How many times have you wondered, “If I just had one gun that did all that I need…” Or told your spouse, “Now I will never need to buy another gun.” Yeah, right. Could it be that Hornady’s 6mm Advanced Rifle Cartridge, or 6mm ARC for short, brings us closer to that lofty goal than ever before? Would you recommend this round to the first-time gun buyer or someone with young kids who wants to shoot for fun and also hunt? We took the 6mm ARC hunting to get a better feel for its suitability. For my family, we were looking for a setup that meets these goals:
- Kid-friendly: minimal recoil and suppressor-ready plus adjustable fit
- Medium game hunting: whitetail deer and feral hogs
- Occasional long-range target shooting
- Occasional varmint or prairie dog hunting
With young kids just starting hunting, I was looking to graduate them from rimfire shooting to rounds with a responsible amount of terminal performance. I wanted it in a platform that fit them, but also fit a sibling and me. I needed a platform that works well for both left and right-handed shooters. I wanted to use a suppressor or silencer with a factory barrel. A new 6mm ARC complete upper receiver sounded like a good fit and it would allow me to run my existing AR-15 complete lower receiver with the adjustable stock and the trigger we all like.
I ordered a complete 18” upper receiver. My kids were conscientious about recoil. At ages 10 and 12, they were willing to fire a suppressed bolt-action .308, but after several rounds it was no longer fun for them. With the 6mm ARC, they were delighted with the amount of recoil and proclaimed they could shoot it all day. This also boosted their confidence. Our guides appreciated our suppressor use because it had less of a tendency to disturb game in the area for other hunters. We also happened to already have an AR-15 upper receiver chambered in 22LR, which makes a fantastic training companion.
We took to the field to hunt South Texas with Hornady’s Precision Hunter 103 grain ELD-X ammunition. Over several hunts, the results were great. My 10 year-old son started things off the first morning by taking a doe at 50 yards with a hit that was a bit high, smashing through the spinal column, penetrating the lung cavity, and leaving a large permanent cavity filled with bone fragments before exiting. The deer was immobilized by the severed spinal column and it bled out promptly.
My 12 year-old daughter took it out over a two-day hunt and harvested multiple animals. Her first morning, she hit a doe broadside at about 100 yards off a tripod. The bullet exited with a silver dollar-sized hole, leaving a blood trail that was easy to follow where the animal expired perhaps 40 yards away.
Later that night, she shot 2 javalinas that dropped in their tracks with head shots that left fifty-cent-piece-sized exit holes. A short time later just as dusk was setting, multiple deer returned to that feeder unphased by the suppressed rifle fire and we identified a very nice 8-point cull buck that met our criteria. Light was fading and she finally had clear shot with it slightly quartering away at around 125 yards. When she took the shot, the deer jumped in a way that suggested it was hit. We waited a short time for him to bleed out before going down to find it before it was too dark to find it in thorny South Texas brush.
We found no blood in the area where we believed the buck was shot based on our cell phone video. Could she have missed? We looked in the direction he ran along natural lines of drift and eventually we found him expired behind a patch of cactus approximately 50 yards from where he was hit. The bullet hit a rib on entry, shredded the heart, shattered the bone on the opposite shoulder and stopped just under the hide. The recovered bullet had expanded to about .60” and had certainly done fatal damage. It is remarkable how a wounded animal can cover that distance on 3 good legs with no heart and two damaged lungs, but it was indeed taken down and recovered. The damage on the far side of the rib cage and shoulder was immense—the bullet had done its job.
The next morning, we went out again and a lone hog emerged to root around at around 100 yards. We waited for a good broadside presentation and she put a round right into the base of the ear. It dropped in its tracks and upon later examination, we found some bullet fragments, bone disruption, and a cavity you could probably stuff a racquetball into. Our mission had been accomplished and our hunts were concluded. The kids were thrilled and our coolers were full.
In the United States, the AR-15 platform is the most popular gun in the hands of our citizens. But for decades the conventional wisdom was that these evil black rifles were unsuitable for hunting because they were synonymous with the anemic 5.56mm/.223 Remington rounds. Do those rounds work? With the right ammunition such as the Hornady Critical Defense 73gr, they can get the job done at ranges where you can guarantee shot placement. I have seen multiple deer taken humanely with this round. Let’s be honest, with perfect shot placement just about any round will work.
It’s the less perfect shots where we want the insurance of a round that will do the work humanely. For this reason, it’s hard to recommend to the first-time gun owner to go out and get an AR-15 in .223 for a deer rifle. So where did that leave us? Historically, that meant many of us had a bolt-action rifle chambered in a moderate cartridge such as .243, 6.5 Creedmoor, or .308 Winchester. Those are all great rounds and there’s nothing wrong with them. And then if you want a “fun” autoloader or a practical defensive rifle, you’d pair that with the ubiquitous AR-15. The AR-15 platform has such wide appeal because of widespread familiarity, parts interchangeability and ease of customization, and it is a proven design that has been in use for generations. The AR-10 and other large-frame autoloaders never gained the popularity of the AR-15 although their designs have improved.
Rewind to the early 2000’s when the US government began looking for an AR-15 round with better terminal ballistics. Out of that era, we got standardized SAAMI cartridges such as 6.8 SPC, 6.5 Grendel, and later the 300 BLK (300 AAC). There were even some 7.62×39 AR variants. All of these rounds did offer some advantages and improved terminal performance and they fit the bill for many satisfied customers. Yet there was still a thirst for better long rang performance and versatility.
Image credit: Pew Pew Tactical
Fast forward to 2020 when Hornady introduced the 6mm Advanced Rifle Cartridge. It also has origins from the US Department of Defense looking for an M16 round for low-recoil, accurate, long-range use. What better bullets to look at than the darling of the precision rifle competition world, the 6mm? These cartridges are used because they offer a good balance of low recoil and sufficient bullet impact signature to spot impacts and make effective follow-ups plus good ballistics – especially low wind drift. The 6mm ARC performs like a slower version of popular 6mm PRS cartridges or the venerable .243 Winchester. It is essentially a 6.5 Grendel necked down to 6mm. Data suggests 2500-2600 fps is reasonable with an 18” barrel and the heavy bullets. Modern bullet design offers reliable performance in balancing bullet integrity, expansion, and penetration.
The 6mm ARC is an excellent addition to the family of common AR-15 platform cartridges. The low recoil, superior ballistics, and variety of factory loaded ammunition available make it an excellent balance of traits for an all-around AR-15 cartridge that is good for longer range target shooting, prairie dogs and varmints, whitetail deer, and feral hogs with the proper ammunition selection. We found this particular Hornady 103gr Precision Hunter ELD-X ammunition to work well for our hunting. It was accurate, it penetrated when it should, and it expanded and fragmented to a degree that met our objectives. With lighter bullets offered in factory loads such as the Hornady 80gr ELD-VT, this could also offer explosive terminal results on prairie dogs and varmints. Could this be the round that’s the Holy Grail of the gun world: the one round that does it all? Our experiences so far are promising. I encourage you to pick up a 6mm ARC and find out for yourself.
Mike Marks
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- Hornady’s 6mm ARC: One round to rule them all? – December 31, 2024
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