AR-15 6.5mm range report

6.5 Grendel?

How do you like your 6.5 Grendel? I'm thinking about getting one or at least an upper. What kind do you have? I've been looking at the Wolf 16" upper.

I've been looking at the Wolf 16" upper.

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I've heard mostly good things about these and the price is right, but most folks say you need a longer barrel to get the performance increment that makes it "better" than 5.56 77gr loads

123gr bullets at ~2500 fps puts it in the 7.62x39 class albeit with a better BC bullet.

I'm always looking into alternate AR calibers -- I have 5.45x39, 5.7x28, 7.62x25, 7.62x39, .22lr, 9mm & .40S&W -- but most of my choices have been driven by the at least temporary availability of cheaper ammo. Never have tried any of the "boutique" calibers yet.

I don't know about that, even out of a 16 inch tube I think the 123gr is going to hit harder than a .22 cal 77gr bullet. Do apples to apples comparison, is that 77gr also coming from a 16 inch gun?

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The context here is better trajectory when shooting at longer range targets (paper or steel), 5.56 is not a hunting caliber in many (most?) states.

Yeah very similar to 7.62x39 the cases even look similar when you hold them side-by-side. The 6.5mm is going do have better trajectory though and has better sectional density

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That is the key and why "better" was in quotes.

A 123gr 7.62x39 with a 50 yard zero will be about 0.5" high at 100 yards and about 15" low at 300 yards retaining about 800 ft-lbs of energy. If you believe in the 1000 ft-lb minimum for "humane" kills its a 200 yard caliber (only about 2" low here). How does the 6.5 Grendal compare here? If it can get you out to 300 with half the drop and still be above 1000 ft-lbs then I'd agree it would be "better" here if you want/need to stretch your maximum range by 50%. But the 7.62x39 seems plenty "flat shooting" for most "normal" hunting.

The grendel is a great round! I used mine this past deer season for 2 whitetail, 1st a 302yds and 2nd 278yds. Both using the factory amax! I have shot mine out to 810yds. In the picture is a ior valdada scope. It now where a razor gen 1.

I believe it can do exactly that, check out attached ballistic info

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It is over 1000 ft-lbs at 300 yards but ~13" drop vs. 15" drop is not so impressive.
At 400 yards it barely under 1000 ft-lbs but the drop of ~32" vs ~40" is not all that impressive to me -- with these kind of drops you need good range estimation for either round. Depends strongly on your definition of "better" but for me 7.62x39 is close enough that I've never pulled the trigger on buying a 6.5 Grendel upper, especially since I'm not much of a hunter.

For target shooting where retained energy doesn't matter I'm having a hard time seeing real advantages over 5.56 -- typical 55gr load only drops ~21" at 400 yards (but its only in hot .38Special energy range). Even at 600 yards the Grendel drops ~101" where the 5.56 is only ~86"

Again for hunting, 5.56 is not allowed in many locations, but if you need/want to hunt beyond 200 yards I'll accept the 6.5 Grendel will be better than 7.62x39 on retained energy.

We're gonna see tomorrow just how long the Grendel's legs are. Taking mine to Bangsteel to see how well it does at 1000 yards. Mine's a 20" Odin Works barrel, loads are AA brass, 31.5 gr. CFE-223, 123 AMAX. They chrono at 2550-2560 fps. I've been getting sub-MOA at 300 yards, which is as long as I can shoot around here. My cousin is an avid shooter and set up this thing for Bangsteel; he and a couple of his friends and I are going for a one-day course. I'm also taking my M1A as a backup, but don't plan to shoot it unless the Grendel breaks, which I doubt. So far it's been flawless.

I held one of my rounds next to a 7.62x39, they look as much the same as a 30-30 and a .308 do.

Bangswitch, let us know how the Bangsteel trip goes. A group of us are headed there for a class this summer. Btw, I'm also from WNC.

I used to have no interest in a 6.5 Grendel but then for the past year wanted one in an AR platform. I'm losing interest again. I'd rather have a 6.5 Creedmoor in an AR 10 platform. Different strokes.

Since the .220 Russian is the parent case for the Grendel and 7.62x39 is the parent case for the .220 Russian, I'd think the Grendel would look somewhat similar to the 7.62x39.

Wally, for targets I think 5.56 / .223 does have advantages in trajectory unless you are looking at shooting really long distances (like 800+ yards, at which point the .223 starts to drop more than the 6.5mm). However the 6.5 will do better in wind at any distance.

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The 6.5 Grendel ballistics table you linked didn't list any drift numbers to compare against. But in a 10 mph full value (pure cross-wind) at 400 yards for 55gr 5.56 the drift and drop are about the same at 22" and 21" respectively.

Ok, I run a 20" woa upper, I run 77gr nosler cc over 23.6gr tac in lc brass. With a 100yd zero I have 42.4moa drop at 1000 and 12.2 moa drift for 10mph crosswind. 1010fps retained velocity with 175 ft/lb retained energy. Muzzle velocity 2774 fps.

Went with some friends Monday to Bangsteel. In our group of four, there were two .308 bolt guns (Rem 700's), one AR-10 in .308, and my AR-15 6.5 Grendel. They were all shooting the .308's suppressed, 178 SMK's or AMAX. I was shooting 123 AMAX. It was surprising how similar our sighting, holdovers and wind calls were at 1000 yards. The Grendel ballistics chart that David posted (#17 above) is very close to the one worked up for my loads by our instructor. I don't know precisely what our crosswinds were, the instructors were calling for us using their experience in reading wind ; My shots at 1100 yards I had to allow 6MOA for wind correction (and a holdover of 14MOA on a maxed-out scope) and I was able to hit 6/10. My drop at 1100 yards was 45 MOA. (around 495 inches or 41 feet). I was supersonic to 1075 yards (1196 fps) with a 2550 MV. The heavier .308's were staying SS past 1200, but barely, with MV's only 100fps faster than mine. I thought it to be a fair vindication of the Grendel's effective range. Had I an elevated scope mount, I could probably have hit past 1200 yards. Two really cool things that day, first time I've experienced them. The suppressed .308's were like .22 rimfires; quiet enough that you could distinctly hear the zzzzzziiippp of the round headed downrange. And, if you were directly behind them with the spotting scope, you could see the shock wave of the flying bullet like a shimmering circle, travelling toward the target. The temp was mid 70's, maybe a bit on the humid side because it had rained all the night before and that morning. Our elevation was around 2500 feet.

The overall experience at Bangsteel was great. The instructors are laid back and know their stuff. Dan Newberry and his son Forrest taught us a lot; it was a lot to pick up in a single day, but we got the main points well enough to hit targets out to 1100 yards for me, and 1200 for a couple of the .308's (but only because they has enough scope adjustment left). Dan commented that he was impressed by the Grendel, he'd only had a few out there. He thought my loads were very good, they made consistent groups and really stretched out farther than he thought they would. The range is beautiful, it's a huge cow pasture on the side of a mountain ridge; our shooting spot was in front of a barn on a small knoll, aiming toward the mountain ridge over a small valley. There were targets all over the place, next to rocks, under trees out in the field, all different distances. Dan made the point of telling us that all the targets were white; the pasture also had maybe 100 head of Angus cattle, too. Most were off to the side, but it sort of felt weird at first, shooting out into an occupied field. Elevation change from shooting point to targets were never enough to have to change your hold point. There was even one target near the top of the ridge, 1840 yards out (but we didn't shoot at it. Hell, I could hardly see it at 18X). For anyone who wants serious instruction on long-range shooting, I highly recommend these guys. They ain't cheap, but I think you definitely get your $$$ worth. First picture is Dan's son Forrest, who is a competitive (and sponsored) long range shooter. He's trying out my Grendel. The other picture shows how great a range it was. The 1000 yard target is just above and very slightly left of the first tree to the right of the silo, up in the grassy notch at the edge of the forest.

Great... I've taken my grendel out to 810yds with factory amax loads.

David4516 said:

bangswitch, that sounds really cool, thanks for sharing!

I'm not sure how far I can crank the turrets on my scope, maybe I should mess around with it and find out. I know it has enough adjustment to shoot at 600 yards but I haven't tried it beyond that...

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Easy to figure. Take your elevation adjustment down until it stops (count your turns and click so you can return to your zero later). Once at the 'low end' turn your adjustment and count the turns to maximum 'up'. Don't know how your turrets are graduated, count the # clicks per full turn if necessary and divide by four (if each click on your scope is 1/4 MOA) to get the max elevation available in MOA, since your scope is calibrated that way. Return the scope to your zero point, counting turns/clicks, and that will give you available elevation beyond your 100 yard zero. Plug in your ballistics info for the caliber/load to see how much drop it has at range, and then see if you have enough adjustment for as far as you want to shoot.. If not, you can get an angled scope mount that will tilt the scope centerline down, relative to the barrel bore, which allows you to use more of the otherwise wasted elevation adjustment. It will require you to re-zero your scope at 100 yards, and that adjustment will be much closer to the "bottomed out" end of the adjustment.

David4516 said:

Took the Grendel out to the range again a few days ago. Was shooting the factory loaded 123gr ammo at clay pigeons at 500 yards, hitting them about 50% of the time. I thought that was pretty good. Really liking this rifle.

Bangswitch, I assume you're talking about one of those "20 MOA" bases? I have heard of them but always assumed it was something I wouldn't need... now after reading about your experience, it is making me wonder if I should look into...

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If you don't shoot past 750-800 yards, you'll probably not need one. I was shooting to 900 yards when I used up the available adjustment. I bought a Warne 20 MOA base when I got home from the range day, have it mounted. My 100 yard zero was originally 3 full turns out from the bottom of my adjustment; my 100 yard zero is now 1/2 turn from the bottom, so I now have 2-1/2 turns more than I used to, which is 30 MOA on my scope, in addition to the 32 MOA I had before adding the 20 MOA mount. I now have 62 MOA of elevation adjustment past my 100 yard zero, which is good to over 1500 yards with the load I'm shooting. I doubt I'll use it all.