6.5 Grendel Preferred Loads

[A5BLASTER]

Im not sure what your saying A5. If I list all the charge weights I tried I will run out of ink.

Did you run those weights on the chronograph to see what it was telling you? If not then how would you know where to stop and know you had a good load with low sd and es numbers and then start working on seating depth too get the bullet exit and barrel harmonics in tune to give you tight groups.

[tdbru]

DD,
make sure scope base and mounts are tight. or whatever is holding your scope to the rifle. as others have pointed out, make sure your barrel is truly free floated, i.e. gas block & gas tube have clearance. what scope are you using? do you have a known good scope you could swap as an experiment? is this a purchased upper or a DIY build? how's the trigger pull? 7 to 8 lbs? 2.5 to 3?
-tdbru

[doubleduck]

DD,
make sure scope base and mounts are tight. or whatever is holding your scope to the rifle. as others have pointed out, make sure your barrel is truly free floated, i.e. gas block & gas tube have clearance. what scope are you using? do you have a known good scope you could swap as an experiment? is this a purchased upper or a DIY build? how's the trigger pull? 7 to 8 lbs? 2.5 to 3?
-tdbru

Thanks You td, vascar, A5, greyfox and company. I will take your advice and drill down to see if I can come up with answers. One last question, what do you think is a reasonable group for a faxon barrel? Its going to be used for deer hunting so I don't need 1/2 inch but I want "reasonable expectations" for what I have.

[tdbru]

DD,
like everything mass produced by human hands, sometimes you get a "hummer" and sometimes a "bummer". the better barrel makers make more hummers than bummers, but we're not perfect, so neither are our products.

reasonable group.... depends on who's shooting too. one of the "presidents' 100" is way better at it than i am. how is your bench technique? i've not heard a lot of bad about faxon barrels. Obviously they don't rate up there like Krieger or Obermeyer. also make sure your load is up to it too as others have mentioned. they have good suggestions on a goto bullet for testing accuracy. i can see the problem you may have right now is finding either the federal match ammo or the correct loading components as everything seems to be sold out right now.

it's very hard to say what your faxon barrel should group with your loaded ammo with you shooting, with your scope at your range. have you shot an AR a lot in competition? or is an AR platform new to you?

others can comment on what kind of groups they get with their faxon barrel, on their build, and with their load, with their scope, at their range. trying to tell you what you should be getting is not realistic in my opinion. too many unknown variables.
not trying to be grumpy or a smartass, but even for me, what i can get out of my platform vs letting a top shooter shoot my platform will give 2 different results of how even my AR groups.
-tdbru

[BoDuke80]

Exact same barrel here. 20" PF Criterion, 1:8. Looks like it was built in a NASA lab, its very pretty. Only took 18 months to arrive. I'll never do business with PF again, ever.

Won't group factory Hornady to save its life. I'm hoping reloads will work better. Very surprised that it doesn't shoot considering the hype around this barrel when I bought it two years ago, and the price I paid for it at the time.

I called criterion and they said send us your upper it's gotta be your reciever or bcg. Like it had to be anything but their barrel. There's not much more they could do I can't do. So I lapped the reciever bedded the barrel with high temp sleeve retaining compound re-torqued it used shims n rockset on the muzzle break and it's better but still won't group factory ammo. Handloads help but I'm bout ready to scrap it

[GregS]

123 SST, new Star Line brass, 27.9gn AR Comp, small rifle Winchester WSR primers. 4 shots at 100 yards. I think I'm on to what my Grendel likes. No extractor marks or signs of over pressure. Ballistic Advantage 20" Aero Precision Upper and Lower, Velocity Classic AR Curved Trigger 3lb pull, Nikon 2.5x10x40 mil dot scope.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17287[/ATTACH]

[knitepoet]

My pet load, that shoots great in my AA overwatch and VERY good in my custom Rem 799 is
26.0 H4895
AA Case
Wolf SR primer
Hornady 123 A-Max
2.25 COAL
2375 MV from the 24" OW

2 other friends with Grendels have also had outstanding results with that load

Here's one of my load development targets with that load in my OW
[ATTACH=CONFIG]17389[/ATTACH]
ETA: That's 5 shots @ 100 from a cold fouled bore

[seasprite]

Hey all newbie here I've been lurking for awhile and decided to join. I'm currently working on load development for my space force build which has an 12" faxon with JP bolt. I'm using 123 ELD's with CFE223 and Hornady case. I hope I'm staying in the spirit of the thread here and giving some data for everybody. I haven't shot for groups yet this was a just a powder charge test to low ES and SD's. The next test will be seating depth and for groups.

temp 55
hum. 36%

123 Elds
wolf srp
Hornady cases
CFE223 powder
COL 2.275"

30.7 gr
avg 2238
es 18
sd 6

31.0
avg 2261
es 29
sd 11

31.3
avg 2290
es 58
sd 25

31.6
avg 2294
es 30
sd 13

31.9
avg 2324
es 17
sd 6

32.2
avg 2361
es 18
sd 7

These were 5 shot groups
My next test will be seating depth from 2.275 to 2.248 in .003 increments.

THESE LOADS WENT ABOVE PUBLISHED MAX IN HORADY'S MANUAL WORK UP AT YOUR OWN RISK.

[Zeneffect]

Temp: 57 °F
BP: 1022.00 inHG
Shots
# FPS FT-LBS PF
4 2542 0.00 0.00
3 2550 0.00 0.00
2 2547 0.00 0.00
1 2563 0.00 0.00
Average: 2550.50
StdDev: 8.96
Min: 2542
Max: 2563
Spread: 21
True MV: 2550.5

Need to play with seating depth here. Shot 5 threw an error but seems promising. Group was not nearly as nice I'd like it to be but I'll play with a few things to see if can tighten the es and sd as well as group size.

30.7gr cfe223
123gr hornady eldm
Hornady case (once fired from hornady black)
Cci #41 primer
2.258 coal
Very light crimp from lee factory crimp die.

[Zeneffect]

Temp: 57 °F
BP: 1022.00 inHG
Shots
# FPS FT-LBS PF
4 2542 0.00 0.00
3 2550 0.00 0.00
2 2547 0.00 0.00
1 2563 0.00 0.00
Average: 2550.50
StdDev: 8.96
Min: 2542
Max: 2563
Spread: 21
True MV: 2550.5

Need to play with seating depth here. Shot 5 threw an error but seems promising. Group was not nearly as nice I'd like it to be but I'll play with a few things to see if can tighten the es and sd as well as group size.

30.7gr cfe223
123gr hornady eldm
Hornady case (once fired from hornady black)
Cci #41 primer
2.258 coal
Very light crimp from lee factory crimp die.

22" criterion hbar
Vg6 lamda brake
Aero precision enhanced whatever upper, faced and loctite the barrel extension.
Jp enterprises bolt

[Zeneffect]

Sorry for double post but every time I edit I delete the post. My barrel is an off the shelf criterion I ordered from brownells. Nothing special going on.

[biodsl]

I think you're on to something here. Shorten that seating depth and see where it takes you.

[Zeneffect]

for sure need to play with seating depth, crimp, maybe see what some graphite does during bullet seating (cheap experiment) but i need to find more pills first. moving onto 108 lapua scenar to hold me over and do the graphite experiment.

[seasprite]

Got to the range Sat. and did my seating depth test. Shot one really good group and the rest I seemed to have issues. I know part of the problem is I can see my heart beat in the reticle, which might explain the horizontal stringing on a lot of the groups. I need to figure a way to overcome this. I'm trying Erik Cortina way of load development and would like 2 nodes together like he talks about.









Load was :
123 ELD
Hornady case
wolf srp
32.0 gr CFE223
COL: 2.275" down to 2.248"

Started having pressure signs at 2.248" (some light ejector marks)
Plan as right now is to retest the 2.272" and the 2.257".
Curious as to what would be the hordes next move on this?

[Zeneffect]

Retest in front of chrono. 2.272 looks like it's on the money though

Thanks for the awesome data

[Restomod]

Okay the premise of this thread was to provide a good starting place for reloading 6.5 Grendel - i.e.- bullet mfr. & weights, type of powder & grains, primers, etc.
There are now 25 pages of (excellent) info, but it is still 25 pages of varying info.
Can someone please give me a good starting point for a 20" Noveske barrel on an Aero AR platform?

Thanks in advance.

[JASmith]

Okay the premise of this thread was to provide a good starting place for reloading 6.5 Grendel - i.e.- bullet mfr. & weights, type of powder & grains, primers, etc.
There are now 25 pages of (excellent) info, but it is still 25 pages of varying info.
Can someone please give me a good starting point for a 20" Noveske barrel on an Aero AR platform?

Thanks in advance.

Have you looked at the 6.5 Grendel Reloading Handbook or in Ammoguide.com?

The handbook has a goodly number of loads and very good advice in load development plus good discussions about hownand why the Grendel was developed. It also explains why the Grendel is an excellent hunting cartridge.

Ammoguide.com has close to 700 loads with a wide assortment of powder and bullets in a variety of barrel lengths.

[cwlongshot]

Resto,

Please don't take offense here....

But if you cannot ascertain a good starting point with information provided. Please do yourself and loved ones a favor and step away from the loading bench and do some More reading!!!

Every gun is DIFFERENT!! EVERY AMMO MANUAL provides starting loads! If its not a listed combo at your level of obvious experience you should NOT BE USING IT.

Reloading is a fun and rewarding experience but can be very dangerous in the hands of the inexperienced. Please step back re group and start again.

CW

[Lemonaid]

Restomod, One reason there are so many different favorite loads is that there are many different purposes for those loads.
To help you out, you need to specify what purpose you load is for, target, big game hunting, Varmint hunting, self/home defense, long range steel targets, reduced recoil loads, etc.
Each category will have some bullets that are suited for them at different weights, 60 grain to 130 grain for the most part and they will have a preferred powder for it. (faster burn rate for the lighter bullets, slower for the heavies in general.).
This thread might have been better if it had from the start been broken down into sub categories.

[Restomod]

Thanks JA & Lemonaid for the info.
The first page of this thread noted the desire for a round that would work in everyone's rifle.
I just wanted a safe middle of the road starting point recommendation.
I'm not looking for the hottest load or most exotic bullets. Lets face it, there is not that much variety available.
I enjoy target shooting out to about 500 yds., with an occasional hog hunt.
Again, if anyone would like to offer suggestions for a 20" Noveske barrel on an Aero AR platform, it woulds still be appreciated.
I agree it would have been great if the thread had been broken into sub-categories, such as target, big game hunting, varmint hunting, long range steel targets, reduced recoil loads, etc.
Twenty five pages of differing opinions, is a bit overwhelming.
I am going to subscribe Ammoguide.