Thank you, folks.

[MegaHurtz]

I love this Grendel Ammunition & Reloading forum - just setting back and being a sponge is so valuable and rewarding.

Also, coming to the realization that a lot of the regulars who are so altruistic in helping, with a good number of them being people who have been reloading many many years (i.e. since before I was even born (and with me being old enough to have old guy eyes)), it makes me really appreciate the literal centuries of collective reloading knowledge being freely offered for the taking, or at the meager cost of investing the time to post a well-thought-out and respectful question.

Kudos to all of you who take the time to help. It really is a great thing y'all do! Take care.

-MHz

[CJW]

MHz,
What a very nice thing to say about the vile horde.

The big AR forums have members that are just Rambo Sniper asses.



The Horde goes out of its way not to make a new person feel stupid.

They will keep you safe.

I am proud to be a member of this group as well.

[OLDCOOT]

Although I seldom post, I agree. The forum serves a great purpose. How many dangerous situations have been averted because the veterans of this forum have reached out to the less experienced? If you follow this forum regularly you see that safety is the big consideration in the answers given out. There is a collective conscious that seems to seek to work to prevent bad circumstances from happening. Thank you guys and girls.

[FLshooter]

I’ve been on some AR sites where the guys are snobs . On 6.5 Grendel we have some guys that will go out of their way to give you the best advice they can without the attitude.

[AgedWarrior]

I don’t post much, but I read a lot. Good group sharing good info!

[65GbySeven]

I used to be a golf instructor and would laugh at "experienced" students who said they hated to play with "new" golfers. Right, you were never new.

The guy I learned to teach golf from used to say, "Collectively we are smarter than we are individually." This forum follows that philosophy to a Tee, pun intended. It has single handedly saved me more money, time, and body parts above all other resources available to beginning builders and reloaders.

I echo MHz's message with a huge THANK YOU!

[Kswhitetails]

I started building Grendels because of four or five members posts and attitudes I found here. The sentiment is old, thanks for keeping this going. Push forward, learn and improve, but remember where you came from and pick up the stragglers.

[Mikey7373]

This is a very unique forum, unlike other forums, everyone here seems to genuinely want to help and give good advice from their personal experiences, I came across this forum while researching what caliber I wanted for my first AR and it?s been nothing but great information and really awesome people. When I was having trouble with a short throated barrel that factory rounds were getting jammed in I had someone loan me a reamer, complete trust among strangers. I also had a member send me a barrel out of pure kindness because he read about my struggles I was having with that barrel (thanks again Trapper). I could never give back the amount knowledge I?ve taken from this forum. So I?ll also echo the message Thank You

[LRRPF52]

I came here in 2009 looking for help and suggestions on loading for my first 16" Grendel, as my reloading experience was really centered on .308 Winchester, .270 Winchester, .223 Rem, and .260 Rem (which was relatively new to me at the time as well/2007).

Unlike other places that immediately assume you're an idiot with no experience because you don't have a post count and you just joined, I was treated with respect and immediately given some helpful recommendations on powder. This was when the Old Forum was here, which had a different format that included barrel length sub-forums.

Bill Alexander, LR1955, Bwaites, JASmith, and many others were here to provide a measured, informative network of collective sharing and caution.

My initial impressions of loading and chronographing my little 16" were unimpressive. Factory ammo was scarce at the time, and I already had 6.5 Grendel Lapua brass, given to me by one of my Finnish sniper buddies in Finland well before I even got my barrel/bolt combo from Midway USA.

I ordered up some 123gr Scenars and started loading with Vihtavuori powder at starting loads, exercising normal load procedures of caution rather than trying to push it into crazy territory, but still expecting to see over 2300fps. I was disappointed in my initial results, and accuracy was not there as I was shooting from an MGI Quick Barrel Change upper where the barrel is almost free to rattle around in the lock-up, depending on how thick your barrel extension flange is.

LR1955 and some others turned me onto TAC and 8208XBR. This was at a time when practically everyone on the forums was saying how superior the 6.8 SPC is to the Grendel from a 16" barrel, and that the Grendel was only really good for cutting paper IF you shot it from a 20" or longer barrel, otherwise you were wasting your time. Somehow, the 6.8 SPC was magic in the hunting department from a 16" barrel, whereas the 16" Grendel would not even come close to the 6.8's devastating terminal ballistics that were like the hammer of Thor.

I never wanted a 16" Grendel, but when I tried to put an 18" Grendel bbl/bolt combo in my cart and check out from Midway, it was gone. I went back and put a 20" in my cart....gone. Went back quickly and it was either a 16" or 24", and I didn't want 24" because I was planning on lugging it around in the 2-Man Military Sniper Competitions I had been regularly competing in. Getting a 16" Grendel felt like a compromise to me, but I had to have something in-hand to work with, so 16" would have to do until I could get an 18" (Little did I realize how close they are in terms of MV).



Either way, this allowed me to see what the 16" Grendel would really do. I had no interest in it initially for hunting, but hadn't ruled that out. As I worked up loads with the 16" Grendel, especially 100gr NBT with 8208 XBR, I saw that it would go plenty fast (2675fps). Guys were experimenting with CFE223 back then as well, since Hornady had published data for it in the 2010 8th Edition, so I decided to test some out under the 123gr A-MAX.

One thing that I felt was missing from the market for us was a quality, dedicated reloading handbook, kinda like the One Book/One Caliber series, but instead of just being a photo-copied knock-off of all the published data in cheap binding on cheap paper, I wanted something that covered more topics that were actually helpful to the end-user, whether they were a hunter, competitive shooter, or long range shooter.

I pitched the idea here on the forum, and everyone seemed to agree that this would be a great thing to have. Several responded via PM with interest in participating, with one in particular actually backing up his interest with effort (JASmith). Hanka supported the effort, as did Bill Alexander, Janne Pohjoisp?? of Lapua/Vihtavuori, Bob Stokes, Hodgdon's, and Western Powders. JASmith later recommended we bring in forum member, rickOshay, to help with page formatting with InDesign, printing, and later terminal ballistics testing. There were many people who contributed to the 6.5 Grendel Handbooks from the start.

When we got the first pre-print sample of Volume I of the 6.5 Grendel Handbooks, it far exceeded our expectations and set the bar into totally different territory compared to the One Book/One Caliber pamphlets. We had received a lot of requests for a hunting-specific work for the 6.5 Grendel, and worked hard for about a year on putting Volume II together. None of us could have done the work alone and come up with what the Handbooks are. They have been a labor of love with thousands of dollars invested and very slow returns. I would never recommend to anyone seeking to turn a profit to invest in books of this niche market nature, even as popular as 6.5 Grendel is. I've had requests from friends and other people in the industry to do the same thing for 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.8 SPC, and .300 Blackout, but it just didn't make sense at the time to do that.



It has been very interesting to watch this cartridge progress from where it was in 2004, to a place now in 2020 where it enjoys at least 93 factory loadings, including offerings from AA, Barnes, Federal, Hornady, HSM, Nosler, Remington, and Wolf, along with the growing cottage industry of small and mid-sized companies who load a wide range of bullets for the Grendel.

This forum has been more instrumental than many of you might think in furthering the spread of the cartridge's popularity, and a lot of people shooting 6.5 Grendel are not even aware of what goes on in the online community. They are quite content to just buy rifles, components, and ammo and enjoy it however they see fit.

I'm happy to have been welcomed and treated with respect here from the first time I created an account. For those wondering, I logged in one day after I met and worked with LR1955 and Bwaites at a Precision Rifle Clinic for Boomershoot, and had "Moderator" under my handle. I never asked for, nor declined the role. It has been a pleasure to help promote that same sense of welcoming and respect that I was shown here, and I hope we all continue to maintain that for the benefit of those who continue to participate in this interesting experiment in the history of firearms and metallic rifle cartridges.