HOWA Grendel 6.5 Out of the Box, Early Impressions

[bwaites]

9 days ago I had the chance to take the Howa back to the range. After mounting the scope that came with the rifle, and using it for breakin, I realized that it simply was not going to work for any kind of accuracy testing. I swapped to my Target Nightforce 12-42 for that days testing, and, after initial zeroing of that scope set to work shooting groups and establishing Chrono data.

As best laid plans of men and mice often go, the Stars were not in alignment, and I did not get sufficient Chrono data due to a malfunctioning CED M2 Chrono. I cannot figure out why it is not working properly, so it will be going back for some factory checks. However, it did work enough times to get data for both factory Hornady and my hand loads to tell me that the velocities are within 50 FPS of my AR 20 inch Grendel, so I'm comfortable that I am seeing realistic velocities.

However, I could not initially shoot accurate groups with ANY load. This was very frustrating, because last time out, just while breaking in the barrel, I was able to shoot some sub MOA groups, even using the scope the factory sent. After the first round of 10 sets of 5 shots were not achieving anywhere near what I expected, I really went over the setup in an effort to figure out what the issue was. I finally found that my barrel was being touched, at times, by the front stop rod on my rest. It didn't happen with every target, but as I had about ten targets set up, all arranged on a large 4x5 foot backer, it would touch the barrel, especially on the lower two rows of targets. Once I corrected this, groups began to improve. I cannot be sure if it was that I was sometimes touching that rod, or if the barrel was slowly improving with breaking in, however.

From that point forward I was able to shoot significantly better groups, however. Since Matt had reported good groups with factory Amax ammo, I used that as my base. My best group with it after the above discovery was right at 1 MOA. Not as good as I had hoped, but not bad for a new factory rifle and barrel.

I then proceeded on to some hand loads. All were in Hornady brass (which will become important shortly). My best handloaded ammo produced this group, almost identical in size to the factory load. I think a little more development with this load will improve accuracy. I simply used loads that had been shown to be accurate in my AR Grendels, and I think this load can be seated out a tiny bit further and will shoot better, so I will load it like that for the next go around.



I then moved on to loads running the 130 AR Hybrid from Berger. These loads were also developed for my AR's, but one of them appears to be a golden apple.



A second looks very good, also. This load has shot sub 1/2 MOA from two of my three AR's, so I think it could be a winner also.