Zastava Grendel - Take 2

[adamjp]

Well, I'm officially excited.

The gunsmith has called and my little Grendel is ready to be picked up again -> see here for the barrel saga. I've got Friday off from work and I'm driving over to pickup the Grendel.

And the rebarreled 6/223.

And the 6.5-06 No.1 AB.

If I leave early enough in the morning, I can be gone from his workshop by 10, back home at the range by 2 and have the first two round from each rifle downrange by the time it becomes dark at 5.

Pictures for you northern hemisphere folks on Friday morning.

Range report by Sunday.

[Whelenon]

That 6.5-06 tweaks my interest, I've got it's big brother, the 35-06. Looking forward to Sunday.

[Von Gruff]

Look forward to the range report and the pic's Adam. Do hope you get a better result from this barrel.
Not much hapening in the way of shooting for me here at the moment.
This was my drivway at the weekend.

[BjornF16]

Looks like good hunting weather...

[sneaky one]

Sweet -Von, the exact opp. from our Mn winters-a few ask why I don't shoot in the winter= duh. Nice landscape BTW. Air Temp there w/snow on ground? I still want to move southward..

Adamjp- the 6.5-.284 is the next best item to the 6.5-.06. I may have Blade build me one-soon.

[adamjp]

Whilst we are enjoying sub-zero temperatures, with daytime highs of around 10 to 12 Deg C we don't see snow around here most years. You really need to go higher into the mountains to get the kind of cold that holds snow.

I have high hopes for this incarnation of the Grendel, problem is I've been hanging on these three builds for a while now so I'm a bit like a kid in a candy shop, although I still have two builds to go before I'm finished this year (6mmBR on a Pierce Ti and a 338/06 on my fathers Model 70 Featherweight). I've rolled 10 rounds for each rifle to burn in the barrels, although I suspect the 6.5/06 will take more as it's a PacNor 1:8 Polygonal rifled barrel - apparently they take a little more to get them to stop fouling as they cannot be hand lapped before leaving the factory.

Sneaky, on a Ruger No.1 there was no reason to go with the 6.5-284 - the 6.5/06 will feed better. I've got 100 Nickel 270 cases that have been trimmed and formed to suit the 6.5/06 and with a little luck the 450 Hornady 129gn SSTs I have will shoot well out of the barrel. I've been reading some interesting things about the 6.5 SAUM, very interesting things.

As for hunting weather - I really only hunt in the autumn to spring timeframe. Hunting in summer is triple danger - heat exhaustion from 30 something temperatures, increased risk of bushfires, and a real chance of stepping on one of the top ten most venomous snakes on the planet. My hunting areas have browns, tigers, king browns and red bellied blacks in abundance, even with gaiters it's not a pleasant experience when you step on one in the thick grass. They get a little pissed off and try to bite you. I have had one of my trouser legs wringing wet from brown snake venom when I had a misunderstanding with a brown snake during a summer exercise with the Army.

As the RSM said - "Action on snakebite. Snakes are a protected species and if you bite one I'll charge you. They can bite you as many times as they want, you're not a protected species." Cunny funt he was.

[adamjp]

Picked the rifles up earlier today, the 6/223 and 6.5/06 are letting the bedding dry, but the Grendel is ready to go.

The Scope is a 6x42 Meopta - heavy steel tube, but clear optics and it was sitting around doing nothing else. Until I can buy a more appropriate scope (ie lighter) it will sit on the little Grendel.

Weight as pictured with a 21inch Lilja #2 barrel (1.5in shank out of the action, 0.625in at the muzzle), HiTech Specialties stock with a simple recoil pad and a NOS BSquare bridge mount, is 6lb 13oz.

If I put a 6x36 FX2 or a 2.5-8VX3 on it, it will drop under the 6.5lb marker.

If I put Tallet lightweights on and do nothing else it will loose about 4oz (past experience).

Both weight loss exercises will see it weight in around 6lb even.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3482[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3483[/ATTACH]

With a little luck I'll get to shoot it tomorrow as the main range near home appears not to be booked.

[Whelenon]

Best of luck at the range, look forward to the report.

[adamjp]

The rifle now has 6 rounds downrange and I'll be starting proper load development soon.

With three rifles needing barrel break in, I was spending more time cleaning than shooting at the range. By being diligent with my work I now have all three barrels ready to go for load development, even managed a group with the 6/223 that went under 1/2in at 100m with some stuff I threw together as break in loads. Annoyingly, the Grendel is not yet on the paper.

I hope to have a 100gn NBT going downrange at just under 3000fps from this Grendel, the 100gn TTSX may be just a bit faster due to it's bore riding design.

I'll update as we go.

[adamjp]

Spent some quality time at the range with the Grendel today and apart from it being cold and very wet things went well.

The 100gn NBTs with a 30gn charge of BM1 under them topped out at 3050fps with single digit ES and SDs, but the bolt lift was hard and I'll drop at least 1gn out of that load before I keep going. Accuracy was just over 1" for three rounds, significant room for improvement there.

The 108gn Scenars would not stabilise with the 1:10 twist barrel. I would recommend a 1:9 twist barrel in future.

The standout of the day was my new 6/223 which printed a four shot group into under .5in, with the fifth shot (called as a flyer) making the group just over .75in at 100m with a 6x scope.

[adamjp]

More time with the Grendel at the range yesterday.

The 100gn NBTs over 30gn of 8208 were going 2850fps or thereabouts. Accuracy was just over an inch - not as good as I would like.

I'm going to move the charge upwards from there as 30.4gn of 8208 looked to be an improvement.

Also ran 15 100gn AMAX through the rifle with 30gn of 8208 under them. Accuracy was complete rubbish, definitely going to try a different load with these.

[LRRPF52]

In the AR15 with a 24" barrel, Hodgdon's lists max load for 8208 XBR at 30.8gr Compressed with a 2.200" COL, but you already have that in your 6.5 Grendel Reloading Handbook. Nosler recently published their Grendel loads as well, including 100gr NBT data.

http://www.nosler.com/65-grendel

[adamjp]

Thanks for the tip on the Nosler data, I didn't know they had published.

[hill.brandonj]

boy i tell ya i get best with my 100 g BT lower than 29g starts to get silly above that but i can shoot same holes at 100 and cover my groups at 200 with a quarter and i think its around 28 g of XBR try that just for grins

[adamjp]

I've put a fair few rounds downrange with the little Grendel over the last two months, also with the 6.5/06 and the Heavy Barrelled Rem700 6.5x47 Lapua.

The little Grendel has decided that it really does not like the 100gn AMAX. Nothing I tried could deliver decent accuracy from that bullet with groups hovering around the 1.5MOA mark.

Conversely, the 100gn NBT over 31.5gn of 8208 clocked a nice repeatable 2960fps (ES of 12 and SD of 8) with three shot groups consistently coming in at sub MOA. They would be tighter if I put the effort in, but to be honest I'm not interested in ultra accuracy from this rifle, just good "minute of pig" out to 200m. I managed to get the 100gn NBT up to over 3000fps with 32.5gn of 8208 but accuracy was no better and the stress on the cases was obviously greater.

I've come to the conclusion that for greater speeds out of the bolt action Grendel I need a powder that is mid way between 8208 and 2208 (Varget), I might give some 2206H (H4895 to Americans) a try. I'm going to give some 2206H and 2208 a try over Christmas.

Sighted in 1.5in high at 100m means it will be 1.5in low at 200m. This makes for an easy Fallow, pig and goat rifle for my normal hunting area. Pretty decent fox rifle too for that matter.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4010[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4011[/ATTACH]

[LRRPF52]

That's way cool. Are things warming up where you are yet? The NBT's seem to shoot well for everyone who tries them. 8208XBR is a fast powder for sure, but seems to be well matched for the 100gr NBT in your fire stick. I don't think you need any extra velocity with that bullet, since it's designed to expand rapidly. 2960fps is very fast for such a small case with a 100gr pill. You're basically at 6.5x57 Mauser velocity, and that's a 41.0-49.0gr case with 100's, but you have a nice little lightweight action. Your ES and SD are superb with that load.

[adamjp]

That's way cool. Are things warming up where you are yet? The NBT's seem to shoot well for everyone who tries them. 8208XBR is a fast powder for sure, but seems to be well matched for the 100gr NBT in your fire stick. I don't think you need any extra velocity with that bullet, since it's designed to expand rapidly. 2960fps is very fast for such a small case with a 100gr pill. You're basically at 6.5x57 Mauser velocity, and that's a 41.0-49.0gr case with 100's, but you have a nice little lightweight action. Your ES and SD are superb with that load.

Yes, I am very happy with the whole setup. In retrospect a 1:9 twist barrel would have been better, but as a hunting gun this little rifle should produce the goods.

The Lapua cases I am using have four reloads on them so far and a few of them are easier to seat primers in than others. This is due to my exploration of the outer limits of the case during the workup session - some loads were really stiff! I expect the cases to last for about 10 sessions with this load - quite happy with that.

Our daily temps are increasing, this week is cool but topping out in the mid-20s (Centigrade), next week will see a return to hot and dry with temperatures boosting into the low 30s. The groups were shot on Sunday with ambient temp around 22/23 degrees C.

[adamjp]

Grendelised a pig last night.

100gn NBT
2960fps
71m
Broke nearside shoulder, did a heart/lung bypass and ended up under the skin on the offside shoulder.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4087[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4088[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4089[/ATTACH]

[dmsims21]

Awesome. Congrats.

[BjornF16]

Sweet! Nice looking knife as well!