Tell me about the 6.5 Grendel

[roscott]

Probably just rookie shooter error.

If you resolve your flyer issue that will be one impressive rifle. Those groups look great!

 

[AmericanBob]

I'm curious to see how this works out for you as that is the same barrel, gas block combo I've been eyeballing.

 

[Ljungman]

LEt me post this as i have been playing with a grendel for a bit now - some have said similar things previously but here is my first hand experience - COST. Simply put of all the alternative calibres offered in AR platforms this has to be one of the costliest to make right. Ammo isnt cheap - -you can get wolf military cheap enough to plink with, all other ammo will run .75 to $1 a round. Alexander arms is your place for magazines. I tried a slew of aftermarket mags in "6.5" and simply gave up on the reliability failures of the others. The AA mags are awesome....they arent bad....but Damn alexander arms and his 20 dollar shipping for everything. I know a magazine isnt 20 bucks to ship....it took 30 seconds for an employee to toss one in the envelope and send it....
Secondly - ive found the round to be picky. and persnickety. My rifle varied wildly with ammo. some great, some could not hit the target at 100 yards. My best luck was with handloads in .264, and it took a good bit to find one my rifle liked enough to put together. Now dont mistake me - all of this is natural if you are reloading - but the cost of good 6.5 brass was much more than many large calibres i play with - 300 win mag 35 remington etc. So playing around to work up a load was more expensive and i found any variation was taboo with my rifle. Slight powder changes netted unpredictable performance and behavior. Once a good ammo was made, and rifle settled....i noted that the round was stated " to be the best in adverse conditions"....I have to say my experience is balking at this statement. It doesnt do well in weather shifts. I do live off LAke Superior now and noted the rifle ammo combo wouldnt handle weather changes well. It did not like cross winds/head winds, nor did it care much for temperature shifts of more than a few degrees at a time. Now im no sniper, im not shooting from high elevation in extreme temps....but at 600 yards in a 3 knot cross wind, at 25 degrees......i was shooting more than 3ft off previously proved doping data. In Short the round frustrated the be-jesus out of me and i tried a new barrel, new bolt, changed optics, tried better weather on a protected range (sand pit sides with no wind to 600 yards) and the result remained the same.
However if you are looking for something different with a smaller animal in mind - i moved on to 25-45 sharps....itll do what my grendel should have with much less hassle. albeit not as heavy hitting....but thats what 308 is for.
Just a grumpy old sailors 2 cents on grendel. great punch...but the cost and pickiness of the round made me move on down the road back to my trusty load hungry 308...which is just as accurate with wolf as it is with Black hills.

 

[edwea]

Interesting opinion. With the exception of cost, most of what you said is counter to everything I have heard or read about the round. In fact my Hornady book claims it is"a very versatile cartridge...not fickle or finicky in the least". I will be finishing my Grendel build in the next week or so. I guess I will get some first hand experience on the topic.

 

[phylodog]

LEt me post this as i have been playing with a grendel for a bit now - some have said similar things previously but here is my first hand experience - COST. Simply put of all the alternative calibres offered in AR platforms this has to be one of the costliest to make right. Ammo isnt cheap - -you can get wolf military cheap enough to plink with, all other ammo will run .75 to $1 a round. Alexander arms is your place for magazines. I tried a slew of aftermarket mags in "6.5" and simply gave up on the reliability failures of the others. The AA mags are awesome....they arent bad....but Damn alexander arms and his 20 dollar shipping for everything. I know a magazine isnt 20 bucks to ship....it took 30 seconds for an employee to toss one in the envelope and send it....
Secondly - ive found the round to be picky. and persnickety. My rifle varied wildly with ammo. some great, some could not hit the target at 100 yards. My best luck was with handloads in .264, and it took a good bit to find one my rifle liked enough to put together. Now dont mistake me - all of this is natural if you are reloading - but the cost of good 6.5 brass was much more than many large calibres i play with - 300 win mag 35 remington etc. So playing around to work up a load was more expensive and i found any variation was taboo with my rifle. Slight powder changes netted unpredictable performance and behavior. Once a good ammo was made, and rifle settled....i noted that the round was stated " to be the best in adverse conditions"....I have to say my experience is balking at this statement. It doesnt do well in weather shifts. I do live off LAke Superior now and noted the rifle ammo combo wouldnt handle weather changes well. It did not like cross winds/head winds, nor did it care much for temperature shifts of more than a few degrees at a time. Now im no sniper, im not shooting from high elevation in extreme temps....but at 600 yards in a 3 knot cross wind, at 25 degrees......i was shooting more than 3ft off previously proved doping data. In Short the round frustrated the be-jesus out of me and i tried a new barrel, new bolt, changed optics, tried better weather on a protected range (sand pit sides with no wind to 600 yards) and the result remained the same.
However if you are looking for something different with a smaller animal in mind - i moved on to 25-45 sharps....itll do what my grendel should have with much less hassle. albeit not as heavy hitting....but thats what 308 is for.
Just a grumpy old sailors 2 cents on grendel. great punch...but the cost and pickiness of the round made me move on down the road back to my trusty load hungry 308...which is just as accurate with wolf as it is with Black hills.

I'm in the same camp as edwea on this. How long ago was this experience you had with the Grendel? I know it has taken the round a good while to "catch on" if you will but I have read precious little about it which would fall in the the category of being a negative in recent reports. I'm not too concerned with cost as this won't be a high round count rifle but I didn't see too much of an issue with the price of ammunition when comparing to similar quality .223/5.56 ammo.

 

[Ljungman]

I found it to be more unpredictable than my reloading manuals stated. I had little luck with it. components were abit cost prohibitive of experimenting to my liking. I like my 25-45 sharps as brass is as easy as pickinig up 223/556 and experimenting. found a couple great loads right off the bat for it. Played with the grendel and just couldnt lock it down. Fliers were killing me. and the aforementioned less than expected performance for cost. cheaper to reload 308, and got better results - reloading data out the wazoo and cheap components. I pray yours fairs better than mine. i jumped in fairly early as i was bored with 223/556 in the ar platform and wanted to be "different".

 

[King31]

I found it to be more unpredictable than my reloading manuals stated. I had little luck with it. components were abit cost prohibitive of experimenting to my liking. I like my 25-45 sharps as brass is as easy as pickinig up 223/556 and experimenting. found a couple great loads right off the bat for it. Played with the grendel and just couldnt lock it down. Fliers were killing me. and the aforementioned less than expected performance for cost. cheaper to reload 308, and got better results - reloading data out the wazoo and cheap components. I pray yours fairs better than mine. i jumped in fairly early as i was bored with 223/556 in the ar platform and wanted to be "different".

To me it sounds like the problem came from the equipment used and not particularly the caliber. Some powders are known to have poor temperature sensitivity like CFE223. Could this have been the problem?

The 6.5G is an awesome performer in anything from a SBR to a long range precision rig. It can be used for a hunting caliber for the majority of North American species, giving it extreme versatility. Factory offerings have came a long way and sometimes shoot as good or better than a fine tuned handload.

 

[Ljungman]

dont remember the exact powders any more - was what alexander arms recommended. I sold the rifle and all the reloading equipment for it with the reload data as well. i moved on to the 25-45.

 

[two70]

The 6.5G is an awesome performer in anything from a SBR to a long range precision rig. It can be used for a hunting caliber for the majority of North American species, giving it extreme versatility. Factory offerings have came a long way and sometimes shoot as good or better than a fine tuned handload.

Awesome performer? Compared to what, other AR-15 class cartridges? Then, yeah, for certain rather limited applications. Compared to standard bolt action rounds it is not even in the discussion except for hype. Unless you are counting small game the Grendel tops out at about mule deer or black bear at short range which is far from the majority of North American big game species.

 

[King31]

Awesome performer? Compared to what, other AR-15 class cartridges? Then, yeah, for certain rather limited applications. Compared to standard bolt action rounds it is not even in the discussion except for hype. Unless you are counting small game the Grendel tops out at about mule deer or black bear at short range which is far from the majority of North American big game species.

Amongst the other AR-15 platform calibers, I would rank it #1 in overall performance. What are the limited applications? Comparing it to a bolt action kind of takes the argument out of the equation, much like cars versus trucks. Bolt actions are built to be able to maximize a caliber's potential in regards to higher pressure and longer cartridge length. FWIW, a 6.5G is as good or better than a 243 WIN, all things considered.

My comment on the majority of species was not correct, but I also wouldn't hesitate to shoot anything up to a small elk. It has been proven to take such game and most certainly not at short ranges hence Mark Larue's elk hunt that put down a large bull at 405 yards.

 

[two70]

Amongst the other AR-15 platform calibers, I would rank it #1 in overall performance. What are the limited applications? Comparing it to a bolt action kind of takes the argument out of the equation, much like cars versus trucks. Bolt actions are built to be able to maximize a caliber's potential in regards to higher pressure and longer cartridge length. FWIW, a 6.5G is as good or better than a 243 WIN, all things considered.

My comment on the majority of species was not correct, but I also wouldn't hesitate to shoot anything up to a small elk. It has been proven to take such game and most certainly not at short ranges hence Mark Larue's elk hunt that put down a large bull at 405 yards.

The Grendel is certainly among the most hyped AR cartridge but it is kind of hard to consider it the number 1 cartridge when the only thing it excels at is punching paper at long range. Ballistically it is way down the list behind the 6.8, .300 BO, .450 BM, .458 Soc, and .50 BW for short ranged defense and hunting out to 100 yards. It gains ground as distance increases but would still be behind the .450 out to around 175 and the 6.8 out to at least 250 yards. At the point you finally begin to see any kind of significant ballistic advantage the energy is getting rather low for hunting anything deer size or larger and the velocity is getting close to the minimum expansion velocity for some bullets. Of course, there are the various boutique cartridges for the AR of .24, .25, and .284 calibers along with the .375 SOCOM, and that Ditech or Olympic WSSM uppers that could also be added to the list. None of this makes the Grendel a bad cartridge, it is just not quite what it is hyped to be and it is certainly not even in the same ballpark as a .243 win.

Shooting a bull elk at that range with such and anemic cartridge is a stunt, IMO and falls squarely into the realm "just because it can be done, doesn't mean you should". He probably used a Berger bullet too! There are numerous cartridges that would be far better for something as large and tough as an elk including the .243 (which is still marginal), I can't imagine the thought process that would cause someone to invest the time, effort, and money on an elk hunt and choose to use something like the Grendel.

 

[phylodog]

I chose the Grendel for whitetail hunting out to 300yds and smacking steel out to 1k. While I didn't spend months searching, the research I did do pointed to the Grendel as an excellent choice for my purposes and I didn't find anything I thought would perform those two functions better.

 

[sadclownwp]

I don't think there is a much better cartridge in the AR platform for hunting out to 4 or 500 yards.

 

[phylodog]

I thought I had updated this thread but apparently I had not but I think it's finally done. I (obviously) decided to go a different direction with the build and now it sits as you see below. I always struggle with scope height on AR rifles as I tend to get much lower on a stock than most. I couldn't get things right with the PRS which was originally on it so I went with an LMT SOPMOD and I was able to find a Battleline S.A.P.R. after searching for a while since they're no longer in production. Looking forward to getting behind it again and figuring out the flyer issue if it's still there.

 

[dukeboy_318]

I thought I had updated this thread but apparently I had not but I think it's finally done. I (obviously) decided to go a different direction with the build and now it sits as you see below. I always struggle with scope height on AR rifles as I tend to get much lower on a stock than most. I couldn't get things right with the PRS which was originally on it so I went with an LMT SOPMOD and I was able to find a Battleline S.A.P.R. after searching for a while since they're no longer in production. Looking forward to getting behind it again and figuring out the flyer issue if it's still there.

what stock are you using?

 

[phylodog]

LMT SOPMOD with a Battleline SAPR on it.

 

[edwea]

I think I got mine finished about the same time you did. I sighted in and then changed Scopes and haven't re-sighted yet. But it does seem promising. Where do you get ammo? It is unobtanium around here in Bloomington, but I have ordered online and have reloading supplies although I've only loaded up a few rounds at this point. I am going to be loading 123 gn Lapua scenars over leverevolution once I get going.

 

[phylodog]

I ordered the ammo online but I don’t remember where. Could have been Midway or Target Sports.

 

[madvarminter]

I have a 16” Grendel ar that i will be deer hunting with this season. I’ve shot the hornady sst into coyotes and its pretty impressive. I have shot it out to 500yds and it whacks the steel target pretty good. I would not be afraid to shoot deer at 300. I love the round.Hand loads use very little powder and its not picky. There are several good factory loads out that are almost as cheap as rolling your own.

 

[roscott]

Necrothread.

Phylo, how did your experiences turn out with 6.5G now that you've had some time to roll with it? Despite initially poking fun of Grendel owners, I eventually put one together myself after being disappointed with 300BLK on hogs.

Are you pleased with it? Still thinking of using it on deer?