Midway Satern 6.5 Grendel barrels

[bwaites]

LRR. I probably shouldn't respond - I really don't want to get into a pi$$ing match over it. I'll be honest though, as one who was intrigued by the cartridge and only wanted to find a way to start shooting it, I don't think they way Bill A. and AA handled the situation helped matters very much. Why not do what Baer did and make the reamer open source? I suspect that might have worked out better for all concerned. But, it was Bill's to do with as he wanted. And that's cool. I don't think I have a dog in this fight. I'm just a guy who likes to shoot interesting guns.

Without a single, unified standard, there would have been no chance at a SAAMI specification and acceptance. Look at all the different 6.8 chambers, and yet the SAAMI accepted chamber is now vilified as being the wrong one! AA allowed anyone who wanted to follow the Grendel spec to make Grendels. There was no fee, they just required that you use the actual Grendel specifications. That's why little companies could afford to build Grendels. Making the reamer open source would have opened a can of worms, because anyone who decided they thought a .295 neck was better would have made a .295 neck Grendel, leading to what happened when Hornady released their ammo and all those non-Grendel chambers had issues.

Now I don't know why Satern and Baer bailed on the Grendel chamber and began selling a variant. All I know for sure is - they did. I'm sorry, but the explanations from AA just don't hunt. If it's a fabulous cartridge (and I think it is), why can't everyone chamber for it and all make a living? Did Baer and Satern (and whoever else) decide to sneak around behind Bill's back and create a similar design just to screw him? Why would they? I can't think of a reason.

Satern and Les Baer made business decisions, that was their right. Contrary to what lots of people would have you believe, it had nothing to do with anyone making a living. At least part of Les Baer's decision was that he wanted to use an other than Grendel chamber, making it as accurate as they could with a single, specified load. The Grendel chamber was specifically designed to be accurate with as many bullets between 85-140 grains as possible. There are some compromises there. Alexander Arms licensed the name to anyone who would build to the Grendel spec. Having enough rifles out there to that spec was part of the reason that Hornady decided to take on the ammunition, and make it a SAAMI cartridge. Without that, it simply wouldn't have happened, because Hornady wouldn't have known what spec to make the ammuntion to. Note all the issues with 6.8 ammunition, and the "Combat" loads, and other variants.

So, yes, I got turned off. Now I'm turned on. But, no I'm not a true believer. I like my lbc, quite a lot actually. I may get a bolt gun chambered for the Grendel cartridge some day, although I can't say which chamber I'd use. I like snug chambers and tightish necks. In my experience they tend to be more accurate. I really would like to see a Grendel chamber/reamer print, though. Now that it's SAMMI'd, will that be generally available? I checked PTG and, although they offer a Grendel reamer, it's not on their SAMMI list yet. Of course it may be available now. If so, could someone point me in the right direction?

I wouldn't use the standard Grendel chamber for a bolt gun. Heck, Bill Alexander has said that it isn't the best option for a bolt gun. I'd certainly talk to stokesrj, he's built a smoking bolt gun and chambered it to his specs. Speedy Gonzales has built some too, and I've heard his are great as well. As for the chamber drawing, I suspect you'll be able to get if from SAAMI, though they are notoriously slow at getting that information out there.

First, though, I'm parts gathering to build a 6x45.

Without AA having been consistent about toeing the line with the proper Grendel specs, all these other companies couldn't, (or wouldn't) have played the game. Did it slow adoption by other companies? Probably. But now we have a SAAMI standard, and everyone can build to that, or tell people that they have a similar, but different, chamber. That will cause some headaches, but if you buy one of those, you should be able to know it is different BEFORE you buy, not after!