LaRue 6.5 Grendel Rifles

[LRRPF52]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVsfoHjAEli/

Many have been asking for a LaRue 6.5 Grendel for a while now.

Mark LaRue used a little 20" LaRue Stealth 6.5 Grendel back in 2007 to kill a large bull elk up in Wyoming, at a distance of 407yds. When he met his guide and showed him what he was going to use for the hunt, the guide's morale started spiral downwards, thinking that if this guy hit anything, it was going to be a long hunt composed of tracking a wounded animal at best. When he saw that he didn't even have his scope mounted, his impression of this hunter started to tank even more. Mark shrugged it off as he clipped on his little Burris 1-4x scope, and said it should be fine.

When the 120gr TSX load from AA blew through the bull elk's vitals, it whirled to the left and traveled 10yds before going down.
He recently brought barrel-making internal to the company, and has been making his own pipes for a few years now.

This will be another great option for the market.

[danm]

Nice! What do you guess on price???

[Kilco]

Do you plan on picking one up LRRPF52? Looking forward to seeing a report. Hopefully we can buy just an upper.

[stangfan94]

Do you plan on picking one up LRRPF52? Looking forward to seeing a report. Hopefully we can buy just an upper.

Hopefully we can buy just the barrel.

[Grendelshooter]

Of course they are, now, after I already started my grendel build lol!

[Redomen]

I'm working on 2 builds at the moment. I may have to add a third. LOL

[Drift]

Cool! I am looking forward to it. But that doesn't make the Grendel a 400 yard elk rifle.

[Chrazy-Chris]

I wish they would've offered a barrel when I was building mine. Their accuracy, workmanship, and customer service has been proven for years and their prices are very reasonable on the barrel-only (and triggers!). Their 260 AR-10 has been on my dream list since it first came out.

[derek45]

Good to hear

I really like LARUE scope mounts

[Trumpet]

Hopefully we can buy just the barrel.

Mark's posted on this, and hinted that it will be complete rifle only (at least hopefully at first)....

When LRRP posted that ...."There are already plenty of people making barrels.
Some people like to be able to buy high quality complete rifles from reputable manufacturers.",
Mark said...
"He's right ya know. There is a certain few customers that want the Quan of accuracy without having to smelt the steel themselves."

I would imagine eventually they'll be separate barrels/bolts for sale. I mean he sells the other barrels....

[Bruw]

This could be seriously awesome.

[rabiddawg]

Cool! I am looking forward to it. But that doesn't make the Grendel a 400 yard elk rifle.

Hmm. Looks like it is. At least in Mark LaRue's hands.

[LRRPF52]

Cool! I am looking forward to it. But that doesn't make the Grendel a 400 yard elk rifle.

We've seen what the Barnes TSX does on many samples of real world game and ballistics testing down past expansion threshold.

If a 120gr TSX comes sailing through an elk's vitals at somewhere around Mach 1.5 spinning at 225,000 to 240,000 rpm, with those petals spread, it's going to suffer rapid blood loss and loss of consciousness thereafter. There is no way around that.

Given what I know about the TSX's expansion, there's a high likelihood that shot was done with a TSX on the lower end of expansion, but it still bled him out quickly.

I personally would not have a problem making that shot. I'd probably be using the 129gr ABLR though. I can rapid-fire an MOA group at 400yds with a high degree of precise POI on the fly with even a lightweight 6.5 Grendel, to the point that I don't even bother with it because it is so boring. Even 600yds is boring unless the targets are 1.5 MOA or less.

Elk vitals broadside are roughly 14" including the lungs. The heart alone is a huge target for a good rifleman. We're talking 3 MOA high and 2 MOA wide at 400yds even on a cow elk heart when you include the aorta, which is an ideal place to make a shot in the aortic junction if you are capable.



The place on the heart that is sub-MOA is below the descending artery where you can see that large branch. Everything above is more than an MOA, and the heart is surrounded by lungs mostly above it. I've never seen elk that get much over 24" in width in that area of their chest, even the huge ones, and we mostly only draw cow and spike tags anyway here. Appropriate 6.5mm projectiles penetrate anywhere from 21-36" at that distance, and most expand to .40 cal or more at those impact speeds, again, spinning at 235,000rpm. When they encounter bone, they perforate bone and send secondary bone fragmentation into the tissue in many cases, which should be no surprise to anyone when impact speed is 1800fps or more, usually more like 2000fps at 400yds at 8000-9000ft elevation where we commonly encounter them in season.

People, including myself, have a hard time accepting the physics behind hunting elk with 6.5 Grendel because decades of "You need a .300 Winchester Magnum MINIMUM!" have been pounded into our heads. I still look at the little Grendel cartridge, and my natural instinct says, "This isn't an elk cartridge." Then I am forced to watch video after video, and picture after picture of successful elk harvests with 6.5 Grendel, including several DRT bag of bricks kills, whereas I can find plenty of samples where 300 RUM was used and they ran like hell.

I'll continue to use 6.5 Grendel in combination with other hunters and balance out our approach to fit the terrain and circumstances of the area we're hunting in, although I won't be hunting this year.

[Kilco]

LRRPF52, I agree in every regard.

I took a 846 lbs bull moose last year with a 260 Rem at 200 yards with a 143gr cup and core bullet through the vitals and it was overkill to say the least. Full pass, putting a large hole through the heart with a fist sized exit.

My sister took her moose 3 years ago with a 6mm Rem at 270 yards with a 80gr TTSX. Cow took a couple steps than flipped over.

There was a family of hunters with two moose permits we had to use our blue lacey to track due to poor shot placement wounds. The family gun was a savage 10 chambered in 300 WSM using 180gr Sierra pro hunters. Neither achieved a full pass, and both moose ran 300 yards in the woods before expiring.

Seeing what I've seen, I would have absolutely no hesitation using a 6.5 Grendel 400 yards and in with the appropriate bullet. It's so easy to put the shot in the boiler room with such a manageable cartridge. If you look at my posts from last fall, I was actually waiting for my Grendel barrel to come before my moose hunt, because that was going to be my rifle of choice.. Didn't show till after deer season, so I was stuck lugging around my 16 lbs target gun all season...lol

Really looking forward to this fall=)

[Chrazy-Chris]

LRRPF52 - I really enjoy reading your stuff, thanks for contributing your experience. I also plan on building a little Grendel carbine like yours someday, that thing is awesome.

Do you have a source for the 129gr ABLR? I'm currently running 123 SSTs for my hunting load but would like to switch to these after all the praise they get here. I can't seem to find the ABLRs in stock anywhere.

[shooter545]

I got an e-mails from LT that they are now taking orders on the 6.5 G FDE rifle.

[dpw4x4]

Got the same email 1999 is the price and it's not a bad looking rifle either

[shooter545]

http://www.larue.com/newsletter/header.jpg

[StoneHendge]

Dammit! I had to click and then see that they make an FDE suppressor. Now GiGi is going to give me the incessant "daddy, daddy, please! please!" until I break down and get her one.

[babue]

Here is the link for the first released guns for sale.

http://www.larue.com/65-grendel-fde?mc_c...0c3b8cc4ec