11-27-2013, 04:11 AM
jfornelli Wrote:I'm in the same situation, getting ready to build my 6.5 Grendel, so I'll pay attention to this thread.
Seeing how many people are using the 18" barrel for a hunting rig, I sure hope I didn't make a bad choice in going with a 16" barrel in the Liberty buy.
Yes. Only 18" and above will penetrate animals. 16" Grendel's bounce off....
In all seriousness, there are forum members who have taken some very large deer in the Northeast with 10.5" Grendel's. Same with 11", 14.5"....even through-and-through the shoulders of feral hogs with 123gr SST from a 14.5".
Point-blank range is almost the same for all the carbines, with the 10.5" barely having 25yds less than a 16" for PBZ. The 10.5" Grendel keeps the 123gr SST over 1800fps to ~260yds, with a 225yd PBZ. There will be a detailed table of all this in Volume II of the 6.5 Grendel Reloading Handbook. It shows max effective and PBZ for 10.5", 14.5", 16", 18", 20", and 24", with variable ranges of muzzle velocity commonly seen in the different barrel lengths.