The history of the round is this so far; It was developed by a Special Forces guy OUTSIDE the military command chain. He was looking for better preformance from the shorty ARs the SF guys use heavily. It is the .30 Remington ( rimless cartridge) shortened and necked down for the 6.8 bullet. This SF guy actually went to his local gun shop and bought a bag of .30 cases and began the work all by himself. He took this consept to Remington to see if a big name company could push through the red tape. So this indeed was meant as a military chambering, it was just deceloped outside the militarys standard chain of command. This is why we see poor bullet selection right now. When first introduced I think there was only 2 bullets being loaded, and both (I believe) were FMJ. Untill they can really get some good "modern" hunting bullet technology stuffed in the front you probably will continue to see poor bullet preformance. BUT thats kind of a shame. This round, at least I think,is a great fit to the contender. Initial ballisitcs report great preformance from short bbld guns (like I said above it was intended to be used in the shorty ARs.) Contender and Encore pistols should also see pretty good preformance since the m nominal 16" bbl of the ARs is not too far from the longer bbls used in the T/Cs for rifle rounds like this. But the key is, like some have been saying above, is getting better bullets in there. The general intention of Remington is to simply add this round as a special purpose substitute for the 5.56, NOT TO REPLACE IT (at least not that they will admit right now :wink: .) Wether it gets military acceptance is hit or miss. But I dont think it will fade away. Its "NEW" and new is what sells big right now.
Brian M.
