I ponder one of these uppers from time to time but wonder about component availability.

I would go to www.68forums.com. It's the best place to find out about the 6.8.

It's good, but the Remington brass uses a large primer, most others are small primer. Not a big issue, just something to be aware of.

6.8/.270 bullets are available, brass is coming back regularly on Midway and other sites. Gunbroker has once-fired brass about every week now.

Saudi Arabia is buying TONS of it right now, that might be affecting supplies.

It was rumored that Remington's use of the large primer caused pressure issues. Did that rumor ever hold water?

No. When Murray, Holland and Lawton started testing they found that they could push a 115gr bullet to apx 2800fps from a 24" barrel.
Remington agreed to make the brass for the project...for a short time.
Somewhere along the line Remington submitted a bad chamber spec to SAAMI. That spec had a .050 freebore on it. The barrels Murray (AMU) tested was a 10 twist 4 groove Douglas barrel with a .100 freebore. That barrel had a less than 50:50 L-G ratio. When Remington and others started making barrels they used the same buttons used to make the old 270 Remington barrels that were 10 twist 6 groove with a 50:50 L-G ratio. Those barrels created more pressure. Then when the military came back and told Remington they must keep the pressure of the loaded ammo under 55kpsi at 115 degrees Remington had to reduce the charges. The Remington loads produced apx 2450fps from a 16" which was lousy.
Several people and companies got involved and changed the usable chamber spec back to the original(SAAMI spec still shows the wrong freebore length) .100 freebore and started producing barrels that had a bore area that matched or beat the original Douglas 4 groove barrels. Between the extra freebore and high performance barrels the pressure was reduced. Common velocity for a 115gr is 2550-2600 from a 16" barrel unless you use Remington ammo which is still made or the old spec and produces apx 2450fps.

Don't see a point with .300BLK gaining popularity.

The 6.8 produces a lot more power than a 300blk. The BLK is slower than the 7.62x39 with bullets of the same weight.

Perhaps. When would you rather have a 6.8 than a 5.56, .300BLK, or .308, though?

For the price, just doesn't appeal at all, to me. If you want a special snowflake cartridge, I'd go 6.5.

In northern Virginia, 6.8 is popular and still hard to find on the shelf local. Still seeing some folks here grabbing what is available and stockpiling.

I was in Idaho for the first two weeks of October, 6.8 was on the shelf and discounted. Talking to a couple of older gun shops in the area, the buzz is along the lines that the 6.8 has lost steam with the shooters wanting longer range and heavier bullets in the Northwest.

The 110-115 grain bullet idea is what keeps me thinking of it. Just to cast a heavier bullet at times is useful if it is accurate. In my opinion the 300 BO is was really a suppressor cartridge, but aggressively marketed to do it all in order to get market share. Bill Wilson realized this early on and offers a slower twisted barrel for his 30 caliber supersonic hunting cartridge.

Same thoughts here...

I have several of all of them except the 300blk because I don't need a special snowflake cartridge. Everyone of those you listed does a better job at long range or target than the 300blk. All but the 5.56 works better on game and the 5.56 may work better there too with the TSX. The 6.8 is a lot better CQB rifle than the blk is. The only thing the 300blk does better than any of them is shoot subsonic loads. Suppressors aren't movie quite and I don't go the range to spray the area so I have no use for the blk, but that's my choice.

Also in agreement.

If the Blackout had really anything else to offer, it would have become popular back in 1991-92 when J.D. Jones first developed it as the 300 Whisper. Simply put, suppressors are more readily available today and legal in many more states than they were in 1992.

One can do everything a .300blk can do with a 6.8, but a .300blk can't do everything a 6.8 can do.

Unless your sole use is for suppression, a 6.8 is probably a better choice.

As to the OP's question, brass for the 6.8 is out there, one just has to look hard just like the .223.

I recently bought 1000 once fire Federal 6.8 brass from LWRC for a great deal.

Bullets are everywhere. I have had no problem finding 6.8 bullets, especially Nosler who seems to have blems available all the time.

hope your 6.8 federal brass isn't as soft as the 308 federal crap on the market.

I like the SRP brass by SSA, but hard to find. Foactory ammo seems the best way to get SSA 6.8 brass. A Local shop has remington with LRP and Hornady with SRP. I bought the hornady and paid $15 more for it. Some remington once fired seems to shoot lower than the SSA brass with the same load.

Haven't heard of any issues with Fed 308 brass, their FC 223 brass is junk but the 308 was at one time good to go.

What issues did you have?

I bought the Federal for practice rounds. I have a decent supply of SSA and Remington brass otherwise.

The difference in POI between the Rem and SSA is more than likely the different primers, moreso than brass.

I've compared a few loads between SSA and Remington and have seen little difference, but none of these were hot loads where the slight difference in case capacity might play more of a role.

partial and complete head separations while other brands experience no problems with the same load

lose primer pockets with loads well under max. after 2-3loads you could seat the primers with your thumb.

I'm not the only one who has had these issues, and they have happened in more than one gun I load for. All my loads go thru Wilson cartridge gauges so headscape/sizing is not the issue. Search the web and google 308 brass issues and you'll see many complaints

I once had a failure so bad with a federal 308 case, that it welded it's self to the bolt face of my Remington model 7. It broke the bolt face and ejector requiring me to send the gun back to Remington for repair. They also requested the ammo I was using when the incident occurred. Once they fixed the gun by replacing the bolt and shipping it back to me they told me the problem occurred because of the federal cases and I should contact federal to see about the repair cost to my gun. Since then I scrap all federal 308 brass.

Well that's more than enough. I quit Federal after using their 223 brass and losing primers. But I've always heard their 308 was better. Glad I stuck with Winchester and Lapua.

Ive been shooting match federal once fired 308 stuff since about 1989. Some of mine is not all that new either, IE might not have anything much newer than about 1998 or so.

But for all that I have, and knowing that FC is junk in 223, I've yet to have any problem with 308 FC brass that I have. Some of it has over 10 warm loads of 185 bergers in it for my bolt gun.

FWIW it did not hold up to the M1As beating the brass up as good as LC did, but it never was an issue with loose pockets, seperations and such.

Typically a case head seperation is the brass is being sized way too much and then fired and sized again. Simply that the size die is not set for that individual guns chamber.

Loose primer pockets are either high pressure or soft brass.

It's not my sizing of the cases, I use case gauges and NO OTHER MAKE of brass has the issues in the same guns.

Remington told me the cases were the reason for the catastrophic failure I had.

The issue has happened in multiple guns, with multiple powders and charges, and multiple bullet weights and styles.

I've been loading for awhile now and in over 30yrs the only issues I've ever had was with federal cases, and I'm not the only one.


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