From The NRA’s American Rifleman, by Jeff Johnson, Field Editor, Nov, 2020
Hornady’s new 6mm ARC was designed for a specific military requirement; the 108-gr. ELD (l.) makes for an excellent long-range target round, while the 103-gr. ELD-X hunting load (shown here) penetrated nearly 18″ into 10 percent ballistic gelatin. The U.S. military is good at recognizing specific needs based on firsthand lessons gleaned from an evolving battlefield. But civilian small arms, optics and gear makers are the experts when it comes to engineering and delivering the goods. Take, for example, a few years ago when the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) challenged the gun industry to produce a lightweight rifle cartridge capable of delivering a 50 percent hit ratio on man-size engagements at 2,000 yds.
Only a few years prior, this seemingly impossible task was the exclusive territory of the world’s largest shoulder-fired cartridges such as the .50 BMG, .408 CheyTac and .338 Lapua Mag.—whose huge projectiles had adequate exterior ballistics to provide this type of downrange energy. Such behemoths are not conducive to individual soldiers, however, because the guns and ammunition are prohibitively heavy and costly, their recoil/muzzle blast is punishing, and accuracy, well, could be better.
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