6mm ARC: Fact or Fiction? Real Performance Results, From-Scratch Experimental Load Development

it's the question many of you who are wondering can the six ark live up to horn ADIZ published performance data that plus a preview of CMM GS and ever 320 inch ar-15 chambered and six ark all in this video [Music] Gavan you hear from ultimate realtor calm it has been a crazy last two weeks Hornady launched six millimeter arc this new cartridge for the ar-15 you could think of it as a 65 Grendel next down to six millimeter with the shoulder pushback everything's optimized for long high VC bullets it's got less recoil and more velocity this could be the best all-rounder for certain scenarios farming hunting long-range shooting the Department of Defense is evaluating this and worked on it in conjunction with Hornady for a variety of reasons I won't get into here what I wanted to do was get hands-on with this as quickly as possible and share those results with you and that's what I'm gonna do in this video just several days ago I got my hands on some pre-primed brand new Hornady six are brass I've got less than a hundred cases not a whole lot to work with I've also got the CMM G endeavour 300 this is a 20-inch barrel Premium ar-15 optimized around long range scenarios it's got a one in seven a half twist barrel which makes it I think the optimal test platform really the sweet spot for the cartridge so what we're going to cover in this video is my initial loads I have no factory ammo and no load data here I'm basically flying blind except I've got quick load I'll get to that in a moment I've worked up a few different loads and I've got some data and I know that burning question everyone is wanting the answer to is twenty-seven hundred and fifty feet per second a viable velocity with Hornby's 108 grain ldm bullet I will answer that question in this video and share some other valuable insights as well before you watch any further just know all of the load data and load specifics from this video are completely unverified and unpublished so use any of this at your own risk assume that if you use any of this information or any of this data that you're going to blow yourself up okay that's my disclaimer quickly in the video here you can read the full disclaimer in the video description do not use this load data without cross-checking it okay having said that this was my opportunity to really lean into the quick load software package more than I have ever before and I have further to go in this exercise what I wanted to do was take a similar cartridge just similar to six bark and model that in the quick load software but to make tweaks which would make it more real to life for the six-hour cartridge and so I looked at cartridges like the six AR the six Grendel and six millimeter PPC what quickload supports is different than what you'll find data for and information with online quick load had a cartridge model for six millimeter PPC and it's very similar to the six millimeter arc and that's what I started with I then put some brass on the scale I did some water case capacity tests and I tweaked the case capacity for six millimeter PPC accordingly I was looking at scenarios like what powders are people using for six PPC what are people using in six AR and I started with bargain I worked up a load and what I found with the 108 grain Horner DL Dan bullet I wanted to do all my testing around that primarily I have some 95 grain data to share with you as well but I wanted to test and validate what Hornady has published and all I've seen so far is velocity data for their 108 grain ldm factory ammo which is that twenty-seven hundred and fifty feet per second so vargas actually gave the best SD on velocity and the best accuracy the 27 grain load that I tested was basically above the publish Sammy pressure so I knew I had to be a little bit careful I worked up shot five shots across the chronograph and had an SD of 7.6 feet per second with an extreme spread of 17 feet per second for an air 15 that's really good the velocity landed at 2602 and so I thought well if it's supposed to be up near 2750 a couple things going on I'm assuming Hornady is testing with a 24 inch pressure test barrel in their test lab so there's two things there you've got more barrel lengths and you don't have the gas system on the AR subtracting some of your velocity because it takes pressure to run that di bolt back so and I found that to be about 1.15 percent that was the difference that I saw with my two 24-inch two to four Valkyries the bolt gun and the ar-15 where the ar-15 had about 1.15 percent less and so what was interesting was this was really close this was a within ten feet per second this observed velocity compared to the quick load software projection I think quickload had it slightly higher but based on a tweaked 6p PC I was I was pretty impressed with that and I got the best accuracy result from that varga load the very first five shot group that I shot after my side in this is during break-in was point six one zero inches that's point five eight zero MOA for any AR that's an absolutely outstanding result and I had mostly stringing in the vertical this is all suppressed with the Silencerco hybrid 46 cow can mind you just as a note I took the suppressor off and did a little bit of shooting it didn't really seem to do much with that and then I took a look at another obvious solution which would be age forty eight ninety five and shot a few shots each over the chronograph I had to be a little bit sparing because I only had one pound actually lesson this is an opened pound of H 4895 and what I worked up with for that showing mild pressure signs a little bit of ejector stamping on the case rim was twenty six point six screens which yielded 26:31 feet per second and I was able to get a point seven five zero inch group for five shots at a hundred yards let me show you that shooting sequence [Music] so I wanted to take all of the variables that I could out of the accuracy equation so I'm using this mystic precision bipod this skips the AR a really wide stance on the ground it's going to help counteract the torquing and the slop that you'll find inherently in an AR between the upper and the lower I installed a trigger attack AR diamonds trigger and I went so far as to single load the rounds just to rule out any cocking of the bullets adding in adding to the run-out equation for those and 0.7 MOA result I'm actually quite happy with that as well I think for this type of a rifle a semi-auto rifle that's really good accuracy and I got good velocity and then my second bullet that I tested with was the Berger 95 Greene classic hunter and this time I used TAC Ram shot TAC TAC is right next to H 4895 it's a ball powder whereas H 4895 is a short stick powder and again with all of these I modeled these in the quick load software I'll go on to an analysis after I go over these initial results the velocity data was really amazing with the TAC and the 95 grain Berger classic hunters I saw 2861 feet per second with a 95 grain bullet that is absolutely cooking I've only shot two groups with it and it looks like I need to do some load work up with that bullet and that powder combination because my groups were a little over an inch about an inch and a quarter now again with the ar-15 you have to really use a different shooting technique and you have to work a lot harder to get those smaller groups anything really under an inch is really good so I'll have to reserve judgment on that bullet and ram shot tac powder as a combination do a little bit more load work up again this stuff takes a lot of time what I would like to do as well is use the RAM shot with the heavier bullets to see how that would work as because it might squeeze a little bit more velocity out of this 28 inch air 15 with those hundred and eight grand ldm bullets only time will tell so based on that I want to walk you through some quick load analysis to talk about whether or not I feel like that 27 50 fps number is real and accurate let's do that next so typical engineer fashion I've done a complete workup of the modeling that I did in the quick load software the real-world results that I saw with this 20 inch ar-15 and how feasible this quantity 20 750 feet per second number is so I'm gonna go through all of the specs real quick once again firearm CMM G endeavor 320 inch barrel one in seven and a half twists bullet Harned a hundred and eight grain eld m which is what they've published their data with the case was one time fired one X fired Hornady six arc factory brass the powder was H 4895 which i think is probably what their factory ammunition would be using something similar to that at least the powder charge was twenty six point six grains this is overpressure again do not use this load data primer was a CCI PR for benchrest primer and the cartridge overall length was two point two six zero inches I loaded it to magazine length so that I could avoid pressure issues and push the velocities to the maximum safe limits so the quick load velocity for this 20-inch barrel setup was twenty six forty the quick load pressure was 61 for 34 again I'm not saying that this load data is something that you should use you should not the observed velocity was 26 31 so we only had nine feet per second difference between what I calculated with the quick load software using a modified 6mm PPC cartridge and what I actually saw with the chronograph that is really amazing and the approximate bolt action if we add one point one eight percent to the velocity would be twenty six sixty one point two so that would be a velocity that would actually be over what quickload calculated because quick low does not take into account the gas system on the AR the quick load velocity if I extrapolate that for twenty four inches is 27:33 that's straight out of the quick load program so the quick load delta from twenty to twenty-four inches is estimating ninety three feet per second that you're gonna pick up for that four inches of additional barrel length so the estimated real-world velocity for a 24-inch ar-15 would be twenty seven twenty four point zero feet per second and if we add that one point one eight percent back taking away the gas system assuming we've got a 24 inch bolt action rifle which is a feasible thing to publish performance data for the estimated twenty four-inch real-world bolt action velocity would be twenty seven fifty four point two six feet per second so six arc performance data fact or fiction I'm gonna call this one fact and also note that I did not see excessive pressure signs that were concerning and this ammunition functioned well I had a couple stovepipes over the course of my testing but the factory version of this rifle is actually going to come with an adjustable gas block this does not have this this is an early production unit so I'm guessing with some tweaks that was you know with the suppressor I'm guessing that that would definitely not be an issue and it's possible that these velocities could be pushed even further with more powder experimentation this Ram shot TAC for instance for your own gun taking your own safety dick question you can work up a load that's likely gonna exceed the performance that Hornady published but only time will tell I like to base everything on my own first-hand experiences which is what I've done here so what's next a couple things first I'm gonna have an in-depth overview of this CMM G endeavor 320 inch six arc ar-15 they've also got a resolute model that's available this is the one that I'm gonna focus on we're going to take it out to greater distances we're gonna evaluate its performance in greater detail and go over all the speeds and feeds facts and figures I'm also gonna do more load development and take a look at what does the performance look like at 600 yards at 800 yards what would the velocity be and what would the trajectory be at a thousand yards thousand yards maybe beyond what the practical usable range would be for this particular cartridge but I know that that's something that people are wondering also I'm planning possible additional content I'd really like to build a bolt-action rifle I'd like to see just how accurate this cartridge can be can't do that without a precision bolt-action rifle if you saw my 6 - err rifle I recently built that was shooting down in the zeros I'd like to be able to take things from an equipment perspective to that level and hopefully that gives some of you that have been complaining about my high-end content a little bit of insights into why I use high-end laboratory instruments and why I'm obsessing on these precision rifles it's if you really want to evaluate something a powder the performance potential of a particular cartridge bullets you want to take as many of those other variables out of the equation taking the shooter out of the equation and taking unnecessary rifle variables out of the equation that's my true passion is to boil all these elements down and to give you all better data than you'll find anywhere else my question for you a couple questions is a what do you think of the results that I've gotten so far is that what you're expecting is it better or is it worse would you use a different powder please drop us a comment and we'll a discussion second what else would you like to see in the Sears drop a comment and we'll discuss that as well don't forget I've got a lot more related content coming up so you're gonna want to subscribe with notifications if you like this video please give it a thumbs up also at the ultimate remoter store I've got the ultimate reloader shirts I'm on patreon there's also a link in the video description to a more in-depth full article thank you for watching until next time happy shooting and happy reloading [Music]

Channel: gavintoobe

Views: 65,573

Rating: 4.928349 out of 5

Keywords: 224 Valkyrie, 300 PRC, 6 ARC, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 PRC, 6mm ARC, 6mm ARC Load DAta, 6mm Creedmoor, CMMG AR-15, CMMG Endeavor, CMMG Resolute, Hornady, Long Range AR-15, New Rifle Cartridge, Precision AR-15, QuickDesign Software, QuickLoad Software, Reloading, Reloading 6mm ARC, Reloading Blog, Reloading Press, Reloading Videos, Shooting 6mm ARC, Ultimate Reloader, 6mm ARC Load Development, 6mm ARC 2750 fps

Id: i1o_NPfxTUc

Length: 17min 17sec (1037 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Trollygag]

This is a great resource