Another Grendel joins the family: 16" carbine

[m796rider]

I ended up liking my 18" Grendel SPR so much I decided to build a 16" carbine.

The barrel is actually 15.5" as I had Adco Firearms cut off the 9/16x24 threads on the AA stainless button rifled 16" barrel and rethread 5/8x24. It's cool, since I have several registered SBR lowers. BCM M16 bolt carrier, Palmetto State Armory M4-type upper. The optic is a TA31H-68, which matches up pretty well with the Hornady 123gr Amax factory 6.5G ammo.

The magazine is a C-Products 6.8 25 rounder, and it works perfectly with 6.5G. I had ten of these mags Cerakoted FDE.

Still waiting on a rear backup sight; not a really big deal since I can't use it with the ACOG mounted anyway.

This one is handier and lighter than my SPR and is a hoot to shoot.

Here is the recce as currently configured. The GRSC 1-6x scope is well-matched to the rifle, especially with the extended eye relief and the nice FFP ranging reticle. I am looking forward to getting this configuration onto our silhouette range after deer season ends.




This is the original configuration.

[LRRPF52]

Sweet. That looks like a very handy carbine. I Cerakoted FDE most of my mags too.

[ss355]

That is a good-lookin' gun. Weight with optic? I'll hold tight for the range report.

What kind of surface prep is required for Cerakote? I'm set up for parkerizing so have my own blaster to remove finishes. Will sandblasting work? Sure would be a handy way to quickly tell a 223 mag from a 6.5/6.8 without having to look at the follower or loaded rounds within.

[m796rider]

That is a good-lookin' gun. Weight with optic? I'll hold tight for the range report.

What kind of surface prep is required for Cerakote? I'm set up for parkerizing so have my own blaster to remove finishes. Will sandblasting work? Sure would be a handy way to quickly tell a 223 mag from a 6.5/6.8 without having to look at the follower or loaded rounds within.

Unloaded weight with everything in the photo (except mag, of course) is 8lb 12oz, figure another oz or so for the rear backup sight.

Sandblasting works fine for Cerakote, and I believe they now have air-cure as well as oven-cure formulas.

[LRRPF52]

That is a good-lookin' gun. Weight with optic? I'll hold tight for the range report.

What kind of surface prep is required for Cerakote? I'm set up for parkerizing so have my own blaster to remove finishes. Will sandblasting work? Sure would be a handy way to quickly tell a 223 mag from a 6.5/6.8 without having to look at the follower or loaded rounds within.

Yup. Blast the finish for a nice texture after a thorough degrease. Do a heated degrease after that, acetone bath, or however you ensure an oil-free surface on your parts before park. I only touch the parts with gloved hands after the initial degrease. NIC recommends you heat the parts before spraying. Have a good spray box with hangers that can be transferred easily from the spray box to the oven.

Use a touch-up HPLV gun with air compressor, or airbrush to coat the parts after mixing per the instructions. There are different matte-to-sheen textures you can achieve, unlike a lot of other coatings, especially in the matte texture range, but the smoother surfaces are harder and stronger in my experience.

Make sure you don't smudge the surface during coating and transfer to the oven, and bake at 200F for 2hrs. If you're doing templates, you can flash cure your initial coatings for 15min at 180F, then final bake once all are done.

Grendel & Friends.jpg

FDE Carbine.jpg

You will have an acid, corrosion, and salt-proof finish afterwards, that is extremely resistant to abrasion. It takes grinding to remove it.

I'm in the process of coating a bunch of parts right now, and will have that MGI system coated after I modify the locking mechanism to a more streamlined profile. The Grendel is in the middle of the top 3 blasters, with only the barrel FDE Cerakoted so far. It's stripped down now and getting prepped. The top one is completely coated, except for the barrel. Troy uses the same FDE Cerakote on their TRX and other handguards that are FDE, because their original FDE anodized TRX rails turned out more like shiny brown/bronze. When I coat an upper and use the Troy TRX in FDE, the colors and surface texture match perfectly, which is nice.

[Brodady]

Very nice, this is about the length that I want for my grendel

[m796rider]

Updated configuration in original post.

[LRRPF52]

That is beautiful. You can Cerakote optics too, just oven-cure at 150-180F. I did one of my GRSC's, and the illumination still works, nothing affected.

[Grendel-Gene]

I believe you when you say you can cerakote optics... but i think I would have a very hard time putting my Leupold M3 in an oven....

[LRRPF52]

It's no different than leaving it in the car on a hot day, or lying in open sun in the Middle East or Southwestern US desert. 150-180F is very low temperature for an oven.

I just noticed you got the GRSC 1-6x FFP. Looking forward to a review on that one.

[Varoum]

May want to read this http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_18/42...d.html&page=17

[m796rider]

May want to read this http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_18/42...d.html&page=17

Yep - that's one of the big reasons I ordered the 1-6x. Plus, I had used horseshoe reticles before in a couple of IOR 1.1-4x scopes I owned a few years back. They are great all-around reticles. I have other carbines set up for close-in speed, so the recce in the OP is more of a general-use rifle -- which now has a great general-use scope.