About two years ago, a good friend of mine introduced me to the world of custom rifles, suppressors, scopes that cost more than $200, reloading, and all of the other stuff that goes along with this hobby. I now reload for my bolt guns, own a can (two more in jail), nice glass, a full custom bolt gun, etc. I haven't really dove into the gas gun world other than a M&P sport I've owned for about 5 years.
I have another group of friends that I hunt with on a regular basis in south texas. Our hunting trips consist of lots of debauchery (drinking, tannerite, drinking, gambling) and a little bit of hunting. Several of them own factory 6.5 creedmores and I have taught them how to shoot out to about 400 yards. They do not think it is fair when I constantly win our shooting competitions with my 16" .308 rem700 5R, and especially not with my full custom 300 winmag built by Roberts Precision. They do have a point so I decided to go off and find a cheap, compact, relatively shitty gun that I can still show them up with ease.
Along with the aforementioned criteria, it also had to shoot good with factory ammo, be more capable at handling wind than a .223, and be used for shooting pigs and the occasional whitetail.
I went down a rabbit hole one evening a few months ago reading about a 6.5 grendel pistol and the ballistics/capability of the caliber, even in a 12" platform. I scrounged up my pennies and purchased a PSA 12" grendel pistol kit to go with a cheap anderson lower I had laying around.
Here are some pics of the gun assembled with my high dollar Nikon scope and a pic with a can on it:
By not owning the proper AR tools to assemble one, I did nick the gun in several places using nails as a punch for the pins and using vise grips to remove the muzzle break so my can could be installed (I'm too cheap to by a barrel vise). This bad boy is going to get a rattle can job eventually, so who cares?
After taking the gun out to shoot, it had terrible fucking groups at 100 yards. I chalked it up to being me a shitty shot, the stupid trigger that came with the gun, and you get what you paid for. I tried hornady black and hornady sst factory 6.5 grendel ammo. Shitty groups at 100:
My buddy, who know a heck of a lot more about gas guns than i do, suggested that maybe the barrel nut was loose or something was wrong with it. He owned the tools and offered to help so I sent it home with him one day after work. After further examining the gun, he found where there were burrs at the end of the barrel, where it had been cut, crowned, and threaded from PSA.
Might be hard to see in the picture, but sure as shit he was right! I called PSA and they were awesome and sent me a shipping label to fix the problem. But, they did say it may take 2 weeks to get it back to me. Welp, my impatience took over and I wasn't going to wait two weeks. I had a miniature file thing laying in my tool box that I inherited from my dad (he was a machinist by trade) and I was going to fix the problem myself.
File thing:
I ended up performing my DIY hillbilly fix without having to waste two weeks of my life, wondering what to do with myself because I could not shoot my grendel.
This purpose of this thread is to log my non-professional gunsmithin', cheapass redneck engineering self adventure with the PSA grendel pistol in the hopes that it may inspire someone else to take the plunge and do the same thing.
Even though I've been preaching cheapness, I hate factory triggers so I splurged and ordered a La Rue trigger for this badboy. Future plans include a camo spraypaint job, and a sub $200 exposed elevation turret scope. Stay tuned for the barrel filing results.....
WARNING: Do not attempt any of the DIY gun smith work that I have performed or will perform in subsequent posts. It is extremely dangerous and caries the risk of damage to the weapon, yourself, others or potentially death.
I have another group of friends that I hunt with on a regular basis in south texas. Our hunting trips consist of lots of debauchery (drinking, tannerite, drinking, gambling) and a little bit of hunting. Several of them own factory 6.5 creedmores and I have taught them how to shoot out to about 400 yards. They do not think it is fair when I constantly win our shooting competitions with my 16" .308 rem700 5R, and especially not with my full custom 300 winmag built by Roberts Precision. They do have a point so I decided to go off and find a cheap, compact, relatively shitty gun that I can still show them up with ease.
Along with the aforementioned criteria, it also had to shoot good with factory ammo, be more capable at handling wind than a .223, and be used for shooting pigs and the occasional whitetail.
I went down a rabbit hole one evening a few months ago reading about a 6.5 grendel pistol and the ballistics/capability of the caliber, even in a 12" platform. I scrounged up my pennies and purchased a PSA 12" grendel pistol kit to go with a cheap anderson lower I had laying around.
Here are some pics of the gun assembled with my high dollar Nikon scope and a pic with a can on it:
By not owning the proper AR tools to assemble one, I did nick the gun in several places using nails as a punch for the pins and using vise grips to remove the muzzle break so my can could be installed (I'm too cheap to by a barrel vise). This bad boy is going to get a rattle can job eventually, so who cares?
After taking the gun out to shoot, it had terrible fucking groups at 100 yards. I chalked it up to being me a shitty shot, the stupid trigger that came with the gun, and you get what you paid for. I tried hornady black and hornady sst factory 6.5 grendel ammo. Shitty groups at 100:
My buddy, who know a heck of a lot more about gas guns than i do, suggested that maybe the barrel nut was loose or something was wrong with it. He owned the tools and offered to help so I sent it home with him one day after work. After further examining the gun, he found where there were burrs at the end of the barrel, where it had been cut, crowned, and threaded from PSA.
Might be hard to see in the picture, but sure as shit he was right! I called PSA and they were awesome and sent me a shipping label to fix the problem. But, they did say it may take 2 weeks to get it back to me. Welp, my impatience took over and I wasn't going to wait two weeks. I had a miniature file thing laying in my tool box that I inherited from my dad (he was a machinist by trade) and I was going to fix the problem myself.
File thing:
I ended up performing my DIY hillbilly fix without having to waste two weeks of my life, wondering what to do with myself because I could not shoot my grendel.
This purpose of this thread is to log my non-professional gunsmithin', cheapass redneck engineering self adventure with the PSA grendel pistol in the hopes that it may inspire someone else to take the plunge and do the same thing.
Even though I've been preaching cheapness, I hate factory triggers so I splurged and ordered a La Rue trigger for this badboy. Future plans include a camo spraypaint job, and a sub $200 exposed elevation turret scope. Stay tuned for the barrel filing results.....
WARNING: Do not attempt any of the DIY gun smith work that I have performed or will perform in subsequent posts. It is extremely dangerous and caries the risk of damage to the weapon, yourself, others or potentially death.
