No that's not it.

The way I see things mail was much more versatile than most people give it credit for. It was able to be a fairly heavy defense by doubling up the links or increasing the thickness or making the rings smaller in diameter of the same thickness wire you could get a lighter one by doing some of these in reverse. The Royal Armouries has some lovely mail shirts that were not intended for war but for security around town under your clothing. Might not stop more than an arming sword but for what it was created for that was enough.

That is the example though. Here is its BM link

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_...rentPage=3

Got to look at this in person. Not only is it a mix of 1 in 6 and 1 in 4 but also round and flat links.

Here is the one Russ found but I cannot be certain of my info on where it was at yet. cItation I have states the Kavarna, Bulgaria Museum but I thought Russ had said Hungary. So go with my citation.

RPM

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one example of a renaissance 'mantle' from the graz armoury had a very tight weave, it looked like it was at least 6 in 1 if not more

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/Nephtys..._25_26.jpg
this is the one i was talking about

Erik says that he restored a 16th C hauberk that was 6-in-1. He also mentioned that the Royal Armouries has a standard with a 6-in-1 collar.

I have some images of the British Museum Example from a trip in 2006 here http://www.historiclife.com/Armory.htm

Not only was the straight part 6 in 1 the rings were much thicker metal in that part vs the mantle drape.

The butted rings are just decorative.

I found an image of the 6 in 1 Tiefenau fragment (down a bit at left) http://www.burgenverein.ch/publikationen/mitt...lalter.pdf

This http://www.armourarchive.org/essays/essay__maille_timetable.shtml has it being butted but don't know about that.