03-13-2023, 04:18 PM
Bonas Wrote:For short-action bolt guns, Grendel is even more of a niche cartridge. Reloading-wise, Grendel presents some good advantages, as OP points out. Shooting-wise, other cartridges out perform it, with 6.5 Creedmoor leading that pack.
Grendel's low recoil comes from it shooting (relatively) light bullets at low speeds. That necessarily creates its own ballistic issues.
To me, where Grendel really shines is as a short-range hunting cartridge for compact, i.e. short-barreled, suppressed rifles.
Other cartridges outperform it in what? Barrel life, recoil energy and muzzle blast (more shooters will shoot well and you watch more in scope)? There's 3-4 areas the Grendel beats the Creedmoor while still being more than enough for most 0-400 yard big game hunting where 99.5% of game is killed, Creedmoor almost overkill, 98% under 300 yards. More affordable to shoot, so the unlimited barrel life coupled with being most affordable to shoot and for most shooters possible it's far better matched than Creedmoor. Still bangs steel a long ways out to go along with all that extra shooting you can do. The Grendel shines a lot of places when realistic shooting checkboxes are all on the page, more so than almost any other comer. So the Creedmoor can kill game in the further, in the elrh arena where very few things are killed by very few people (sounds niche to me) and it can compete further like PRS (also niche).
And all AR length cartridge bolt action rifles are niche.
Don't get me wrong, I recommend 6.5 CM to most new people getting their first all round rifle. It may be the most versatile period. But for those who don't care to bang big game to 600 or compete at 1000...the Grendel is most versatile.