6.5 Grendel Barrel Length Comparison

[LRRPF52]

i am always trying to get a little more juice out of my AR-15 using the amazing 6.5 Grendel. After years of testing and trying, my conclusion is that because of the bolt face and the chamber on some 6.5 grendel barrels, it is way easier to just buy a bolt in a 6.5 Creedmoor. The grendel, as much as I love it, has it’s limits, even with a 24 inch barrel and maxed out loads in a bolt rifle. Better off goung with a 6.5 Creedmoor. instant large gain of energy, power, range, longer more aero boolits, and you can easily do 140 grain boolits at over 3100 feet per second stretching your range out to super sonic 1250 yard range and with a sleek, slipery140 grain boolit. Now you can comfortably shoot an Elk nor Mullie if you want. I have seen a guy get a moose just inside 100 yards with the Creedmoor. Two shots right behind the front sholder, 7 inches apart. You can download ammo to very low recoil at 140 gr at 2800fps, or use 123 gr grendel boolits. You are also not giving up any inherant accuracy with the creedmoor.

So I have owned and loaded for all of them, multiple 6.5 Grendels, .260 Remingtons, and 6.5 Creedmoor.

.260 Rem has more powder capacity and even with 26” barrels is not pushing a 140gr to anywhere near 3100fps.

24” .260 Rem does 2680-2840fps with a 140gr from a bolt gun. You’re talking about 260-320fps faster than any published, pressure-tested loads with that 3100fps number.

Not even the 6.5 PRC will do 3100fps with a 24” barrel unless you push over max, and 6.5 PRC is a short magnum with far more case capacity than any of the 6.5-08 class of cartridges.

6.5 Creedmoor has less case capacity than .260 Rem, will push a 140gr to 2750fps from a bolt gun.

I’m not sure where you saw that you can push 6.5CM w/140gr to 3100fps, or download it to 2800fps, because those are way fast for that cartridge.

Neither .260 Rem nor 6.5CM will fit inside the AR-15, and the sight picture disturbance is much closer to a .308 Win than a lot of people are willing to admit, which means you often need someone to spot for you when you’re shooting distance or game. You can mitigate the sight picture disturbance if you shoot 107gr-123gr, and 130gr isn’t too bad either with a heavier rifle fired from bipod-supported/rear bag, but they aren’t like shooting a 6.5 Grendel.

I like them all, but if you’re stepping up to a bolt gun, I would strongly consider 6.5 PRC over the 6.5CM. The performance is awesome with the PRC, laser-flat, a lot less drift, and with a properly-built rifle, you can really tame the muzzle climb far better than I imagined.