Noveske barrel build results

[pangris]

Greetings gentlemen. This looks like a great forum. I've been a Grendel fan for quite some time. I made the mistake of selling one years ago when I was made an offer I should have refused, but alas did not.

In any case, I'm back in the fold. I bought a 12.5" Noveske barrel and was so happy with the results, I picked up a 20" as well. Tomorrow I'll have some chrono numbers out of the 20.

The 12.5" has put up some numbers I'm very pleased with. Priv Part 120 BTHP and Hornady 123 SST both run a hair over 2300 FPS and Underwood 110 "Controlled Chaos" makes 2400.

More importantly, the accuracy is outstanding. My primary application is pigs in south Texas, so I'm using a 3.5x ACOG with the big red chevron/circle which is well calibrated to get you out to 300. I was pleased to see a 1.5" 5 shot group with the Underwood at 200 yards using the ACOG when initially trying out various types of ammo. The PP and Hornaday also shot well, reliably 1" ish at 100 with the Hornady, 1.25-1.5" with the PPU.

Then I managed to break the ACOG (!) and while it went out for repair I slapped a 3-18X on top out of sheer curiosity and was very pleased to see that off a rest at 100 yards, they rifle was shooting about .5" with the Underwood ammo.

I can only imagine what it's capable of with a real shooter off a legit bench.

Thus far, a couple hundred rounds and zero malfunctions.

The 20" is wearing an old USO SR6 1.5-6 which is to say it is very much set up for faster and closer but initial 40 rounds seem to indicate accuracy is excellent and kills pigs dead. Out to 300, it yielded a 3.5" group which I assure was a whole lot of user error. At some point I may put on a higher magnification to see what it can really do.

In short, the run of those barrels appears to have yielded fast and accurate results. I wish they'd made a 14.5" but the 12.5" is fast enough.

[pangris]

Perhaps my expectations were to high - 6 loads tested, a little slower than I hoped.

20" Noveske

Underwood 110 gr - 2543, 2569, 2572, 2576, 2578

Hornady 123 SST - 2502, 2528, 2547

Nosler 120 Ballistic Tip - 2252, 2254, 2264, 2269, 2276

Hornady 123 ELD - 2464, 2469, 2473

Hornady Frontier 123 FMJ - 2525, 2528, 2530

PPU 120 gr BTHP - 2492, 2511, 2530

Accuracy was all I could hope for with the optic/target combo, zero concerns or complaints. While the velocity wasn't quite as high as I'd hoped, primary take aways were that SST is probably the best factory value for performance/velocity/accuracy on balance.

I have the capability but not the time to reload at the moment, but I'd be curious to know how fast I could push out of that 20" if I got one a press...

[Jake TN]

Welcome. I am surprised by the lack of velocity out the underwood and nosler. That seems extremely low for a 20 inch barrel. Is the nosler factory ammo and what bullet is it using?

[Jake TN]

And how in the world did you break an acog. I was in the Corps when we first got them and they were close to bullet proof

[pangris]

Nosler is the 120 Gr ballistic tip - everything is factory.

The reticle of my ACOG went from beautifully illuminated to peeling off/back and being mainly black. A few things there - first, I got it used, it was about 7 years old, so God only knows if it was mounted on a Ma Deuce prior to my rifle. I sent it back to Trijicon and they replaced everything but the body and glass for a couple hundred bucks and it came back like new in a couple weeks. I ended up in a factory rebuilt ACOG for under $900 all in so, be what it do. I scoured the interwebz for the problem and found one other guy it happened to on Arfcom years prior. Probably a fluke. The customer service experience inspired me to get another.

Full and fair disclosure - my 12.5 velocity at 2300 Hornady & PPU, 2400 Underwood measurements were with a Ballistic Labs (?) Radar thingy my buddy has and that was a summertime trip in southern Louisiana. Today I was using a Magneto Speed and it was about 45 degrees outside.