I have LOTS of experience with the 6.8. I and 7 friends of mine have used them for hunting in Montana, Wyoming, Michigan Idaho and Nevada for the last 6 years.
I have only a little experience with the 6.5. I have only built 2 of them and only one of the two has been hunted with my the man I made it for. He lives in Montana and owns 3 ARs I made for him, a 5.56, a 6.8 and a 6.5 Grendel. That 6.5 is a super good shooter, but he has said to me that the 6.8 kills have been better then his 6.5 (he's killed only 2 deer and one antelope with the 6.5. The 8 of us mentioned above have 70 kills now total made with the 6.8s)
It seems "Glock" is correct,--- the bullets that are used in the 6.5 are not as good as the 6.8 bullets for KILLING, but they are better for flight and targets. Not that the 6.5 is bad, but from about 350 yards and back the 6.8 kills better.
Here is a wound made by me with my 6.8 on a Wyoming Antelope. That's my fist in the pic. The 6.8 works VERY well and is VERY deadly.
If someone would bring out a 120 gr. 6.8 bullet that would not come apart, but that would also expand well, I think the 6.5 would be equal to the 6.8, but so far, it's not working out as well.
The Speer and the Remington 120 grain bullets should work wonderfully, but my man in Montana says they are not as good as the .277" 110 grain Sierra, the 100 grain Remington, and the 110 grain Barnes in the 6.8.
Hornady brought out some red plastic tipped 110 grain .277s a few years back and I tried them along with my friend Cas. They were not very good. They were erratic and didn't perform well on game even though they were SUPER accurate,. Some came apart and a few seemed to act like solids. So just shooting a 6.8 is not going to be magic either. There are some bullets in the .277" size that are not very good either.
It's good to ask those that have used the calibers and avoid making the same mistakes they did.
A normal man learns from his own mistakes
A wise man learns from the failures of others.
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