shots like cops take? 400m shots like Soldiers take in Iraq? 1400m shots like sometimes happen in AFG?

308 has better energy up to 500 yards. After that, 6.5 creedmoor does better. Most folks don't even shoot up to 500 yards. But for those who need to go beyond, the 6.5 makes sense. I enjoy shooting my 308. Will never sell it. Tried 6.5 creedmoor but sold it for a bigger thumper beyond 1000 yards, 338 Lapua Magnum!

Ogive length and impact speed of 6.5mm-08 class of cartridges meets and exceeds terminal performance of .308 with the same projectile construction.

Benefits of 6.5-08 type cartridge are realized from inside the pouch before they even exit the muzzle, from which point they exceed the 7.62x51 M118LR sniper load from the muzzle on out, aside from energy, which it surpasses at 275yds.

There is only one drawback for metallic cartridges in the 6.5-08 class compared to 7.62x51 NATO M118LR, and that is barrel life in our sniper training courses and during our Sniper Sustainment training at the unit level, which is often a lot less than you would think in units with poor leadership-something the military is an expert at providing to young patriots.

6.5-08 class cartridges give you 190gr SMK-like performance from the .300 Win Mag, out of an M110 that you can still fight with in the close fight during movement to and from your opportunities for long shots.

If you stay within the AR15/SPR/M4A1 SOPMOD Block II frame and use 6.5 Grendel, you get trajectory that is like M118LR, with half the recoil and less wind drift, way more rounds in your mags and pouches, and increased barrel life over the .308, in a much lighter gun that handles like an M4 or SPR.

In a sniper section, it would make a lot of sense to have 6.5 Grendel SPRs and .260 Rem or 6.5CM M110s.

We never requisitioned ammo for the guns other than sniper-specific loads in the DODIC anyway, so the logistics issue is mostly a moot point and such a small portion of the overall ammunition distribution, that nobody but snipers and their leaders would ever notice a change.

In addition to all of these benefits, we would immediately realize a measurable increase in 1st-round hit probability and substantial increase in effective range, over-matching the SVD and PKM threat systems, which is what I am most concerned about in the dismounted and even mounted fight in many cases.

There are 2 other added benefits that are best left for internal military analysis and discussion that the 7.62 NATO can't address adequately at distance, that 6.5mm does extremely well.

If I was structuring the weapons availability for my ideal Sniper Section, it would include these systems in the arms room:

M4A3 SOPMOD 6.5 Grendel available to every man

Small Frame 6.5-08 class SR25 like rifles available for every Team (1 for every 2 snipers)

6.5mm LSAT LMGs

ELR systems I won't go into here

These changes would be noticeable, especially considering that even the 18" 6.5 Grendel is still stable with predictable POI out to 1200yds.

That's a little AR you can fight with and carry around easily all day, unlike the SR25 and M110, which are pigs.

The 6.5-08 with certain bullets can be effective out to 2000yds, especially the projectile construction that the Army has already gone to with M855A1 and M80A1.

When you use that approach in the 6.5mm, the BC is insane even for a 122gr projectile, close to .7 G1.