6.5 Grendel

You guys are funny- I do the same thing with extra parts! I literally have an upper receiver and I talked myself into another rifle today and a 6.5 at that! I was torn between that and the 224 valk. so I had the Valk. done from Craddock but I still want the Grendel, so I am gonna have both. I had a Les Baer years ago that I wish I kept. I love the rd. and have a decent bit of time with my old one. I am thinking about the Lilja barrel for mine or just going with the JP complete upper.

Question- is Liberty just another name for Satern? I never heard of Liberty but know Satern are great barrels. I also seen Rainer offers a 6.5 grendel barrel.
 
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Yeh I was reading some other forums on the 6.5 and alot of people were saying that the Satern barrels had a different chamber and gas port size than the Liberty barrels also. Satern does not have many options on length and profile it seems. They have a 16" barrel that looks great but I was leaning towards an 18"
 
Satern barrels are great --IF you can get 'em. I had one on order for 2-3 years, had moved in that time and almost given up when they called and said it was ready to ship. They can do rifling down to the thousandth of an inch, hardly anybody else does that. Anyway, my heavy 20" barrel is by far the best one I have, it's capable of .33MOA consistently with the right ammo, and ~1MOA or less with most anything else. It's amazing. As for the chamber, well, it's got the chamber Bill A. told 'em to cut way back when. The chamber could be a bit longer IMO, but when you have one doing .33MOA, you don't fuck with it.

I had a second barrel on order with them, a custom 14.5 double deep, double fluted, gave 'em the drawings, and everytime I called I got an excuse and was told it'd be made in a month, or next run, or this or that. After 3-4 years I gave up, but never cancelled the order. Still waiting on that call. Been, oh, 5 years at least. With Satern, if they don't have the barrel you want IN STOCK, don't bother. The fact they can do this or that is irrelevant because they don't really do custom work, they do bulk work. So sometimes they have some left over. If you see one that fits your bill, get it. Chances are you won't find a better barrel. They're expensive for a reason. But Krieger would be another place to look and there are other cut rifle mfg.'s out there.

I have a Lilja SBR barrel I haven't used yet. 11.5" Grendel. When I get the toolhead and conversion for the 650 I'll load ammo for it and take it out. Until then it just sits. But properly rifle barrels using buttons do just fine IF the buttons are high quality and changed out before wear and tear affect the rifling. Lilja is known as one of the best, if not THE best, in button rifled barrels.

Liberty is another barrel brand Satern sells. I understand it was another shop entirely, maybe another business early on. I don't know if by now they've aligned themselves with them or if they're invested or if they bought 'em out. But Liberty button rifled barrels aren't made by Satern or in his shop.
 
12" plate is pretty good for me at 500 yards currently ? ofcourse i dont have the scope to stretch it out past that honestly.

On that same FatRat I had a $300 Athlon Talos BTR 4-14x44. It'l get you there, I used it out to 1122Y and was hitting a 19" plate pretty easily. Mil/mil FFP with .2's and plenty of travel but I suggest an 20 moa angled base.

On it now is the same Companies Midas TAC 4-16x40 which is the most impressive scope I've used in the $500 range!

If you reload I recommend a 22 Grendel, it's what I will go with next time, 88's/.545BC at 2900 fps with a longer barrel. That's some serious performance out of a little AR.

I had a 243wssm upper once, I didn't like it.
 
On that same FatRat I had a $300 Athlon Talos BTR 4-14x44. It'l get you there, I used it out to 1122Y and was hitting a 19" plate pretty easily. Mil/mil FFP with .2's and plenty of travel but I suggest an 20 moa angled base.

On it now is the same Companies Midas TAC 4-16x40 which is the most impressive scope I've used in the $500 range!

If you reload I recommend a 22 Grendel, it's what I will go with next time, 88's/.545BC at 2900 fps with a longer barrel. That's some serious performance out of a little AR.

I had a 243wssm upper once, I didn't like it.

22 grendel? Ill look into that. I dont have the brass for that though i couldnt justify it with the wife ?
243wssm im guessing you had loading issues with suck a stumpy case
 
22 grendel? Ill look into that. I dont have the brass for that though i couldnt justify it with the wife ?
243wssm im guessing you had loading issues with suck a stumpy case

Sure you do, just not the dies, two neck downs and you're there.

The 243wssm brass sucked, failures to feed and eject, not very accurate, single stack in the mag, PITA.
 
Sure you do, just not the dies, two neck downs and you're there.

The 243wssm brass sucked, failures to feed and eject, not very accurate, single stack in the mag, PITA.
Yeah i just watched a couple youtube videos on the 22 grendel. Ok im excited now. Running over 22-250 speeds with the same bullets. Was running a 77gr bullet at 3650 fps.. thats pretty impressive.
 
Now I just have to figure out what I want for it. I am not a huge fan of black Ar's, so I am leaning towards OD for this one maybe. I have several FDE already. I am thinking about either Battle Arms rec. set or SLR Rifleworks.

I have a forged aero upper rec. already and a complete lower so all I really need is a handguard and BCG. I may go that route and have them duracoated.
 
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Now I just have to figure out what I want for it. I am not a huge fan of black Ar's, so I am leaning towards OD for this one maybe. I have several FDE already. I am thinking about either Battle Arms rec. set or SLR Rifleworks.

Have you checked these out yet? Its definantly not your every day black rifle.

http://www.blackgunswood.com
 
I've got a 22" JP barrel and an 18" Odin Works barrel. The 18" is better in tight spaces (like a box blind)- and the rifle is lighter to carry. The 22" is no hindrance on barricades and is lighter than my match bolt gun. Both shoot better than moa with hornady black- the JP shoots substantially better than moa. I'm taking the 22" to our next local precision rifle match...
 
Pros: Way more retained energy than 5.56 and most other cartridges that will fit in an AR15.

Lots of factory ammo support ranging from steel cased to premium Federal Gold Medal Match 130 Berger OTMs

Parts compatibility with AR15, requiring only a new barrel, bolt, muzzle device, and mags.

It does a lot more than you would think from such a small, low-recoiling package.

I started with 16" AA build, then 18" Lilja build, then more 16" and 18", 20", 22", back to 18" from LaRue complete rifle sent to me, and now 12" Faxon build.

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Cons: Once you get one, you'll want another, and another, etc.

I don't just build and take pics, I shoot them pretty much every time I do rifle work outside of CQM.

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The ballistics shown in this pic are one of the things I really like about the short 12.5" Grendel. Considering they both come from the same parent case and use the same bullet weight, it's a pretty good apples/apples illustration of the advancements in modern weapons.

I've often pointed out the same thing in words, but without the picture. Do you mind if I copy your picture and use it occasionally?
 
Paul is one of the 6.5 Grendel's best salesmen - he's one of the main reasons that I have an upper. And Reloading Dies. And a stack of magazines a foot tall. And. And. And...
I took my 9 YO daughter to the Precision Rifle Expo last Month. She was on the firing line and asked if the rife she was about to shoot ( it was a .556 AR with a Suppressor ) "was going to kick as bad as the Grendel?" so I told her no.
There was a gentleman standing behind the firing line that asked me "Did she say Grendel ?" I told him yes that I had an upper receiver for an AR-15 at home that she had shot previously.
The gentleman then introduced himself as Bill Alexander, the inventor / developer of the 6.5 Grendel cartridge.
It's a small world...
 
Paul is one of the 6.5 Grendel's best salesmen - he's one of the main reasons that I have an upper. And Reloading Dies. And a stack of magazines a foot tall. And. And. And...
I took my 9 YO daughter to the Precision Rifle Expo last Month. She was on the firing line and asked if the rife she was about to shoot ( it was a .556 AR with a Suppressor ) "was going to kick as bad as the Grendel?" so I told her no.
There was a gentleman standing behind the firing line that asked me "Did she say Grendel ?" I told him yes that I had an upper receiver for an AR-15 at home that she had shot previously.
The gentleman then introduced himself as Bill Alexander, the inventor / developer of the 6.5 Grendel cartridge.
It's a small world...
Bill is a super nice guy.!
 
The ballistics shown in this pic are one of the things I really like about the short 12.5" Grendel. Considering they both come from the same parent case and use the same bullet weight, it's a pretty good apples/apples illustration of the advancements in modern weapons.

I've often pointed out the same thing in words, but without the picture. Do you mind if I copy your picture and use it occasionally?
Sure. Notice that at 300yds, you have 100ft-lbs more than the 16.3" AK does at 200yds. AT 400yds, 12" Grendel has about what the AK does at 200yds.

We were shooting out to 800yds yesterday at Buffalo Canyon with the same little 12" with TBAC can, making hits on the buffalo. It actually lined up with the top of the 800yd stadia circle in the GRSC reticle in 63˚F, 6400 ft elevation. That's with the 123gr BTHP AG from Hornady, not anywhere near the best 123gr target bullets for 6.5 Grendel. I need to load up 107gr SMK, as well as some of the 130gr bullets with high BCs.
 
Cool stuff. I haven't taken my 12.5" out to 800 yet, but at ~650 yds I'm really pleased with the way it performs. It feels a lot easier to hit with at distance than my good 16" 5.56, even though the 5.56 is a bit more accurate at 100 yd but the advantages of the 6.5 bullets take over somewhere out there. That was mostly with the 123 ELD and the 120 SMK; neither are the highest b.c. of course but they worked well.

I just got back from testing some 129 ABLR today over LVR, in my rifle they seem to like being seated out at 2.300". No luck with the 130gr RDF though, need to test more seating depths; I got two distinct groups with one about 6" low at 100 yds. The top group shot to the same POA as the 129 ABLR though so I'm thinking a seating depth issue.