Skip to main content
Help Center Community Shop

6.5 Grendel handloads

jcc7x7
Finally have the grendel together and have shot it about 50 rounds. Groups are good so far. Just getting scope on the bull and function testing.
Want to start with the 107 sierra hpbt bullets cause I have them. Any powders that are supposed to stand out for that bullet weight?

I have the alex. arms. loading info but only a limited amount of time to shoot so was hoping one of you "experts" could help narrow the field on what powders are producing good accuracy with good velocity.
Thanks for the help!
0

Comments

2 comments

Date Votes
  • nononsense
    jcc7x7,

    The two best powders I've found for the lighter bullets are:

    VihtaVuori N-130 or N530

    Ramshot X-Terminator

    Both are clean burning which is important in an AR platform but they also provide better than average velocity.

    IMR-4198 shows promise, I just haven't had time to wring it out.

    Reloder 10X is on the short list of powders to try next. It should be a winner also.

    Best.
    0
  • sandwarrior
    jcc7x7,

    The best powder I found for that round in an AR is AA2520. That is for the 107/108-123 gr. bullets. The high BC 123's is where this case really shines. For the 85 up to 107 gr. bullets I found H4895X to be an excellent choice. I could drive 85 and 90 gr. bullets out at 2880-2900 fps. Nice flat shooter for out to 300 yds. Also as mentioned the Ramshot X-Terminator works well. I haven't tried the VV 130/530 in it. But I did try VV140. That worked about as well as H4895X. Not the best but good for the lower-medium weight bullets.

    Don't waste your time in a AR platform trying to load anything heavier than 130's.

    Something to remember with this round in an AR is it starts out with some restrictions peculiar to it's proprietary birth. It was born of a competition to replace the 5.56. In doing that the military put all the parameters on the shortest rifle they would normally use, a 16" barreled carbine with a short gas tube. As opposed to the 'still standard' M16A2.

    My 24" overwatch had a 12.5" gas tube. An inch or so shorter than my 20" 5.56 barreled A2. So the big thing is you can't just load in this until you see pressure signs. You have to make sure you stay within pressure limits down the barrel so as not to overpressure your gas system. This is why the medium velocities with high BC bullets works the best. This round has attained a little bit of a reputation for breaking bolts. The real problem when bolts are found to be broken is that reloaders, trying to get all we can (because we do), have gone outside the parameters for this round in this rifle. It's important to know the pressures down the barrel as well as peak pressure in the chamber when the round is being fired. I would suggest that you stay in touch with nononsense as he uses Piezo electric pressure testing to gain those parameters when testing a new powder.

    Now, if you want to work up to as high of pressure as you could with this round then the way to do that is to get one chambered in a bolt action. Then it's pretty much like any other reloading in that you are pretty much just looking for pressure signs on your way up the velocity/accuracy chart.

    Also, with this round make sure you use the correct data for the case you use. You can fire-form any decent brass 7.62x39, or get the Wolf Gold which is large primer. Don't mix large primer and small primer data. I trashed some cases doing that. In this round trashing cases is risking trashing a bolt, maybe even a rifle.

    During my load workups I called AA and one day I was put in touch with Bill Alexander himself. And he spoke about what it is taking to keep this round going the direction he wants it to. As a typical reloader thinking "How much can I get out of this?" I was looking to maximize all loads. Which would be fine except he started the project knowing the velocity limits were going to be under what everybody thought a new round should give. but the whole premise of this round is to put a high BC bullet out fast enough to mean something at 1000 yds. It's not out there to shoot faster than other rounds. It's out there to shoot better. And the reason a lot of the tweaks aren't added to the original specs is because he wants the round to be the way he designed it, to meet the original parameters he was given to develop it under.

    Anyhow, I hope that helps in your quest to load and shoot for this thing. Load moderately and let the bullets do the work. -good luck
    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Recent Activity