First trip to the range with a grendel

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  • First trip to the range with a grendel

    I'm new to the 6.5 and am just beginning to work up some loads. My setup is as follows:
    20" saturn barrel;
    mega billet upper with side pull
    Paladin on/off gas block

    First 3 shot grouping was with Hornady factory 123amax ammo.
    vel. 2493 with sd= 8. best group about .5"

    first handloads were 123 scenar with 2520 in AA brass with CCI400 primer

    30.3gr
    vel= 2515 with cci400
    vel= 2536 with cci450 sd=15

    30.6gr
    vel=2493 / sd=20 and vel=2578 / sd=19 with cci 400
    vel=2556 / sd=11 with cci450
    best grouping about .7"

    The weather changed from 80's and overcast to 90's and sunny as the velocity increased. Is 2520 that temperature sensitive, or was the difference likely chrony error?

    Next up was BLC-2 with the scenar;

    31.5gr
    vel=2458 / sd=19 and group size of .41

    Final loading was 95 vmax with H4198

    25.5gr
    vel=2717 / sd=0 group .7"
    25.8gr
    vel did not record, but group of .4 for 4 shots with #5 opened to .7

    Overall, no pressure indications. I like the BLC-2 groupings, but would like more velocity. I plan to try some LVR when I get a chance to load some more. Data on another thread here looks promising. I spoke with Dave @ Hodgdon today and inquired as to any data with LVR. He said they had tested it in the grendel but it did not perform well enough. I suspect his statement may have been CYA.

    Does anyone have any suggestions for changes to make with any of the previous loads?

    Thanks!

    Mark

  • #2
    Welcome MFH,

    Yes 2520 is temp sensitive, so is BLC-2, and LVR.

    I spoke with a Hodgdon rep last month and he told me they hadn't tried LVR with the grendel, I am certain if they had they wouldn't doubt its performance, for me it is doing better than 2520.

    I would also recommend that you try IMR 8208, it is another great performer in the grendel.

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    • LRS_Ranger

      #3
      8208 is the cat's ass, I would HIGHLY recommend getting a pound to play with. Clean, consistant, and meters very well. Also not nearly as temp sensitive as the ball powders. Lastly, I get better velocity. I'm at 2630 out of my 20 inch tube, which is a solid 75 FPS faster than my 2520 loads.

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      • #4
        As soon as I can work some loads into a range trip, I got some Alliant AR-Comp for experimenting with my AR15 .300 OSSM (necked up .25 WSSM) and it's a little faster than I expected in that caliber. Alliant designed it to be temperature stable from something like -20 to +160 F. I expected it to be a temp stable version of RL15, but it has been running between RL15 and 8208 XBR for velocity yield in the .300. That might make it a good candidate for the Grendel. 48gr pushes a Speer 150gr HotCor out the 22" barrel at 3012fps with no significant pressure signs. No data available for QL, but I could see it pushing a 123 Amax to velocities around 2600 out of my 24" barrel. More to come...

        Hoot

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