My 20" SAOD 6.5 helped me win a match this weekend.

[parallax]

I won the Light Division of our rifle club's military style rifle match (steel plates) and win the 10th Challenge Coin reward signifying my first sub 10 second run at the main event, the Drop 8. The object is to shoot down eight 8x13" steel plates at 200 yards with iron sights. It also helped my team, "Drop Kick Murphys" win the team Drop 24 event as well with a time of 17 seconds. My time was 9.41 seconds with no missed shots, in the Drop 8.

It was a great day and one I am proud to have won with the AR in 6.5 Grendel.

Pics to come asap.

This is the front side of the under 10 second "Challenge Coin" I was awarded. I was the 10th recipient of this award. The time was my best of course. My previous best was an 11.38 with my OOW 1918 BAR. That video is on Youtube.

And the back side of the coin.

[ricsmall]

Congrats parallax. Good to hear things like this about the Grendel.

[LRRPF52]

Was this the rifle you used?



What loads were you running? That's excellent work on eight 8x13 steel plates at 200yds in 9.41 seconds...with iron sights. You are simply lethal with that blaster.

One drill I really love for my rifle/carbine marksmanship training is the from cover snap-shoot drill, where you start from behind a berm or cover, and on the shot timer buzzer, you pop into position and make a hit on an 8"x8" plate for time. If you can break 2.5 seconds, you're a rifleman martial artist athlete in my book.

I can do five hanging 8" plates at 100yds from cover in 7.62 seconds with a 7.62 NATO HK417 with a 3.5x ACOG.

We will be running drills like this a lot during the DM Course I have coming up on March 23-24.

[parallax]

Yes, that's the rifle but to shoot it in the match I take the battery box off of it. The front sight post is an A1 due to a problem I have at my age (56) seeing a front post that has parallel sides. I see a shadow or ghost image above the A2 post.

My loads are Amax 123s over 26 grs of 8208 in Hornady brass and CCI 400 primers. Shooting was from prone with a sandbag on a ammo can.

I hold two records in the match. The most recent was a 9.2 second time to shoot 4 of the plates down at 200 yards with a bolt rifle, (also iron sights) with an issue condition 1917 Eddystone with an August 1918 barrel. The other record is Standing Drop 3 (30 cal), shooting an issue condition CMP 3.6 Mil Springfield M1Garand with lockbar sights and a May, 1945 barrel. The time was 6.46 seconds but I actually shot an additional plate. The latter can be seen on Youtube under "Parallaxbill". I video all our matches. The overall record for the Drop 8 is 7.38 seconds set by Reno Santini with a 223 AR shooting 69 gr bullets. The 55 gr 223s don't hit hard enough to reliable knock the plates over.

[davidj]

Great shooting!

[LRRPF52]

I would love to see the video of you clearing those plates with your Grendel. It's funny to watch the little .223 barely move the plates. I have the same issues when running my DM courses, but we rise to the challenge by double-tapping the head of a pepper popper at 200-300m to get them to fall.

With the .308, it's overkill, and it has even sent them tumbling popper-over-base down the hill with a large ruckus of "clank clank clank". The Grendel is the sweet spot in rifle/carbine calibers I think, with recoil much closer to the .223 than the .308.

prallaxbill, are you into retro stuff as well? I saw someone with an M16A1 clone clearing one of the plate stages in your vids.

[parallax]

Unfortunately my wife tried to video my run and got the wrong targets, then the berm, then the grass in front of my position. She's not too good with the camera.

Yeah, the 55 gr 223's struggle to knock the plates down and my during my daughter's Drop 8 she hit one solid and it just pivoted to the left a little. She shot it again even though technically with our rules it is no longer necessary if it is evident the plate has been hit. My BAR slaps them off like they're made of paper as does my M1A. The Grendel knocks them off with authority too. I think I have one video of a much slower run than my win on Saturday.
i
I'm into any and all military weapons but mostly concentrate on US, German, British and Finnish currently. The M16A1 clone is my son's,/soon to be daughter's rifle and sports a Colt barrel and other parts. It's a real shooter with hand loads of Varget and 55 gr Hornady fmj's. It survived 4 rounds of the sniper competition at 300 yards before missing with an inexperienced friend behind the trigger.

"The Grendel is the sweet spot in rifle/carbine calibers I think, with recoil much closer to the .223 than the .308."

Amen to that! One advantage of that light recoil is the ability not to lose the sight picture when attempting timed precision events like our Drop 8. The accuracy just enhances the whole deal. BTW, that was the clubs first win with the 6.5 in the 27 matches we have held since 2006. No one else has thought to use one. My son shoots a 6.8 SPC II and is soon to threaten a win. His is accurate and like the 6.5, easy to shoot fast.t

[LRRPF52]

Amen to that! One advantage of that light recoil is the ability not to lose the sight picture when attempting timed precision events like our Drop 8. The accuracy just enhances the whole deal. BTW, that was the clubs first win with the 6.5 in the 27 matches we have held since 2006. No one else has though to use one. My son shoots a 6.8 SPC II and is soon to threaten a win. His is accurate and like the 6.5, easy to shoot fast.

At 200yds, the plates will not know the difference between the 6.8 and the Grendel when running the same relative bullet weight class. A fast 100gr load in both of them would be good for getting on the next target quickly for splits.

I was bitten quite hard by the retro bug with AR15's, to the point that I have participated in group projects where we invested in having a foundry make us the old prototype front sight base seen on the very early Armalite AR15's from 1957. Nodak Spud already makes a trigger charge handle upper, and I haven't gotten my barrel yet for that project, which will be a .875" diameter with flutes under the handguard like the original Armalites. Here's a reproduction that a very talented smith did:



The main giveaway that's it's a repro is that it doesn't have what we call the "Type A" stock. The lower also has the channel for the mag catch bulge, which didn't exist on the tool room guns. Here's another he did with the correct lower receiver profile and a home-made 25rd magazine:

[Variable]

At 200yds, the plates will not know the difference between the 6.8 and the Grendel when running the same relative bullet weight class. A fast 100gr load in both of them would be good for getting on the next target quickly for splits.

I was bitten quite hard by the retro bug with AR15's, to the point that I have participated in group projects where we invested in having a foundry make us the old prototype front sight base seen on the very early Armalite AR15's from 1957. Nodak Spud already makes a trigger charge handle upper, and I haven't gotten my barrel yet for that project, which will be a .875" diameter with flutes under the handguard like the original Armalites. Here's a reproduction that a very talented smith did:



The main giveaway that's it's a repro is that it doesn't have what we call the "Type A" stock. The lower also has the channel for the mag catch bulge, which didn't exist on the tool room guns. Here's another he did with the correct lower receiver profile and a home-made 25rd magazine:

Drooool.......

[parallax]

Another picture of my Grendel on the firing line from a previous match.
That's my old L1A1 on the left, now owned by my son.

[Buck2732]

Another picture of my Grendel on the firing line from a previous match.
That's my old L1A1 on the left, now owned by my son.

Ah, the good old L1A1 from 14 yo and during the first 5 years of service I had a love affair with that rifle. I hope she still shoots straight.

Pulling up a sandbag and swinging the tilly lamp, I won comps at Bisley with one of these dressed in the wooden furniture of an earlier issue spec. A feat I could not manage with the L85 A1 though I tried for years.

[parallax]

Please excuse the shaky useless video but the sound is all there. My wife did the video since no one else would volunteer.
http://youtu.be/6BIsNrZwq5Y

[parallax]

Going back after another good run in the Drop 8 event this Sunday. Right now I'm leading the Light Division Championship standings for 2013. If I can get three more runs near my sub 10 second run from the first match of the year I have a good chance of winning the Drop 8 Light Division Drop 8. I sure would like to see the 6.5 Grendel win our first ever Light Division Championship.

I'm shooting my M1A and/or OOW 1918-A3 BAR in the Heavy Division.

More and better videos to come next week!

[bwaites]

Cool!

[montana]

It look's like your having a lot of fun. Good luck this week end and I would like to see more vid's if your wife takes them and a picture of your M1A, Thank's for sharing.

[Drifter]

Cool stuff!

[rickOshay]

Congrats Parallax ! You're doing a great job showing the versatility of the Grendel - deer and Drop 8.

[LRRPF52]

I've been shooting a lot of steel with the Grendel lately, and it definitely hits harder than 5.56, but with minimal recoil compared to .308. I ran some comparisons of the Grendel's energy with various .308 loads, and it varies from 70% to 80% of what a .308's energy is. Even the 90gr TNT from my little 16" smacks 12" poppers down at 300yds.

[usmc1371]

Nice job bill. Good luck on you matches.

[Bronz]

Man that sounds fun. MI

ilitary style rifle....wish my club had that.