Would you get into 6.5 Grendel in 2024?
- Thread starter KCode
- Start date
So I just measured a bunch of cases of unfired Lapua, unfired Alpha, vs fired Lapua cases.
(Hornady #350 shoulder datum headspace comparator bushing mounted in calipers, with calipers zeroed to closed position on the bushing so we get actual case head-to-shoulder datum)
SAAMI Spec Maximum cartridge shoulder datum: 1.220" -.007"
SAAMI chamber to shoulder datum: Max 1.2301” Min 1.2201"
Virgin Lapua: 1.205"
Virgin Alpha: 1.212"
Fired Lapua: 1.221"
The Alpha brass is visibly longer to shoulder datum, .007” longer. I’m pretty stoked about it.
Pre-production stuff that I’m going to run and give them feedback on.
I went and checked the site when I got home looking for it too.
Would be very interesting to see a comparison of an identical load using once fired (in same gun) Hornady, Starline, Lapua and Alpha brass. Should yield some interesting data, though would think you’d want to keep case weight variance as low as possible. I have Hornady that can weigh 115gr +/- 5ish unprimed, only two bags of Starline-one bag 107-108, other 109-110gr unprimed, all Lapua about 112-114 unprimed and Alpha unknown. Would like to see some consistency amongst the competition. Look forward to your further feedback.
I was looking at the Hodgdon website a few days ago and on paper CFE223 had the best numbers- granted that doesn't necessarily translate to positive real world results. Any experience with it?
I tried running a H2 in mine to slow the bolt down a little but groups looked like I was patterning a shotgun so I went back to a carbine wt. No matter what I tried case mouths were getting dented by the deflector- a piece of the soft side of velcro largely fixed that. Had some feed issues in the beginning that ended up being mag related (CMMG and E-Lander work flawlessly). Have you experienced any of the same with yours?
Unfortunately I haven’t been back to the range since installing the T1 buffer, removing the gas rings in the bolt, and installing the bolt spring. Unfortunately my pup developed osteomyelitis in a toe and had to have it amputated… so that was 5k last week. I THINK I’ve got an Elander 17 round mag on the way. I probably need to grab a couple more boxes of the Lapua Scenar L’s. I’m also waiting on the Redding type S bushing full body die and the 0.285” bushing. I’m going to go through another 20-30 rounds with the Duramags then I’ll try the other mag if the cases continue to take a beating. The BCG is now pretty smooth in the upper.
I didn’t have issues with the case mouths… it was the shoulders getting dinged up. I may need to look into smoothing/blending the feed ramps. I wouldn’t think that would be an issue with the higher end parts I used, but nothing ever works out the way it should. Unfortunately that’s not something I’m knowledgeable or experienced with so I would need to find someone trustworthy.
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Soon…
Oh these better not be short AF in the headspace department or else they just fucked up.
The Alpha brass has longer headspace already compared to all my other unfired brass.
They’re wanting to make it as long as possible so there is very minimal difference between virgin and fire-formed loads.
It hasn’t been something that ever really bothered me, but I’ve seen a lot of people complain about it.
They’re wanting to make it as long as possible so there is very minimal difference between virgin and fire-formed loads.
It hasn’t been something that ever really bothered me, but I’ve seen a lot of people complain about it.
Wade from Ally Munitions was running pressures he won’t even mention in 6mm ARC when he finally broke a bolt.
He experienced a weird failure I’ve never seen before in AR-15s, with the bolt face around the firing pin aperture blowing a chunk off and pieces jamming into the FP channel.
I’ve only seen that in my buddy’s 6.5 Creedmoor AR-10 bolt, with the larger FP aperture. He had a guy braze a new FP aperture into it and that failed too. I’ve never seen it in AR-15s.
The main thing is that Lapua temporarily halted 6.5 Grendel brass production, and their US rep had already lifted the prices so high to force their 2 primary US B2B customers to drop them many years ago.
I’m still running Lapua brass I got back in 2009 in the thin cardboard boxes before the switch the big blue plastic cases. I really liked the Precision Firearms 50rd boxes of Lapua brass ammo. I think PF switched to Starline years ago when the price-hike happened.
Several moons past this question, truthfully I wish the 12.5" all had another 50-100 FPS, i.e I can't wait to see if 13.X, 14.5 actually matters for the Grendel **with Hornady factory ammo.**
Until LRRPF5's magic ammo is released, 12.5" is the shortest I'll go on a Grendel. I'm into his magic ammo FWIW. I want to go kill 10 pigs with it
I've previously survived my 6.5-Grendel mid-life crisis a few years back, and also made it through my 224-Valkyrie crisis. I'm back to 6.5-Creedmoor and 300-BLK ... where I belong, and regularly attending my "Useless Calibers" 12-Step program where I get support from others who have made it out of those two crappy calibers and are also in recovery.
The brass is available on the website and we ran it .007" longer than the other brands.
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Blackout over Grendel = does not compute
Pay him no mind. The NorthWet has addled his mind.
But, 300 blackout is a better suppressed cartridge than 6.5 Grendel. And 6.5 creedmoor has much longer legs than the Grendel.
My grendels are my most ol used rifles, but none are what I’m reaching for when I get the call that I drew a sheep tag…
1000% agree Creedmore vs Grendel is diesel F250 vs ecoboost F150.
300 blk suppression supersonic = same same vs a grendel, out of an AR, using a Thunderbeast Ultra 7 G2.
The only advantages I see the 300 blk having is same mags as 556/marginally more reliable than the Grendel across various guns in my experience.
Now, if I was going to arm an entry team in an urban environment - 6.5-8" 300's with subs all day.
But for hunting/field? Grendel all day - you can get a fair amount done with an F-150...
To be sure, I do still own a 308 bolt gun if I'm super cereal about killing something.
300 blk suppression supersonic = same same vs a grendel, out of an AR, using a Thunderbeast Ultra 7 G2.
The only advantages I see the 300 blk having is same mags as 556/marginally more reliable than the Grendel across various guns in my experience.
Now, if I was going to arm an entry team in an urban environment - 6.5-8" 300's with subs all day.
But for hunting/field? Grendel all day - you can get a fair amount done with an F-150...
To be sure, I do still own a 308 bolt gun if I'm super cereal about killing something.
I like mine, easy to shoot and accurate short range. Ammo has been an asshole to get lately though.
No I would not buy a 6.5 Grendel in 2024 or 2025 for that matter is the orginial post.
But it's just one caliber I've never been interested in...or I'd own one.
But no one cares if you love yours, go for it.
Some improvements in components may help this caliber out. Brass and bullets over the years, with shared information.
But still plagued by weak bolts ...but that's what ya get in the limitations of the AR platform. Need to expand the AR platform with a slightly larger one...an AR 12.
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But it's just one caliber I've never been interested in...or I'd own one.
But no one cares if you love yours, go for it.
Some improvements in components may help this caliber out. Brass and bullets over the years, with shared information.
But still plagued by weak bolts ...but that's what ya get in the limitations of the AR platform. Need to expand the AR platform with a slightly larger one...an AR 12.
.Call me crazy, get an extra bolt or two and call it a day... maybe just replace them every 2000 rds if you're concerned.
I’ve been making it a habit to take my youngest of 3 sons out as much as possible over the past few years, getting him semi-structured trigger time on the Grendels, .260 Rem, and handguns. This is an older pic from 2023 at the same range with him shooting the Lilja 17.6” Grendel. We just drove down to this range on Friday for some long range and handgun work all-day.
It’s really fun watching him connect on steel with the 12” Grendel out at distance. He was ringing an 18” plate at 907yds with 100gr ELD-VT fairly consistently, I would say 1/3 rate. Wind started gusting into this pocket up against the butte, so we went from right edge of plate hold to 2-3 mils hold, depending on wind.
The 907yd plate rang out really loud and rocked around, since it hangs from a shepherd’s crook steel pole. You really knew when we impacted as it makes a loud “CLANG-G-G-G-G”.
I shot it some with my GAP 22” Bartlein .260 Rem AR-10 as well, which has much shorter time of flight, but recoil prevents me from self-spotting, unlike the Grendel.
I also shot it with the Larue 18” Stealth 2.0 using 123gr Hornady America Gunner ammo. That one is topped with a Vortex Razor Gen 3 1-10x LPVO. Glass clarity is excellent with that optic.
It was boring shooting the buffalo steel with all 3 of them at 780yds.
I wish I could get the .260 Rem to behave in a manner where we could self-spot. Maybe it needs a brake or suppressor, but I’m not a fan of obnoxious brakes. It’s already 14+ lbs in weight as well.
One thing that was really cool with the 12” Grendel was I chose not to have the brass-catcher on it this time. When we went to police up brass, it was all in a tight little pile at 4:30-5:00.
I turned up the gas through the ejection port on the Bootleg carrier since the 100gr ELD-VT is milder on the gas system than 120-123gr. 90gr TNT from Federal runs the system pretty hard even on the fully-suppressed position, so I think the Federal 90gr ammo is more energetic with charge weight and pressure.
Seems like there is room left on the table for the 100gr ELD-VT. I just used 107gr SMK data at 2500fps for my ballistic program, didn’t even mess with inputting exact Hornady BC data for the 100gr ELD-VT. Spotting the 100gr ELD-VT feels like spotting .308, but with a smaller bullet with a little less atmospheric disturbance. I prefer using my 10x Leupold binos with Mil Reticle on a tripod now for most of my spotting due to the FoV and reticle.
It’s really fun watching him connect on steel with the 12” Grendel out at distance. He was ringing an 18” plate at 907yds with 100gr ELD-VT fairly consistently, I would say 1/3 rate. Wind started gusting into this pocket up against the butte, so we went from right edge of plate hold to 2-3 mils hold, depending on wind.
The 907yd plate rang out really loud and rocked around, since it hangs from a shepherd’s crook steel pole. You really knew when we impacted as it makes a loud “CLANG-G-G-G-G”.
I shot it some with my GAP 22” Bartlein .260 Rem AR-10 as well, which has much shorter time of flight, but recoil prevents me from self-spotting, unlike the Grendel.
I also shot it with the Larue 18” Stealth 2.0 using 123gr Hornady America Gunner ammo. That one is topped with a Vortex Razor Gen 3 1-10x LPVO. Glass clarity is excellent with that optic.
It was boring shooting the buffalo steel with all 3 of them at 780yds.
I wish I could get the .260 Rem to behave in a manner where we could self-spot. Maybe it needs a brake or suppressor, but I’m not a fan of obnoxious brakes. It’s already 14+ lbs in weight as well.
One thing that was really cool with the 12” Grendel was I chose not to have the brass-catcher on it this time. When we went to police up brass, it was all in a tight little pile at 4:30-5:00.
I turned up the gas through the ejection port on the Bootleg carrier since the 100gr ELD-VT is milder on the gas system than 120-123gr. 90gr TNT from Federal runs the system pretty hard even on the fully-suppressed position, so I think the Federal 90gr ammo is more energetic with charge weight and pressure.
Seems like there is room left on the table for the 100gr ELD-VT. I just used 107gr SMK data at 2500fps for my ballistic program, didn’t even mess with inputting exact Hornady BC data for the 100gr ELD-VT. Spotting the 100gr ELD-VT feels like spotting .308, but with a smaller bullet with a little less atmospheric disturbance. I prefer using my 10x Leupold binos with Mil Reticle on a tripod now for most of my spotting due to the FoV and reticle.
The 12” only has a 1-6x24 GRSC on it right now. It was begging for more magnification and FoV at 900yds.
I might swap the 1-10x Vortex Razor Gen 3 over to it, or do something else.
It’s a good candidate for a compact MPVO I think.
I might swap the 1-10x Vortex Razor Gen 3 over to it, or do something else.
It’s a good candidate for a compact MPVO I think.
At 900yds, it’s really begging for 12-16x on the top end with a larger objective.
Not sure how many scopes out there are compact enough for the 12” Grendel to do that, but it performs really well out at distance, almost indistinguishable from an 18”.
One manufacturer has already said they would load the Ultra-High Velocity Grendel once we’re finished with development. I know I want a new ogive shape, so the current experimental bullets are more weight-based than form factor-optimized.
When you play with weights, you have to set up center of balance and center of aerodynamic pressure too. Tail-heavy bullets are prone to yaw-induced instability, but these aren’t tail-heavy right now. They are more focused on traditional engagement ranges though, basically matching or exceeding 14.5”-18” 5.56 but from an 8.5” barrel.
With the Alpha brass, it’s very tempting to push pressure, but we started out staying limited to 50ksi MAP. Speeds with that pressure are well in-excess of anything I ever anticipated. 8.5” barrel uses pistol-length gas, otherwise there isn’t enough plug dwell time.
Not sure how many scopes out there are compact enough for the 12” Grendel to do that, but it performs really well out at distance, almost indistinguishable from an 18”.
One manufacturer has already said they would load the Ultra-High Velocity Grendel once we’re finished with development. I know I want a new ogive shape, so the current experimental bullets are more weight-based than form factor-optimized.
When you play with weights, you have to set up center of balance and center of aerodynamic pressure too. Tail-heavy bullets are prone to yaw-induced instability, but these aren’t tail-heavy right now. They are more focused on traditional engagement ranges though, basically matching or exceeding 14.5”-18” 5.56 but from an 8.5” barrel.
With the Alpha brass, it’s very tempting to push pressure, but we started out staying limited to 50ksi MAP. Speeds with that pressure are well in-excess of anything I ever anticipated. 8.5” barrel uses pistol-length gas, otherwise there isn’t enough plug dwell time.
