Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 270AR SPR (New AR-15 cartridge coming this fall)

Ar15performace.com is working on a new cartridge for the AR-15 platform that promises to deliver game changing performance. If your thinking that sounds like a 6.8SPC think again. The 270AR will deliver at 200FPS more velocity from any barrel length compared to 6.8SPC. That 200FPS boost pretty much over comes the advantage that the 6.5 Grendel has in long range over the 6.8SPC. In other words this new cartridge will threaten the argument for getting either cartridge. Not that the 6.8SPC and 6.5 Grendel shops will pack up and go home this is a wildcat cartridge and will only be for home hand loaders.

Hand loaders should be able to load from 85gr to 140gr bullets making the cartridge applicable for varmints to medium sized game such a hogs, deer, antelope and caribou. I would expect some of the more adventurous to go after Elk with 140gr Berger VLD's. I don't have velocities for a 140 gr but even if we assume 2700FPS which is a low estimate we are in the big game range for Elk according to HITS. I know many traditional hunters think a .270 is to small for Elk but many Elk have been taken with a .270. Chuck Hawks tackles this subject here saying the 270 is adequate in his opinion but acknowledge's many hunters consider it an ideal caliber. The 270AR though is not an equivalent to a 270 bolt. As much as the 270AR has on the 6.8SPC the 270 bolt has on the 270AR. Still expect to hear Elk stories in the future from 270AR hunters.

The parent brass will be 6.5 Lapua or 6.5 Creedmore. The 6.5 Lapua is the preferred brass because its thinner and will hold more powder. The 6.5 Creedmore will maybe have a 50 FPS drop in performance from the Lapua due to less powder capacity according to the designers estimates. Hand loaders will take these parent brass cases and cut them down and reshape them using a modified 6.5 lapua reshaping die. No complicated fire forming required. This process will be very similar to what hand loaders are doing now with 5.56mm brass to make it 300 Blk brass.

From a 18in barrel the Hornady 120gr SST is going at 2860FPS and the 130g Berger VLD is getting around 2800FPS from a 20in barrel. The designer estimates that a 110gr bullet should be at or close to 3000FPS. Typically a 6.5mm Grendel max powder capacity is around 29gr compared to around 39gr of powder for the 270AR. This added push out the barrel makes up for the higher BC that the 6.5mm enjoys giving the 270AR much lower drops over long distance shooting. I put together a chart to compare the Grendel to the 270AR shooting 130gr bullets. I couldn't find numbers of a 6.8SPC for the 130gr to do a comparison for this gr size. Be mindful of the barrel length in this comparison because the Grendel has a 4 in barrel length advantage in this data. Read more at the the parent thread over at the 6.8SPC forum. ar15performance.com will be selling the barrels and bolt combos for 400 bucks.