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Ok gents got my staball powder in tonight.
Thinking I will first try it out in some fresh Starline brass with a cci450 primer from my cz grendel varmint.
Thinking of starting the ladder at 25 grains and do 1 round every .3 tenth increase till I feel the first round crunch some powder then I will stop there.
Think I'm going to try the 129 ablr first.
Will be running these over my magneto speed from my cz 527 varmint with the 25.5 inch barrel.
Will update this Saturday when I get back from the range.
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Great News! Haven't been able to find this powder locally yet.
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65GbySeven Wrote:Great News! Haven't been able to find this powder locally yet.
I had to order mine.
Bout to get the chargmaster lite warmed up and start dropping charges.
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Any reason not to load up with some cheaper bullets?
Interested in your results.
NRA Basic, Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, RSO
CCW, CQM, DM, Long Range Rifle Instructor
6.5 Grendel Reloading Handbooks & chamber brushes can be found here:
www.AR15buildbox.com
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LRRPF52 Wrote:Any reason not to load up with some cheaper bullets?
Interested in your results.
I have some cheaper ones to try. But tommorw range trip is centered around my cz grendel so figured I would start there.
Also have some 129 ablr loaded with h4895 to test as well as 120 gold dot with varget and 85 Maker Trex loaded with h335.
Plus will be dialing in the new scope with American gunner and useing that ammo too get base line velocitys.
Next range trip I plan on testing 6.5 staball with 90 tnt, 123 eld-m, 123 nosler CC.
Since deer season is almost over the cz will get the most development time right now, then I will shift over to the ar grendels.
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Ok first set of data.
Just finished getting the ladder loaded. Started at 2.260 coal. Ladder starred at 25 grains and went up to 30.8 grains.
Started seating and vibrasettling the powder. Didn't take long before I was crushing powder and getting push back from the powder. Think it was the 26.6 round that I noticed it. I was seating and measuring each round as it came out the press.
So I backed up and punted. My mags allow a max coal of 2.300 so I pulled the bullets and reseated at 2.295 coal.
Seating at 2.295 allowed me to get all the way to 30.8 grains. At 30.8 grains and vibrasettling the powder there was just a hint of crunching happening.
2.295 coal gives me a jump of 85 thousands in my cz varmint grendel.
Will be interesting to see what my 16 inch ar grendel can do with this combo when I get around to testing it in that barrel. I have a windowed six8 pmag for that rifle that will allow me to run 5 rounds at a coal of 2.350.
So unless your useing mags that allow 2.300 coal the 129 ablr is probably going to be to much bullet with this powder for you.
I will be single loading these in my cz tommorw and will be basicly face deep in the magneto speed's screen watching for anything hinky.
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A5BLASTER Wrote:Ok first set of data.
Just finished getting the ladder loaded. Started at 2.260 coal. Ladder starred at 25 grains and went up to 30.8 grains.
Started seating and vibrasettling the powder. Didn't take long before I was crushing powder and getting push back from the powder. Think it was the 26.6 round that I noticed it. I was seating and measuring each round as it came out the press.
So I backed up and punted. My mags allow a max coal of 2.300 so I pulled the bullets and reseated at 2.295 coal.
Seating at 2.295 allowed me to get all the way to 30.8 grains. At 30.8 grains and vibrasettling the powder there was just a hint of crunching happening.
2.295 coal gives me a jump of 85 thousands in my cz varmint grendel.
Will be interesting to see what my 16 inch ar grendel can do with this combo when I get around to testing it in that barrel. I have a windowed six8 pmag for that rifle that will allow me to run 5 rounds at a coal of 2.350.
So unless your useing mags that allow 2.300 coal the 129 ablr is probably going to be to much bullet with this powder for you.
I will be single loading these in my cz tommorw and will be basicly face deep in the magneto speed's screen watching for anything hinky.
Here we go "tweaking" again.... 
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Popeye212 Wrote:Here we go "tweaking" again....
Lol always and forever lol. Sadly I'm not going to make it to the range today. Weather turned wet today. So I went killed a deer.
Watch later today for a report on it. DNS has the pics, and the fusion bullet didn't fail to produce.
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I'm thinking it will be pretty slow in the Grendel, looking forward to your test.
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For what it's worth, the new Hodgdon's 2020 Annual Manual naturally is touting the StaBALL 6.5 powder. (It's their powder and their advertising). There is a lot of good info on the powder however, they don't specifically site the Grendel in the actual story. It's mostly about StaBall and the Creedmores and 6mm GT. In the annual load data, there are but 7 loads listed for the Grendel and none mention StaBALL.
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Rosecrans1 Wrote:For what it's worth, the new Hodgdon's 2020 Annual Manual naturally is touting the StaBALL 6.5 powder. (It's their powder and their advertising). There is a lot of good info on the powder however, they don't specifically site the Grendel in the actual story. It's mostly about StaBall and the Creedmores and 6mm GT. In the annual load data, there are but 7 loads listed for the Grendel and none mention StaBALL.
RC1:
That's because StaBall is too slow for the Grendel. It will be totally safe to shoot but the velocities will be very low.
LR55
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LR1955 Wrote:RC1:
That's because StaBall is too slow for the Grendel. It will be totally safe to shoot but the velocities will be very low.
LR55
That's what I'm thinking as well. It's going to be slow. But never hurts to try something atleast once.
Lil data is always good.
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When I get my hands on some which will be after Christmas I am going to load it in the Creed. Too slow for the Grendel. Still be interesting to see what A5 twerks up with it.
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Popeye212 Wrote:When I get my hands on some which will be after Christmas I am going to load it in the Creed. Too slow for the Grendel. Still be interesting to see what A5 twerks up with it.
Stand by for details. Just back from the range. Got to get my data book out and then get too typing it up.
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Look forward to the report. Ialso think Staball is slow burning doe the Grendel but Hodgdon thinks CFE223 is too slow for the Grendel
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Just finished running all of these cases on my calipers and even the case that the chronagrah showed a SPIKE is well within spec and show no signs of high or over pressure at the case web.
So now that these cases are fire formed basicly too the cz chamber it will be interesting to see how much more case capacity I will have on the next loading.
Never payed attention to it on any of the loads I have done before.
Might be possible too get close too 2300 with my barrel and this powder.
Will know more come next weekend when I'm not rushed and can slow fire the ladder and not have a hot chamber on each round.
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What you are getting is quite usable for the distance many of us hunt with that bullet. But that is slow for a 129 gr bullet from a 25 inch barrel
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kmon Wrote:What you are getting is quite usable for the distance many of us hunt with that bullet. But that is slow for a 129 gr bullet from a 25 inch barrel
Yes it is. Don't think I have 100 rounds on it yet. Can't wait to run this ladder again next weekend.
I choose new brass because all my fired Starline brass is from the howa I had.
Didn't want to mix that into my cz. So I know going in that the first ladder would be short of full case capacity of fired brass.
In the end staball is going to be slower then say h4895, cfe223 or lever with that bullet but still more then enough juice to kill game out to typical hunting ranges.
I shot some 129 ablr's with h4895 at 25.5 grains and it had less drop. So even without running that load over the graph I know it's faster.
I did forget to log the average,hi,low,sd and es of that ladder.
Will make sure I get it next weekend.
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