New 6mm Advanced Rifle Cartridge

thanks for the heads up. I've heard mixed things about Satern barrels. Some people love them others think they are trash, but that pretty much applies to anything these days lol

Highpower shooters loved them for years. If I recall, they offered a left hand twist .224 that got some attention due to how it recoiled offhand, but I could be confusing this with another brand.
 
I think Satern tends to make barrels with short gas systems. Like 18" grendels with mid gas. Not for me. I beleive there were also two diffrent qualities of barrels sold under that name. The 18" grendel midgas satern barrel I had was ok. MOAish.

You always have to remeber lots of people not only can't shoot, but couldn't find their ass with both hands.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: WeR0206
Seems like all the 6arc crew is in this thread, good.

Got some Hornady black label and a 6mm "0.241" mandrel coming in today.
Do any of you know what the difference between Hornady 105g bthp and their Aeromatch 105g bullets is.

Aeromatch supposedly is small batch and same lott, good.
Bur their verbage about the ogive is confusing.

As I understand it their legacy 105g bthp is secant ogive and the Aeromatch is tangent or hybrid?

Local store is out of both.
 
Seems like all the 6arc crew is in this thread, good.

Got some Hornady black label and a 6mm "0.241" mandrel coming in today.
Do any of you know what the difference between Hornady 105g bthp and their Aeromatch 105g bullets is.

Aeromatch supposedly is small batch and same lott, good.
Bur their verbage about the ogive is confusing.

As I understand it their legacy 105g bthp is secant ogive and the Aeromatch is tangent or hybrid?

Local store is out of both.
I could be wrong, but I think their aeromatch 105 is supposed to be a clone of the berger 105 target which is a hybrid ogive and yes the 105 bthp is secant
 
I just got the Hornady blk 6arc delivered. Yup secant ogive and no damn surprise doesn't fit well in my brand new Lee seating stem.

Plunk check was perfect and also chambered a little tight on my uncleaned new barrel using finger pressure on back of bcg. No scratches upon slow manual extraction.

Now to get my hands on an Aeromatch 105g
 
  • Like
Reactions: flogxal and WeR0206
thanks for the heads up. I've heard mixed things about Satern barrels. Some people love them others think they are trash, but that pretty much applies to anything these days lol
Mine shot great for about 1200 rounds and now it’s starting to double group and do all kinds of weird stuff. Shoot one 10 shot group in one are. Cool it off come back and the next 10 shots go like 6 inches to the right of the other group. Very odd.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WeR0206
Mine shot great for about 1200 rounds and now it’s starting to double group and do all kinds of weird stuff. Shoot one 10 shot group in one are. Cool it off come back and the next 10 shots go like 6 inches to the right of the other group. Very odd.

This may sound obvious, but change to a known good optic/mount. I’ve seen this and it was a lens changing parallax that had to be repaired.

And if you haven’t, scope the throat for a carbon ring.
 
I had a Leopold scope shooting nothing but 223 unknowingly have the erector blow up for no apparent reason or abuse.

Cost me a deer and embarrassment on a 200 yard chip shot.

Something loose, worn but changing to another scope and mount is a quick way to narrow the field like @FatBoy said.
 
I quit Leupold long ago. Not because I’ve broken one, but I RSO at the local range 5-6 days a year, and shoot in the off hours a lot.

I’ve seen enough people complain about broken leupold, or not holding zero, or turrets that don’t repeat/tract. Even the high end Leupold scopes.

I’d rather not have to pay $1500+ to have a decent hunting scope that tracks true and returns to zero, when Arken and Athlon and others make scopes under $600 that track true.

Flame suit on, but the Philippines and China are giving Oregon a run for their money value wise.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WeR0206
iwfX7yG.jpg


X-Caliber 14.5" 4140 barrel, HBAR profile, VG6 brake (P&W), Aero bolt, BCM BLEM upper, PSA lower, G S3G trigger, MI drop-in handguards, Vudu 5-25x.
yeah, not free-floated, heresy, blasphemy! Therefore HBAR.
Geissele, E-Lander, ASC mags.
 
Last edited:
This may sound obvious, but change to a known good optic/mount. I’ve seen this and it was a lens changing parallax that had to be repaired.

And if you haven’t, scope the throat for a carbon ring.
It’s the barrel. I tried 3 different scopes and switched them. Nightforces all worked fine on the other guns.

Checked for a carbon ring after cleaning and nothing was present. Took it back out and shot another 200 rounds with similar results. I’ve just had bad luck with cheaper 6ARC barrels. The Odin I had was abysmal. The satern was a laser beam. Factory ammo and Handloads. Gonna try it one last time with 108’s tomorrow. I didn’t get the cut rifled one though I should specify I got it through Grendel Hunter but it is a satern barrel. It probably has close to 3k on it because even though it wasn’t tight grouping it didn’t stop me from hitting IPSC’s out to 1100 yards. Getting great ES and SD still with my 27.5 tac 108 ELDM Ruag greenfire primer load. I loaded the next load right at mag length of 2.295 COAL. We will see how it does tomorrow. X caliber bull barrel is next in the chute.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FatBoy
It’s the barrel. I tried 3 different scopes and switched them. Nightforces all worked fine on the other guns.

Checked for a carbon ring after cleaning and nothing was present. Took it back out and shot another 200 rounds with similar results. I’ve just had bad luck with cheaper 6ARC barrels. The Odin I had was abysmal. The satern was a laser beam. Factory ammo and Handloads. Gonna try it one last time with 108’s tomorrow. I didn’t get the cut rifled one though I should specify I got it through Grendel Hunter but it is a satern barrel. It probably has close to 3k on it because even though it wasn’t tight grouping it didn’t stop me from hitting IPSC’s out to 1100 yards. Getting great ES and SD still with my 27.5 tac 108 ELDM Ruag greenfire primer load. I loaded the next load right at mag length of 2.295 COAL. We will see how it does tomorrow. X caliber bull barrel is next in the chute.
What mags are you using?
 
Ballistic-X-Export-2025-09-20 12:33:19.053999.jpg
IMG_5071.jpeg

Decent first outing with a new Geissele 18” Stratomatch 6ARC. Shooting factory Hornady 108s at 2550fps average. No issues with 15rd ASC mags. Ejected at 3 o’clock with a 7.62 RC2 suppressor without an adjustable gas block, and locked back every time. An old timer snagged my brass, so I have no idea what the casings looked like.
 
Anyone ever get a 6 ARC barrel chambered for the type 1 bolt instead of the type 2? I feel like the type 2 should be the standard. I ask b/c I just got a 16" MLGS 416R 6 ARC barrel delivered by Blackhole Weaponry and when I checked the headspace it easily failed the 1.200" SAAMI Field gauge. I tried with another bolt and it also easily failed the field gauge.

I emailed them and they wrote back saying "barrels are set to a type one bolt using a 7.62x39 for the 6arc" which I was a little surprised to hear. I don't think there was a drop down on their website for which bolt type you want the barrel chambered for so they defaulted to type 1. Now I have to mail it back so they can swap it for a type 2 barrel (I want to maintain cross compatibility with my other 6 ARC upper). Frustrating but oh well, I can now use this time to re-assemble my 18" 6 arc upper with the PVA osprey barrel.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: Snuby642
I don't know if the Hornady app data has had a recent change, or if their load/velocity table entry for Staball Match has been way wrong for a while, but they baited me into trying some of their STBM loads by showing them as the same velocity as the top CFE223 and LVR loads. The bad part is that I've loaded all three powders in a few different cartridges enough to know they were smoking crack on the STB/LVR equivalency, but I loaded some up to try anyway.

Screenshot_20251001-211234~2.jpg


Screenshot_20250930-220553~2.jpg


But of course it was nonsense and the real world STBM velocities were a solid 200+ fps behind LVR in the same barrel. I have a hard time understanding how something this far off gets published.

Screenshot_20251001-071705~2.jpg


Screenshot_20251001-063033~2.jpg


Screenshot_20251001-063104~2.jpg
 
Last edited:
Trying to get Hornady app downloaded and functional.
Something wrong with verification or server.

Anyway I have a handful of hard facts, and some thoughts on going forward.

Factory black old school hornady 105 match loads were very soft shooting in my 24 inch Faxon barrel, in fact looked like they would group soon on new barrel..

Lets just consider all these measurements as nominal, I have rounded them off for examples.
but just in case there are any trolls looking for something to bitch about, I use tool steel as calibration blocks, these are ground to 0.0000, +/- 0.0001 . But I'm not going there.

ARS magazine, bullets scraped at 2.300 COAL.
2.300 COAL put BTO of the areomatch 105g 6mm bullets at 1.560 inches.
So for safety I cut 0.0200 from AOL nominal from the magazine length.

Left me at coal of 2.280 and a bto of 1.540, it chambered under thumb pressure, there was a slide mark before the ogive. I think from the forcing cone since not a scratch or cut from lands.

The factory 105 black came in at 2.220 coal and 1.583 bto.

The listing from Hornady above, 2.245 coal and 1.505 bto for the Aeromatch

So I guess their coal is driven by Magpul magazines.

Looks like I can take advantage of the ars mags for the extra 0.040 thou worth of powder.

Need to finish my modified case to find lands but if near chamber spec I have a huge jump already.
IMG_20251001_181408230~2.jpg
 
Last edited:
Modified case.
Not sure what this one is modified for but it is not factory stuff anymore.

What you get when your "rigged" "holding" fixture doesn't.

LMAO
Drill press down so tried free hand.

Poster child for the machinists.

IMG_20251002_180427964~2.jpg


Improve vised wooden holding fixture. Drill bit grabbed the thin material and sucked it up.