6.5 Grendel?

[Sun_and_Steel_77]

A better solution would be a Kimber 6.5 creedmoor stainless imo, those Montana's and derivatives. You'd end up in same neighborhood with proper rifle, lottery on accuracy but fixable easy enough. That's a better way to go for ultralight modern 6.5 imo. Keep warning people, you have to change everything on these and you still don't get stainless. If Kimber would chamber the grendel this howa would be for sale today lol. I'm grendel all the way so I'm stuck with this interesting pos (for ultralight grendel).

Here's an Adirondack I owned before Christmas, it was 4lbs 15ozs bare rifle on an accurate scale, factory 16.5" barrel. Now, if I was to do a Howa mini in 300 HAMR' or 300BLK nearly identical to yours with a 16" light contour barrel I should come in an ounce or two over 4.5lbs. besting the Kimber by a quarter pound at the very least.

Comparing prices that Kimber is a 2500$ rifle and I know for a fact it wouldn't shoot close to a custom barreled Howa, in fact I wouldn't bet money that it would beat out a stock mini in the accuracy department.

In a nutshell, if I have 2500$ to build a 16" .30cal stainless IBI barreled Carbon stocked Mini it would stomp that factory Kimber into the ground and best it in all categories except the SS action...and even then I'd probably have the cash left over for a custom Cerakote job.
Of course I realize this means nothing if we are talking about .308 sized cartridges and not STANAG mag length ones...but this is a thread about the 6.5G!

 

[blakeyboy]

Here's an Adirondack I owned before Christmas, it was 4lbs 15ozs bare rifle on an accurate scale, factory 16.5" barrel. Now, if I was to do a Howa mini in 300 HAMR' or 300BLK nearly identical to yours with a 16" light contour barrel I should come in an ounce or two over 4.5lbs. besting the Kimber by a quarter pound at the very least.

Comparing prices that Kimber is a 2500$ rifle and I know for a fact it wouldn't shoot close to a custom barreled Howa, in fact I wouldn't bet money that it would beat out a stock mini in the accuracy department.

In a nutshell, if I have 2500$ to build a 16" .30cal stainless IBI barreled Carbon stocked Mini it would stomp that factory Kimber into the ground and best it in all categories except the SS action...and even then I'd probably have the cash left over for a custom Cerakote job.
Of course I realize this means nothing if we are talking about .308 sized cartridges and not STANAG mag length ones...but this is a thread about the 6.5G!

Now that is a work of art. Stainless, perfectly Swiss cheesed, control round feed, quality stock, overall quality fit and finish throughout. I would take that and since so many do shoot well I'd find out and have a dandy smith who would have it sorted if not. You could spend all 2500 on the howa and still not get close to that rifle. Again, accuracy is one part of the equation, not hard to fix, but the downfalls of the howa are, it's a bargain built base level tool, you feel it everywhere, in handling both...it would be very apparent which one was a high end high quality tool and which one was the pig with lipstick.

Just in case you haven't heard me say it about the stocky's carbon stock, even it is a long ways from this level of quality and feel, it's finish is porous, they must get them out the door before while clear coats still soaking in. The recoil pad is garbage and oversized, super tacky and cheap af, then the butt stock is hollow and makes that super cheap sound as soon as you touch it. So it's scaled properly, and it looks ok, and the weight is proper, but it's far from a high level of fit and finish and is below the value paid for it fyi. I think the Pendleton stock at 1 oz heavier would be far better for the howa and meet the minds expectations better than this carbon did. You may notice on mine I did some trimming on recoil pad and maybe I could see what is or isn't in the butt stock and throw some great stuff in there to make less hollow cheap sounding? Eh, but don't care at this point, the whole rig matches in its base level quality, shoots ok, should hunt fine. Time will tell but pride of ownership will be nothing like it would with that Kimber.

I took 3.0 ounce out of my action and 3.5" off the 22" standard barrel and have a bare rifle at 4 lb 10.5 ounce. I'm not sure the howa carbons are meeting their advertised bare weights in real life. Something to look into. Good news is the Jefferson bottom hinged is the same weight as the factory plastic garbage...3.0 oz. I think maybe with a light contour 16" and the action work you could get lighter than that Kimber but you're going to spend some time with the smith to do it. I ended up with great balance point on the front action screw with a really light scope/rings options so bonus, how will the 16" light contour go? Might be alright if you go Talleys and the 6.5 oz fixed 2.5x ultralight from leupold, or a red dot? If Kimber would chamber the 6.5g the howa would be for sale the same day and I'd hunt my ruger until my Kimber showed up lol.

Edit: howa carbon weights for real, you may see them 6 oz over factory advertised, there's 2 in this thread (a 6.5g and cm), and having my experiences with them I agree, there's no way they will come from the factory as light as they suggest, sounds like a lottery on weight like accuracy is for Kimber lol. And my stock was advertised at 17.0 oz, but maybe that's for the bull barrel inlet?, the sporter inlet came at 18.0. So you're unlikely to achieve the weights you're talking about with the howa's, your Kimber is about as light as you'll ever get, you will have to heavily mod a howa to meet that Kimber. https://rokslide.com/forums/threads/howa-superlite.258050/page-2

Edited my final weights on my build.

Bare rifle is 4 lb 10.5 oz.

53.5 oz barrelled action with action screws (3 lb 5.5 oz, slabbed/fluted -3.0 oz, and 3.5" barrel chop to 18.5" at 1.5-2 oz/inch should be 5.25-7 oz reduction there, so I've taken 8.25 to 10 oz out of the metal, making factory carbon stalker weight in the 5 lb 2.75 oz to 5 lb 4.5 oz range)
11.5 oz scope/rings
3 oz bottom metal
18 oz stock
86 oz total (5 lb 6 oz)

 

[remington jim]

While it's true that the 6.5 Grendel is of lower performance than many/most of the other 6.5s out there, there are a couple of things about the 6.5 Grendel that tend to get overlooked in comparison to larger 6.5 cartridges.

a. recoil. lets face it, lower mv and smaller powder charges for the same bullet and rifle weight means less recoil. one may or may not care about this, but there are situations that makes the lower recoil very attractive. training new shooters comes to mind. also no matter how macho we are, it's been documented over and over again that people shoot better with less recoil. So hitting where you're aiming with the Grendel is better than missing the target with the 6.5-300 Wby every day.

b. and the lower performance also comes due to about 1/2 or less of the powder charges used in comparison to the higher performance 6.5s. If you reload and currently struggle to find powder, using less per round right now may seem like a good thing.

c. for the same barrel length, with the lower chamber pressure and smaller powder charges, you get a lower muzzle blast/report. muzzle blast noise can be an issue. Some landowners may let you hunt on their land if you're round is not so loud it's obnoxious. of course for you folks with cans on the end that might be a moot point as well.

d. the lower chamber pressure and petite powder appetite results in very long barrel life. Go look at the barrel life of the 6.5-300 Wby. Ultimate performance. replace barrel by 500 rounds or so. the 6.5 Grendel barrel life is probably close to 10K or more. Throat erosion should be pretty low with the lower chamber pressure and petite powder capacity. Many competitive shooters using 6.5CM are replacing barrels 1 or 2x a year. Having a barrel last a long time at top accuracy always is a good thing in my book. Yours too probably.

e. lower chamber pressure typically results in higher number of reloads per case before the case gives out. loose primer pockets, etc. If you don't reload, a moot point, but when you see a note on the reloading subforum that ###x has 6.5 G brass for sale and by the time you hit the link it's already all gone, getting 10+ reloads out of the brass you do have is much better than 2 or 3 for sure.

f. lower weight/smaller volume for the ammo. probably a small issue, but, on a backpack hunt when you're counting oz, 5 to 10 rounds of Grendel will be lighter and take up less room in the pack than the bigger 6.5s.

So yes, the bigger cased 6.5s do have more performance of course, but even aside from the AR platform, there are a lot of features of the 6.5 Grendel that hold good merit all on their own.

 

[todbartell]

there's no way that RJ typed all that ROFLMAO

 

[Rman]

there's no way that RJ typed all that ROFLMAO

Right? And no CAPS?
Account hack???

R.

 

[Slimbo]

He’s become more scholarly since he became tikka Jim

 

[Sun_and_Steel_77]

I was just browsing the 6.5 Grendel forum and noticed this exact blurb in a recent thread so RJ just did a copy paste, if he would have used more CAPS he could have called it his own!

Grendel’s a great cartridge for a AR or micro bolt but it’s niche for sure. Those guys on that forum are sure bananas for it and the kool aid she flows there lol.

 

[Rman]

Plagiarism Jim?
Copy N Paste Jim?

R.

 

[Southcountryguy]

Plagiarism Jim?
Copy N Paste Jim?

R.

Haha.

 

[Sun_and_Steel_77]

Jumpin Jeezus Jim you’re getting dog piled on today!
All in good fun RJ, no harm intended.

 

[Rman]

Thickhide Jim can handle it! : )

R.

 

[blakeyboy]

Poor Jim, that was some excellent roasting.

To his point about recoil, you can add to that about watching things happen in the scope period, watching impacts, faster to reload and keep target in scope and send more if you want.

To his point about lower report and muzzle blast being polite for all the people of the land including the shooter, it's also more polite to the animals, we have had coyotes give us second opportunities, something I haven't seen since I shot a .204 ruger. So when you have multiple deer tags in pocket and drop one...you don't see the rest leaving the country like you do with the usual 40+ grains of powder at 62k psi boomers. So backing yourself up, even if you have a first round miss, you simply get more chances, game doesn't seem to hear it. And going back to the point above...you can really capitalize on this because you're still in the game, you're watching it all in the scope not trying to reset and find everything again including yourself. Especially so with a bit more weight in the rifle.

To his point about lighter ammo, yup, 0.6 oz per round.

Now, my UL project took a turn, it may take a bit of a reset after shot as recoil energy in the double digits now but you can sure work the bolt easier with nothing for your hand to bump into. I shot it the other day with 6x36 leupold still on it against my Ruger in Chassis with Trijicon and just no comparison on how quick one can find and settle on target with the 8 1/4 lb set up, how much easier the ruger was to shoot well, how much better the glass was over the Leupold 6x36, how much easier it was to watch on the gongs and chamber another and send without much for reset etc. Such that I've decided I don't really have an iron sight type set up and have yanked the scope in favour of a Holosun 407c red dot (2.5 oz, batteries optional solar), put a burris xtr 3 slot front base on (0.5 oz), all up weight is 4 lb 13.5 oz, balances just ahead of front action screw, plus 1 oz for the shell holder on stock, and then with 9 rounds in the shell holder be 5 1/4 on the nose. Will zero at 200 and backup to the ruger on many hunts, maybe lead in the bush hunts (bear etc.).