By Chuck Hawks
6.5mm Grendel
Delineation graciousness of Alexander Arms.
The 6.5mm Grendel was planned as a cartridge for long reach long range firing with AR15 type rifles. It is fundamentally a match cartridge and, less significantly, a bullet.
Charge Alexander of Alexander Arms fostered this short, squat 6.5mm cartridge. Alexander Arms is presently (as I compose these words in 2005) offering ammo and rifles in 6.5mm Grendel type. Tragically, to the furthest extent that I can decide (the Alexander Arms site is exceptionally restricted in scope), these are just military style match/sharpshooter rifles on the AR15 stage, which are of restricted utility to standard trackers and shooters.
The AR15 rifle forced serious limitations on the 6.5mm Grendel’s plan in the space 6.5 grendel of back push, pressure (MAP 45,000 psi), and cartridge by and large length. The new cartridge needed to work securely in an activity planned around, and feed through a magazine expected for, nearly nothing .223 Remington cartridges. These trade offs would not have been essential had the 6.5mm Grendel been intended to work in solid, non military personnel rifle activities, for example, Browning’s autoloading BAR, switch activity BLR, and manual action A-Bolt II.
Liberated of the limitations forced by the AR15 rifle stage, a more flexible and viable 6.5mm cartridge configuration would have been conceivable. That was the methodology taken by A-Square and Remington that came about in the 6.5mm-08 A-Square, which was delivered economically as the .260 Remington. Yet, that cartridge was planned with ordinary short activity (.308 length) regular citizen rifles as a primary concern, similar to the Browning’s referenced in the passage above, which are able to do regularly working at a most extreme normal tension (MAP) of 60,000 psi or more.
As the model for case plan, Alexander picked the 6mm PPC, necked-up to oblige standard .264″ width shots. This case in the long run ended up being appropriate to his necessities.
A model 6.5mm Grendel rifle was finished and shown in 2003. Lapua (the Finnish ammo creator) engineers helped Alexander with adjustments expected to upgrade the case for use with 107-130 grain slugs, which incorporated a more extended shoulder and a more limited neck.
A large portion of the 6.5mm Grendel’s case aspects stay like those of the parent PPC case. The case length is 1.505″, edge width is .442″, edge thickness is .050″ and head measurement is .445″. The PPC’s fundamental case shape was held. Limit is around 35 grains of water. Cartridge generally length is 2.255″ and shot distance across is .264″ (6.5mm). MAP is around 42,000 psi. (The passable MAP for the AR15/M16 activity is just 45,000 psi, as per Alexander, so don’t endeavor to foster high-pressure loads for the 6.5mm Grendel cartridge.)
The characteristic exactness of the 6.5 Grendel is claimed to be incredible. It merits recollecting that U.S. troopers in the Pacific Theater during WW II tracked down the exactness of the 6.5×50 Japanese help cycle, a cartridge offering fundamentally the same as ballistics to the 6.5mm Grendel, to likewise be generally excellent. Exactness is a quality since a long time ago connected with moderate 6.5mm cartridges.
Alexander Arms offers 6.5mm Grendel ammo processing plant stacked with 90 grain Speer TNT varmint slugs, Nosler 120 grain Ballistic Tip hunting projectiles, and Lapua 123 grain Scenar match shots. This ammo is stacked utilizing Lapua metal with an Alexander Arms headstamp and costs $20/box (20 rounds) online from Competition Shooting Sports. Alexander Arms likewise offers 6.5mm Grendel reloading passes on made by Lee Precision ($44/set from Competition Shooting Sports).
The 120 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip projectile has a ballistic coefficient of .458 and a sectional thickness of .246. Here are the speed/energy figures for that projectile as production line stacked for the 6.5mm Grendel: Muzzle – 2600 fps/1801 ft. lbs.; 100 yards – 2413 fps/1551 ft. lbs.; 200 yards – 2234 fps/1330 ft. lbs.; 300 yards – 2062 fps/1133 ft. lbs. At a MV of 2600 fps the direction of that projectile resembles this: +2.8″ at 100 yards, +1.1″ at 200 yards, – 7.5″ at 300 yards. The most extreme point clear scope of that heap (+/ – 3″) is 259 yards.
Here are some hunting reloads created by David M. Fortier and first distributed in Shooting Times Magazine. Mr Fortier utilized Lapua metal and Federal Gold Medal Small Rifle Match introductions for all heaps: