Although these supply problems caused a lot of "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" about the future of the cartridge, there was a silver lining. The strong interest in an intermediate cartridge with substantially more power than 5.56 spurred several ammunition manufacturers to produce their own brass and ammunition. By early 2006, three separate factories were making 6.8 SPC brass: Silver State Armory, Hornady and Remington; and five manufacturers were shipping loaded ammunition: HSM, Load-X, Remington, Hornady and Silver State Armory (SSA).

In a region where conventional rifle choices rule, the author bagged this healthy Wisconsin doe at 30 yards with his 6.8 SPC carbine shooting the 110-grain Sierra Pro-Hunter.

6.8 SPC shoots minute-of-angle or better at both 100 and 600 yards, similar in accuracy to the 77-grain Mk262 5.56 from the SPR. Converting the M4 or M16 is easy, and can be done at the armorer level by switching out only the barrel and bolt, and replacing the user's magazines. Furthermore, any weapons system chambered in 5.56 can be converted in a similar fashion, including the current SOF 5.56 rifles: M4, M16, Mk12 SPR, Mk18 and HK416; and future systems like the Mk16 SCAR-L and the XM-8. 6.8 SPC is the clear upgrade path of these weapons to provide increased lethality. Sierra, Hornady, and X-Treme provide land-warfare legal projectiles which show nearly ideal terminal performance. Silver State Armory has developed two armor piercing (A.P.) projectiles specifically for 6.8 SPC: one has a tungsten core similar to M995 and meets the M995 military spec for armor penetration at 100 meters; the other has a steel core similar to the old .30-06 M2 A.P. "black tip".