MV/MH Most accurate ammo

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700-223

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Hey guys, really stuck on whether to buy a 6.5 Grendel upper for my MV or a 6.5 Creedmoor MH with a very small chance of 308 instead. As I'm trying to make up my mind and save up some cash, I'd like to know what people have found to be the most accurate ammo in their rifle.

I'm looking for varminting and hunting ammo so let us know what your rifle shoots best as well any other ammo that is sub MOA. If you're comfortable sharing your hand loads, please do. For brevity, just post caliber and barrel type and length followed by the ammo and average group size. No pics required (I trust you guys ;), let us know if 5 or 3 rd group as well please.

Thanks in advance!
 
223 Proof CFW
Fiocchi 55gr FMJ most accurate inexpensive ammo
Nosler 55g VM most accurate varminting sound so far, Winchester 40g Varmint X close behind.

Haven't formally measured groups yet. Will post again when I do
 
Mine shoots 75grn Hornady HPBT match extremely well both box match ammo and the superformance I haven't got around to loading for it but from what ive seen soo far seems to be the ticket mine has the light profile SS barrel
 
If you want to hunt, I would pass on the creedmor. The CM is probably the best cartridge of the 3 for target shooting, but for hunting it's the least preferable (Note: not saying it's impossible to hunt with 6.5CM, just saying grendel and 308 are more suited for it).

If you want to varmint and hunt up to deer sized animals, I'd go with the grendel upper. You'll need to reload for your particular rifle though, other people's recipe might not work so well into yours and vice-versa, that's the nature of high-accuracy semi-autos.
 
jiffx2781 said:
Care to enlighten me as to why the Creedmoor is less suitable for hunting than the Grendel? I have no first hand experience with either but if my understanding is correct the Creedmoor will launch the same projectile at a higher muzzle velocity resulting in higher energy levels and increased range than the smaller Grendel cartridge will? There is also a good variety of high quality hunting ammunition available for the Creedmoor. Correct me if I'm wrong please. The only benefit I can see the OP gaining by choosing to go with the Grendel upper for his MV is that he will have a slightly smaller lighter platform than he would with a 6.5 Creedmoor MH.
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The Creedmoor isn't a bad hunting round, far from it. And yes, it will punch through a larger, bigger, meaner animal than the grendel at the same distance. From that point of view, you could say it is a "better" hunting cartridge than the grendel.

However, it (the CM) was designed with target shooting in mind, while the grendel was designed for hunting. When hornady designed the CM, their goal was to create the best cartridge for target shooting. When Alexander Arms designed the grendel, their thought process was pretty much "how could we make a suitable cartridge to hunt with an AR-15?". Technically, I'd say both were very successful in reaching their respective goals. The CM is one of the best target shooting cartridge as of this moment (it's got the performance of a 300WM with the recoil of a 308Win, it's a marvelous!), and the grendel can easily take out anything large as a deer or less, upto about 800m, in a round the size of a 223.

As for why I believe the OP would be better served with a grendel upper:
1-He already has a suitable lower, so he saves $$$, and he said he need to save some cash for his purchase;
2-As you said, smaller and lighter platform, which is great when hunting;
3-Most important of all: it will do what he wants to do, which is to varmint and hunt.

If OP wants to hunt larger animals at longer distance, I'd suggest 308 over CM mostly due to availability of ammos (you can get 308 at wal-mart and CT, never seen CM outside of specialized hunting/shooting stores), price of ammos (can get plinking ammos for less than 1$/round in 308, not so much in CM), and in the end, pretty much the same effectiveness. I see very little hunting you can do with a CM that you couldn't do with a 308.

Of course, the argument could be made that since he already has the MV to hunt varmints, he could go for a MH.

Personnaly, I think an almost perfect setup would be a MV in 6.5 grendel for hunting varmint up to deer, and a bolt action 300wsm for deer up to elephant. Those 2 rifles and you've covered pretty much any hunting in north america.
 
VinnyQC said:
The Creedmoor isn't a bad hunting round, far from it. And yes, it will punch through a larger, bigger, meaner animal than the grendel at the same distance. From that point of view, you could say it is a "better" hunting cartridge than the grendel.

However, it (the CM) was designed with target shooting in mind, while the grendel was designed for hunting. When hornady designed the CM, their goal was to create the best cartridge for target shooting. When Alexander Arms designed the grendel, their thought process was pretty much "how could we make a suitable cartridge to hunt with an AR-15?". Technically, I'd say both were very successful in reaching their respective goals. The CM is one of the best target shooting cartridge as of this moment (it's got the performance of a 300WM with the recoil of a 308Win, it's a marvelous!), and the grendel can easily take out anything large as a deer or less, upto about 800m, in a round the size of a 223.

As for why I believe the OP would be better served with a grendel upper:
1-He already has a suitable lower, so he saves $$$, and he said he need to save some cash for his purchase;
2-As you said, smaller and lighter platform, which is great when hunting;
3-Most important of all: it will do what he wants to do, which is to varmint and hunt.

If OP wants to hunt larger animals at longer distance, I'd suggest 308 over CM mostly due to availability of ammos (you can get 308 at wal-mart and CT, never seen CM outside of specialized hunting/shooting stores), price of ammos (can get plinking ammos for less than 1$/round in 308, not so much in CM), and in the end, pretty much the same effectiveness. I see very little hunting you can do with a CM that you couldn't do with a 308.

Of course, the argument could be made that since he already has the MV to hunt varmints, he could go for a MH.

Personnaly, I think an almost perfect setup would be a MV in 6.5 grendel for hunting varmint up to deer, and a bolt action 300wsm for deer up to elephant. Those 2 rifles and you've covered pretty much any hunting in north america.
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I do agree with most of your post but will comment on a couple things that stand out to me when reading it.

(numbering does not refer to your numbered points)
1- Even if the creedmoor was designed for target shooting that really makes no difference at all since you can easily buy ammo or projectiles in 6.5mm specifically engineered for hunting large game as well as some lighter stuff for varminting. This in my mind makes the Creedmoor superior to the Grendel in every aspect other than the size and weight of the platform needed to shoot it.
2- Trajectory of 300win and less recoil than a 308. My 6.5CM has noticeably less recoil than my custom M-305 that weighs more than my MH.
3-Availability of ammo? Who cares if you can go buy it at Canadian Tire? When I buy my ammo and my reloading supplies I buy more than a box at a time so running out isn't a concern and even if it was I don't think that going into a CT or Walmart and buying a box of Remington Core-Lokt is going to replace my premium ammo that my gun is sighted in with and that I know my rifle shoots well. Any hunter who owns a rifle like one of these is going to take enough ammo with them for a hunting trip and if they don't they deserve to stay in camp to have lunch ready for the group when they return. This is not an entry level rifle and anyone buying one should be able to afford to feed it, if not they should be shopping for something cheaper that would let them afford to shoot more.

My personal MH is a 6.5CM with Carbon barrel and light weight everything else. The rifle is 9 pounds bare and 11.1 pounds with a Sightron 3-16x44 in a Burris PEPR QD mount. I'm sure I could drop a little weight if I switched to a smaller optic and one of my sets of ATRS rings but to me a couple ounces doesn't mean much when I'll be hunting and it rides my shoulder or the quad 98% of the day. I actually don't plan to do much hunting with it anyway since I have a Rem 700 in 7-08 that is light and accurate and is my primary hunting rifle.
I got distracted and haven't been doing any shooting lately but I have found a couple sub moa loads using 129gr Hornady SST's over Varget and Hybrid 100V but haven't had a chance to do more testing to see if they will do that consistently.
 
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I use 143 gr Hornady Precision Hunter ammo in my 6.5 CM MH, got these grouping, I'm pretty sure that flyer was me :)

Here's two five round groups

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I know this ammo is supposed to be "heavy" for a semi but I can't argue with the results.
 
I'm sorry everyone, I didn't mean to offend those who owns/shoot a 6.5CM. I was merely stating the opinion to the OP that I believe the grendel will suit 100% of his needs for less money than the other options, given that he already owns the lower.
 
VinnyQC said:
I'm sorry everyone, I didn't mean to offend those who owns/shoot a 6.5CM. I was merely stating the opinion to the OP that I believe the grendel will suit 100% of his needs for less money than the other options, given that he already owns the lower.
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No worries, I wasn't offended at all by your post, just thought your opinion was a little off compared to my opinion of the two cartridges regarding hunting suitability. Both will do the job the OP asks but I think the Creedmoor is superior in every category other than the weight of the rifle needed to utilize it. If I was more interested in hunting with mine and/or higher volume shooting I would go with one in 308win rather than one of the 6.5's, but I bought mine primarily for long range accuracy and I have been interested in the CM for a while now then came across a deal on a used MH with carbon fiber barrel in 6.5CM I couldn't say no to.

mareshow said:
I use 143 gr Hornady Precision Hunter ammo in my 6.5 CM MH, got these grouping, I'm pretty sure that flyer was me :)

Here's two five round groups

I know this ammo is supposed to be "heavy" for a semi but I can't argue with the results.
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Hard to argue those results, I'll bring my MH next time we go shooting together and we'll have to see how mine likes those 143's and also see if your rifle likes my handloads with the 129SST's and Varget (I think it's 38gr but will have to check to verify).
 
I have found hornady Black 155gr to be the best factory loaded Ammo in my limited testing on my 308 with the proof CFW barrel. Reasonably priced at Bass Pro in Calgary.
 
VinnyQC said:
If you want to hunt, I would pass on the creedmor. The CM is probably the best cartridge of the 3 for target shooting, but for hunting it's the least preferable (Note: not saying it's impossible to hunt with 6.5CM, just saying grendel and 308 are more suited for it).

If you want to varmint and hunt up to deer sized animals, I'd go with the grendel upper. You'll need to reload for your particular rifle though, other people's recipe might not work so well into yours and vice-versa, that's the nature of high-accuracy semi-autos.
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Huh??!
 
Finally made it back to the range with my MV. Spending a lot of time with my hunting rifles prior to a hunting trip in mid-September.

Hornady Superperformance 75gr OTM ~ 3 inch
American Black Eagle 55gr FMJ ~2.5-3 inch
Fiochi 55gr FMJ ~ 2-2.5 inch
Nosler Custom Competition 77gr OTM ~ 2 inch
Remington Corelokt 55gr ~ 1.5 inch
Barnes TSX 55gr ~ 1.5 inch
Nosler Varmegeddon 55 gr flat base ~ 1 inch, seems genuinely capable of subMOA; with flier about 1.25"

Again, I have a MV, Proof 223 Wylde chamber 18.6", thread protector, Magpul CTR stock, Fortis 15" handguard, Nightforce 2.5-10 NXS compact in Nightforce one piece base. 5 round groups shot yesterday at 100 and 200m with a variety of factory ammunition off a Harris 6-9 bipod sitting. Everything I've fed through mine has been 100% reliable, all factory ammo. Mine does not like longer rounds, best round so far is still Nosler 55g Varmegeddon.

Wind was gusting pretty good, but still am getting a sense of what this rifle likes. I checked a couple of times to check the barrel remained free-floating and it is clear of the gas block. Interestingly, my wife's XCR-L did like the Nosler 77gr OTM (but still only shot it about as well as the MV, just much better than the FMJ stuff in the XCR-L).

Conclusions are obviously limited, didn't measure with calipers but did have a spotting scope and targets with 1 inch squares so I'm confident about the relative performance of these rounds in MY rifle. YMMV. Shot some steel at 200m as well, above conclusions still hold. Biggest surprise was that Remington core-lokt fed reliably and shot reasonably well. For a cheap coyote round if Nosler VM was not available I'd give it a try. I'm also finding that I shoot my hunting rifles most accurately, particularly for the first 3 rounds. I attribute it to more time spent shooting bolt actions and being better able to be consistent in my shooting position, hold, trigger pull. I love the semi-autos, but I find they are more difficult to shoot accurately. Any tips? I've resisted using a lead sled or bipod/rear bag because I hunt off of a bipod/shooting stick or off-hand. Will do it next time so I can definitively establish the accuracy of the Nosler ammo under ideal conditions and then will get back to working on my technique.

Still curious what other people are using handloads, factory etc and what kind of results they are getting.
 
I hate it when guys ask for advice about loads and "what works for you", but never include what I feel is the most important info about their rife. BARREL TWIST.

If a guy has a 1/12, I'll suggest lighter bullets, 1/7 heavier..... geesh!
 
My MV is being built. In terms of tips for shooting a semi auto it's primarily about getting used to the longer recoil impulse. Because you have the recoil of the bullet leaving the barrel but you also have the recoil of that big heavy bolt carrier group moving back and forth.

It takes some getting used to. I find I "load" the bipod and shoot semi auto's very tightly. I found doing the more gentle grip and position that seemed to work so well with my bolt guns does not work with my semi auto's.

I have a precision AR15 that I built in stages to see how much effect various parts would have on my results. For me the trigger was a huge issue. I strongly prefer light triggers. However, beyond any doubt reloading was the biggest factor.

When I tested my rifle with factory ammunition I never got much better than 1 to 1.25" groups at 100. This was with match grade ammunition. I transitioned over to doing some handloads and quickly found I had a consistently .5 MOA rifle that would shoot the same ragged hole over and over. Reloading really does make a huge difference. I was really surprised how much difference it made. I have been reloader for 20 years but have only reloaded pistol and .223 ammo that I threw together as fast as I could purely for value and speed reasons. I had never done anything for high accuracy. It's not hard. Actually, it was really easy.

For example, I found a particular bullet was about a 1.5 MOA performer but adding just 1 more grain made that combination a .5 MOA load. Often even less in the .4 MOA range.

A match bullet with good powder and match primer will shoot well and it didn't take many variations in powder charge and overall length to make that happen.
 
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