We will be showing the new 6.8mm upper and a complete rifle at the Barrett booth at  the SHOT show in Vegas in Feb. I've been shooting the new round for a bit now at work and it's the cat's meow. It has the same exterior ballistics as the 308 Win out to 550m. The M4 profile will be the first offering followed by the 20" full size a few months later.

The recoil is very mild. I've fired the full auto version in our 100m tunnel and it is very managable.

.50 cal,

Shot Over!

Didn't the Military also miss out in adopting a small 6.5 Winchester Lee Straight Pull Rifle from the 1890's?  From what I've seen, this cartridge was a rimless cartridge that used stripper clips.  Unfortunately, it used the round nosed bullets of the time (like the 6.5 Arisaka and 6.35 Carcano) and did not get to benefit from the use of spitzer bullets.  I also believe that throat erosion was a problem, but that has more to do w/ corosive powder and primers.

Fighters are our salvation, But BOMBERS alone provide us with the means of VICTORY! - Winston Churchill

There were several intermediate type cartridges that the Army, for one reason or another, did not adopt.  Fred, the Lee 1895 Straight Pull was in 6mm and also known as the 6mm Lee Navy of 1895:

http://www.ammo-one.com/6mmLEE.html

Others include the .276 Pederson and the .280/.30 Brit (7x43mm).

http://www.ammo-one.com/276PEDERSEN.html

Here is some more info on the 6.8mm SPC from Remington:

Ballistically the 6.8x43mm SPC is very similar to the old 7mm-30 Waters with both sharing a .422" case diameter.  Performance wise, it's basically a shorter, rimless, straight wall version of the 7mm-30 Waters adapted for semi-auto rifles.  Although the Remington 6.8mm SPC's parent case is the old .30 Remington, 7.62x53mm (which itself was a rimless, straight wall version of the .30-.30 sharing the .422" case diameter).  The 7mm-30 Waters was a .30-.30 necked down for 7mm/.284" bullets.  Of course the Brits had a cartridge like the 'new' Remington SPC in 1948 that was known as the 7x43mm Brit.

http://www.reloadbench.com/cartridges/730w.html

http://www.reloadersnest.com/frontpage.asp?CaliberID=294

Barret 6.8mm carbine rifle pricing is out and it's not cheap:

http://www.impactguns.com/store/barrett_6.8_uppers.html

Note that 200 of these $2,400 rifles have already been shipped to 10th MTN and another 280 are to be shipped shortly.