Advice needed on barrel length from Grendel gurus.

[rabiddawg]

Smh

[WanderingZero]

If you ask a complicated question, you shouldn't get angry when you don't get a simple answer.

[JASmith]

(haven't shot past 300-350 years in 20 years).

So, provided I use good quality factory ammo (Hornady 123gr A-MAX and SST), use a high quality scope, and a precision trigger, what is the longest range I should expect to be able to take antelope, or deer, provided my Grendel is outfitted with a good barrel... say a 16" Krieger barrel or an 18" Krieger or Bartlein barrel?

The simplest answer is that you have answered your own question. Don't shoot past 350 yards and you'll be fine.

Now that the snippy part is past, you will need to shoot a fair bit if you expect to make single round kills at any distance.

Prepare by doing some homework:

1) establish muzzle velocity using this tool: http://shootersnotes.com/calculator/velocity-estimator/. Use the Hornady muzzle velocity for the 24" barrel. Several us are pretty sure that the shorter barrel length number refers to a 14.5" barrel with a muzzle brake / flash hider to bring the length to the nominal value in their table.

2) Use something like http://www.jbmballistics.com/cgi-bin/jbmtraj-5.1.cgi to calculate range to 1800 fps and range to 4" drift on a 10 mph ceoss wind.

The shorter of these two ranges will establish the maximum range you should shoot to with the barrel length being looked at.

Repeat for each barrel length you are considering.

We can complicate the story by talking about wind doping and so on but your post indicates that you are not current in that skill set.

Then get out and do recreational shooting out to the maximum range your calculations suggest shooting to. Plan on going throjgh five to ten boxes of your hunting ammunition in this phase so you get comfortable woth knowing where the bullet will hit.

...stay under 300 yards for medium game until you have done the above exercises.