7mm Valkyrie AR (7VAR)

I was poking around the web for the "ultimate" big game hunting cartridge that would fit in standard AR and came across the 7mm Valkyrie AR (7VAR), it's looks a pretty badass performer. Here are some statements from 7mm Valkyrie AR web site...

The 7mm Valkyrie Ar is a full power Wildcat hunting round developed for the AR15. It's goals were to give AR10 performance in the smaller,lighter AR15 chassis.

It is living up to it's design goals. It will push a 140 grain bullet 2700-2850 fps and 168 bullets 2450-2600 fps. Which puts it in the 7mm-08 range of power but still in an AR15.

The Valkyrie was designed by Bruce Finnegan and he was helped in development by a group of like minded guys they called the Founders.

Pressure testing was done with the pressure trace system along with accuracy testing. We have a pet load chart to get guys up and running fast with the Valkyrie.

Brass is made from 6.5x47 lapua it is the best brass to make the cases from. Other 308 cases will work but performance is sacrificed.

The 7mm VALKYRIE was designed to be one of the most powerful hunting rounds for the AR-15 platform. In order to do that the 7mm VALKYRIE uses a proprietary bolt/barrel extension that are sold with the barrel all other standard AR-15 parts are used.

The remainder of the rifle is all standard AR15 rifle components. To be clear, the 7mm VALKYRIE uses standard, readily available AR-15 upper receivers, bolt carriers, buffers, buffer springs, stocks, gas blocks, barrel nuts, hand guards and lower receivers without modification.

The 7mm VALKYRIE works best with 6.8 PRI magazines because they allow 2.31 oal and they are stiffer so they don't bulge when loading. Some of the longer and heavier bullets require an oal of 2.34 inches which requires a notched magazine which will limit capacity to 5 or so rounds. Other 6.8 and 6.5 mags work but capacity is limited because of the mag swelling when loading. Typically around 4 rounds in the asc 6.8 mag and the cproducts 6.5 mag from my testing.

https://www.7mmvalkyrie.com/

There as forum with a bunch of load information, ballistic gel tests, builds and such...

https://mdws.forumchitchat.com/?forum=467582

I was curious if anyone here has given this round a shot. (Pun intended)

The case dimensions seem to be close to a 6mm BRX or similar BR variant, just with a shorter OAL spec to stay within an AR15 magazine. It's interesting that he decided to start with 6.5x47 Lapua brass and reduce the length, rather than starting with a BR case, that's already pretty much the length he's reducing the 6.5x47 case to, and just necking it up to 7mm. Maybe a preference for working brass on the press vs the fire-forming you'd need to do to change the BR case shoulder?

Anyways, (in my admittedly novice opinion )it seems like a stretch trying to shoehorn something like that into an AR15, even with a proprietary bolt and barrel extension. I remember reading about someone trying 6mm BR and 7mm BR uppers in the 90's, but bolt breakage was a significant issue. Maybe he's able to get around that with the new bolt & barrel extension. Even with that it seems like the mag length restriction would be frustrating. A 140gr to 168gr 7mm bullet would have to sit pretty far back into the case to meet that OAL, and would eat up a lot of case capacity.

I'd be interested to know what sort of pressure it's developing pushing a 140gr 7mm bullet at 2850 fps out of what's essentially a 7mm BR case.

I've always thought it might be interesting to build a 6mm BR based AR using a midsized platform like the CMMG Mutant (6.5 Grendel variant) as there is plenty of bolt face to work with, but the mag length restriction would still be frustrating if you were stuck with AR15 platform magazines.

^^^I was thinking the same thing regarding the bolt face. When I first saw the round's name I thought it was an upsized .224 Valkyrie which using a the same ass end as the 6.8 SPC. I was always concerned about the larger of the 6.5 Grendel, using 6.5x47 seem like the locking lug meat would be pretty slim.