Let’s put the 5.56 and M.16 into historical perspective. General LeMay wanted it for his ground personnel as a replacement for the M.1 Carbine. There’s an apocryphal story that he lost a group of sentries at one of the missile sites to an irritated mama Grizzly when the M.2 carbines wouldn’t handle her outraged ursine self.
At any rate, the M.16 got a look. Congress was mightily ired at the makers of the M.14 at about the same time and demanded that if the arm was adopted, it had to be adopted for all the forces as the rifle…. It was adopted.
And that’s how the M.16 came to be. Congressional folly, due to bad rifle manufacture on the part of the M.14. The cartridge is a considerable improvement over the .30 M.1 round, and the rifle as originally built is a much better arm than the M.1 or M.2 carbines were….
To get back toward the topic, the 6.8 SPC is a considerably better round than most of the others than could be fielded through the AR15 platform. I’ve shot it some, mostly out of a bolt action rifle, and it is considerably more authoritative in putting a deer down than is the 5.56. It’s very close to the old 6.5 x 51 Arisaka or the .250 Savage in terms of performance on game. As a choice for the AR platform, I’d heartily support it.
