The 5.8mm and 12.7mm have high chance of being adopted since there are lot of photos of them being trialled. But the 7.62mm and 8.6mm are very elusive and haven't been spotted so far.
Also I'm surprised they didn't choose to develop 6.5mm weapons considering the hype about that caliber in the US.
If I was the guy in charge of PLA small arms those weapons wouldn’t be in the wild for a while as if anything they would at the moment be in double evaluation. First for potential adoption then for competition. The PLA uses 7.62x54 Russian this depending on loading can be a very long range caliber 8.6mm is also such so I would want to know if I could replace the former with the latter or mix them. If the latter then what is the right mix? Do I use 7.62 for all my forces but keep 8.6mm to mountain troops?
If 7.62 NATO that is a whole other can of worms. But still would want to see which might be better suited to issue. Weight is a factor to. 8.6mm full brass is going to weigh more than the 8.6 Norma that the US is looking at thats polymer cased.
However it should be remembered that the Chinese don’t adopt everything they develop. Like the US and Russia they produce whole lines of weapons never meant for PLA troopers but instead for export. The US is looking into 8.6mm MGs when the US government looks at something other armies allies and adversaries have a habit of taking an interest.
6.5mm creedmor has a taken a place in socom primarily as an alternative to 7.62x51mm in that it’s a almost drop in softer shooting longer range chambering for the same weapons. Better suited for asymmetric conflict. What this translates to is that rifles like SCAR H, sniper rifles like the MRAD, machine guns like the Mk48 mod 1 can be rechambered for this cartridge have a double the potential to hit the target 1.5 times the effective range. Yet again this is a converted existing weapon. So it favors existing systems in the same rifle class.
6.8mm is a different story it can be a rechamber SIG’s is built as such. It’s really focused less on range and more trying to get the right mix of weight to power. The ammo types are trying to get it so that the package weighs about as much as a 7.62 carbine yet ammo closer to 5.56 the main loss here being a 20 round magazine vs the 30 of a 5.56. This is as the ammo is volumetrically larger but the plastic or rather composite polymer or metallic cases ( Sig is a mix of brass steel and nickel, Textron Is cased telescopic polymer based on a surgical grade polymer, GD is conventional but in a polymer case with brass base) are 30-40% lighter than comparable brass cased 7.62. The main want is to buy back 600-800 meters effective range as well as more effective antibody armor at infantry 0-500 meters.
