08-04-2018, 03:03 PM
Ever wonder why Fed factory Valk is $20/box for the good stuff, and both of federal's regularly available Grendel loads are 25+/box? And of course there are always lots of the other new majors, but no Grendel on the shelf. At Cabelas, there are 16 slots for different factory loadings for Creedmore, 9 for 6.8, and six for Valk. There are only two slots (Fed 120 AE, and Hornady Black) assigned to Grendel, with the rest being "special order". They don't even stock the SSTs or GMM locally. I get a kick out of the fact that the Grendel is ALWAYS empty, and the others are more often than not completely full. I kind of wonder if the manager of the bang bang section is a closet 6.8 buff/Grendel hater...
There are marketing dollars at work here, same as the 6.8. When it's a pet project of a few members of leadership inside a major company, it's got the extra benefit of some strong legs out of the gate. This is one of the reasons I dug a little deeper when I found Grendel. There was no big name backing, no corporate backed debut events. That is until there was enough proof that it was legitimate, and that it was going to perform in the market. (There were a few "B. Alexander is a moron for not letting anyone that wants to to change his design" posts... usually idiotically ranted and almost always lacking the necessary data and citation. I became even more convinced Grendel was the right way to go.)
THEN a few big names came along and decided to go ahead and make ammo for it. (but not until Wolf committed to making cheap steel for it - oh wait, there's a legitimate market here?!?) And there's still no big name sponsorship when compared to (Hornady) for the Creedmoor, or (Remington) for the SPC, or (Federal) for the Valk. One of the biggest reasons this forum, it's early members, and leadership are so awesome. Grendel stands on it's own, by continued, reliable performance. There is no corporate hype, no exaggerated numbers that the engineers have to catch up to make the weapon prove. I'm not saying these calibers don't perform, I'm saying they had help getting to market.
It's possible that it was good that was the case, though. There was no corporate shill pushing inflated ballistic charts that the Grendel had to attempt to prove. Grendel set it's own parameters, proved the design and T&E, and the results set the expectations. Then the market caught up. A real success story.
Some of those that have been around longer can correct my inaccurate memory regarding the timeline, and expound on this. But this is the way I read Grendel's story, piecing together blog posts, magazine articles, and message board rants.
There are marketing dollars at work here, same as the 6.8. When it's a pet project of a few members of leadership inside a major company, it's got the extra benefit of some strong legs out of the gate. This is one of the reasons I dug a little deeper when I found Grendel. There was no big name backing, no corporate backed debut events. That is until there was enough proof that it was legitimate, and that it was going to perform in the market. (There were a few "B. Alexander is a moron for not letting anyone that wants to to change his design" posts... usually idiotically ranted and almost always lacking the necessary data and citation. I became even more convinced Grendel was the right way to go.)
THEN a few big names came along and decided to go ahead and make ammo for it. (but not until Wolf committed to making cheap steel for it - oh wait, there's a legitimate market here?!?) And there's still no big name sponsorship when compared to (Hornady) for the Creedmoor, or (Remington) for the SPC, or (Federal) for the Valk. One of the biggest reasons this forum, it's early members, and leadership are so awesome. Grendel stands on it's own, by continued, reliable performance. There is no corporate hype, no exaggerated numbers that the engineers have to catch up to make the weapon prove. I'm not saying these calibers don't perform, I'm saying they had help getting to market.
It's possible that it was good that was the case, though. There was no corporate shill pushing inflated ballistic charts that the Grendel had to attempt to prove. Grendel set it's own parameters, proved the design and T&E, and the results set the expectations. Then the market caught up. A real success story.
Some of those that have been around longer can correct my inaccurate memory regarding the timeline, and expound on this. But this is the way I read Grendel's story, piecing together blog posts, magazine articles, and message board rants.
Nothing kills the incentive of men faster than a healthy sense of entitlement. Nothing kills entitlement faster than a healthy sense of achievement.