I sort of reluctantly got into the 6.8 when a decent barrel trade came up and I've been really happy with the round. The barrel I have is an MGM 21" and is very accurate. I think the factory barrels in this round have been accurate so I bet you'll have good results.
I've only shot Hornady factory ammo. It's hit or miss in general when it comes to finding ammo on the shelves in any particular shop but it's been more available lately. The 110 grain V-Max Hornady ammo is quite accurate. All groups tested at 100 yards have been sub-inch and the velocity runs about 2700 out of that 21" barrel. Hand loads with that bullet and H4895 have stayed closer to 1/2 MOA but velocity is lower by at least 100 FPS. Any powder pushing that bullet has given me groups of 1/2 to 3/4 MOA. I haven't taken any game or done any terminal testing, but this bullet should work well for Central Texas deer.
I found a couple of boxes of the 120 SST Hornady ammo and though I haven't had a chance to shoot for group with those, a couple of rounds shot over a chrony at 50 yards showed sub-MOA accuracy. Velocity in my barrel was between 2550 and 2600. I expect that that's going to be quite a nice round for deer and hogs.
I ran some Hornady Superformance 100 grain CX ammo and that didn't shoot well at all. I didn't chrony those but I think the velocity is way up there. Might be an awesome bullet but simply didn't seem to work in my barrel.
When it comes to hand loads, case capacity works against you a little, it being an AR-platform round. Seating out to maximum is very helpful in gaining a little room for powder and easing pressures. The powders that seem to work well seem to push the pressure pretty high and in the Contender, I'm a little leery of that. H4198 is a go-to and will give good velocity and accuracy. It seems to like the high end of the ladder and will definitely push the limit in the Contender. H322 is great. H335 is very accurate but I always have trouble with temperature sensitivity. H4895 is a great powder for lower-pressure loads but it's been so hard to find I've had to limit the number of rounds that I'm willing to waste in testing loads with it.
As noted earlier, the 110 V-Max seems to be very easy to load with a range of powders. Also the 90 grain TNT has shot groups of 1/2" to around 3/4" with all the powders I've tried.
I have a lot of Varget and have had extremely good results in terms of accuracy. Being a slow powder, it's very hard to get enough in the case to burn efficiently but with a powder dropper and heavier bullets, it works pretty well. Playing around with 130 grain bullets, I've gotten great accuracy - one run of groups from 28.5 grains to 29.5 grains measured from .33" to .49". Velocity with those 130s and Varget is less than 2400 FPS.
Hope that's helpful. :)
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