Composite-cased 6.8TVC gains SAAMI approval

Military small arms development continues to move civilian firearms innovation forward, even in the highly-regulated 21st century small arms market. The latest example: SAAMI has just approved the first composite-cased commercial ammo on the market, the 6.8TVC round. This big step forward is a direct result of the U.S. military's development of its next-generation infantry weaponry.

The new 6.8TVC cartridge is a proprietary round developed by Texas-based True Velocity. It's an attempt to nail down a design for the US military's Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) cartridge (SIG Sauer is working on a competing design). The composite case is supposed to reduce weight (very important in a military application) and offer improved accuracy and extended range when compared to similar brass-cased cartridges. At least, that's what the marketing says.

At this point, the US military has not yet approved any of the competing cartridge designs for its NGSW program (currently, the program is looking at ways to effectively mass-produce the new ammunition―read more here). True Velocity has taken the 6.8TVC cartridge to the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute (SAAMI) instead, to get the group's stamp of approval for commercial sales.

As presented to SAAMI, True Velocity's 6.8TVC cartridge fires a 135-grain bullet at 3,000 fps, with max average pressure of 65,000 psi. Certainly more jam than the 5.56 round the U.S. and NATO allies are currently using,

If you want a rifle chambered in the new round, you'll likely have to wait. True Velocity says it plans to sell 6.8TVC direct-to-consumer through its own website. It also plans to sell a civilian-legal version of its RM-277 bullpup rifle (through subsidiary LoneStar Future Weapons), chambered in 6.8TVC. As well, True Velocity says it expects firearms manufacturers such as Daniel Defense or Beretta USA to soon offer rifles in 6.8TVC, or conversion kits that allow shooters to reconfigure their existing rifles to the new round.

With that in mind, it sounds as we might have to wait a while before we see 6.8TVC available in Canada, unless True Velocity strikes an unexpected deal to bring its innovative new round to our market. Canadians can't expect to order either the new rounds or the next-gen bullpup rifle through True Velocity's website, and it seems likely that other rifles chambered in the round will be AR-15 variants. It seems unlikely that True Velocity would feel it necessary to jump through the hoops required to enter our market.

Having said that, if the cartridge does become available here, there are certainly Canadian manufacturers able to chamber existing Canuckistan-legal designs to the new cartridge. And in the long-term, if 6.8 rounds do become the next NATO standard, this new cartridge could be the first step along the way towards a 21st-century replacement for both 5.56 and 7.62x51.