whats the use?

[Michael]

Too our military vets who know something about rifles...Hows the throat on an M4 or M16 after several practice excursions of emptying magazines fast? do they have throat damage? I don't know but I would think melonite barrels /throats civilians use are harder than mil spec....of course...it may be that throat erosion doesn't matter on M4 or m16 because targets are bigger and accuracy not as important as say hitting prarie dogs or little blaze orange stickers. are the m4's and m16's in our armorys beaten up and wore out? shot out barrels?

Worn out? No. They were designed to be 3-4 MOA guns...chrome lined bores and all that. Always had a few that were tighter than that, but not a lot. Weapons are also PFIed fairly regularly, and if you had a GOOD armorer (I was lucky and had a good one 2 out of four times), they got bore-scoped at the end of a deployment. Seem to remember about 10% were sh#tcanned after scoping.

[bwaites]

I showed the Grendel reloading handbooks to someone I know at a local gun shop. We got into a conversation about barrel life.

The question I carried out of the discussion was: "Has anyone used a bore scope at the start of the barrel life and intermediate points through to the end of life while tracking the change of group size?"

A corollary: "How many of us have shot out a Grendel barrel?" The definition of shot out might be group size grows to twice the group size at the end of break-in.

Using the "groups twice the size of optimum" I've shot out two Grendel barrels. One started losing ground around 5000 rounds and was still Sub-MOA at 6000+ with some loads. That was a button rifled barrel. It shot .25 MOA groups up until around 5000 rounds. Bill Alexander looked at the throat with a borescope and told me there was some checkering, but it didn't look terrible even when I replaced it.

The other barrel was also a button barrel, and it wasn't quite as good as the first I mentioned. It was always a sub-MOA barrel, but lost itself about 6300 rounds, when I couldn't get it to shoot any load under 1 MOA. It was a friends gun, and we shot it a lot using Les Baer ammo, which were pretty hot 123 loads. He replaced it with a Satern, and junked the old barrel when I wasn't paying attention, so I have no idea what the throat looked like.

[JASmith]

Bill,

Thanks!

Recounting these experiences will go a long way toward keeping the rumor mill honest.

I know that your experience is in line with what one expects from the bore capacity trends, even allowing for the fact that the Grendel runs at lower pressures (and the resulting cooler temperatures) than either the .308 or the .223.

That leaves the question "Has anyone seen a 6.5 Grendel barrel go south with less than 3000 rounds? Is so, what were the circumstances?"

Cheers!

[NugginFutz]

That leaves the question "Has anyone seen a 6.5 Grendel barrel go south with less than 3000 rounds? Is so, what were the circumstances?"

Cheers!

I have. With less than 500 rounds through the pipe, it arrived in Socorro Cty, NM. It was a cold morning, and we were preparing to lay waste to a prairie dog colony. Unfortunately, mother nature had already taken its toll on the little buggers, which had been decimated by plague over the winter and spring.

Empty handed, and broken hearted, we headed north to return home. where it continues to serve me well, with no appreciable wear.

(Sorry, but I just can't help myself, sometimes.)

[JASmith]

That is a good laugh on me!

I will admit that I should have anticipated a strict interpretation of the term "go south!"

I can't wait to hear hear the trip in a southerly direction quoted of of context by aficionados of another cartridge!!!!

[NugginFutz]

That is a good laugh on me!

I will admit that I should have anticipated a strict interpretation of the term "go south!"

I can't wait to hear hear the trip in a southerly direction quoted of of context by aficionados of another cartridge!!!!

Whups - hadn't considered the possibility of giving fodder to some of the antagonists. See the ETA.

[JASmith]

I can say that my buddy chuckled at the picture of barrel going south in response to the barrel life question! We may have answered his question!

[dammitman]

OK, i am going to say i am sorry to have ranted my frustration one night on this forum about my personal problem with my load development. i can tell you i did not read this thread till tonight as i was too embarrassed to do it. i had a feeling i was gonna get alot of crap. i have to say thanks to everyone for being so concerned with my obvious problem and ONLY getting involved posting with genuine good intended posts. i will try to not post the like again although it has led to some very very good information about grendel rifles. i sure with i could figure out how to post pictures.

[JASmith]

...i sure with i could figure out how to post pictures.

All you need to do his have the picture in a web-enabled storage location like Dropbox. There's a ton of them around, some cost a bit, others are free. Some folks have their own domains, so they can use the servers they lease or own.

Once the picture is in the box and you have the URL pointing to the picture, use the "World-shaped button with the chain link" at the top of the reply box and paste your URL into it. Use preview to verify it works.

There are some size restrictions but my experience has been that 600 pixels across or tall as the maximum dimension seems to work fine.

[explorecaves]

Photobucket will auto-resize for you too

[Heywood]

OK, i am going to say i am sorry to have ranted my frustration one night on this forum about my personal problem with my load development. i can tell you i did not read this thread till tonight as i was too embarrassed to do it. i had a feeling i was gonna get alot of crap. i have to say thanks to everyone for being so concerned with my obvious problem and ONLY getting involved posting with genuine good intended posts. i will try to not post the like again although it has led to some very very good information about grendel rifles. i sure with i could figure out how to post pictures.

As a newbie to this forum. When I read your rant I settled in hoping to learn a thing or two from the replies, but also expecting to see some excriment flinging...Very pleasantly surprised that didn't happen. This is a good place.

[NugginFutz]

OK, i am going to say i am sorry to have ranted my frustration one night on this forum about my personal problem with my load development. i can tell you i did not read this thread till tonight as i was too embarrassed to do it. i had a feeling i was gonna get alot of crap. i have to say thanks to everyone for being so concerned with my obvious problem and ONLY getting involved posting with genuine good intended posts. i will try to not post the like again although it has led to some very very good information about grendel rifles. i sure with i could figure out how to post pictures.

Relax, dm. We're all friends, here, and want to see everyone succeed. Everyone gets a little excited or frustrated, occasionally. Plus, you only hurt the ones you love, right? Feel the love!

[cory]

As a newbie to this forum. When I read your rant I settled in hoping to learn a thing or two from the replies, but also expecting to see some excriment flinging...Very pleasantly surprised that didn't happen. This is a good place.

Yea you'll see this forum is different like that. We have our moments, but we make it an effort to keep it a gentlemanly place.

[BjornF16]

It looks like the OP has been addressed regarding barrel life...

...but there is still the OP comment regarding accuracy fading for a particular load after 100 rounds. Thoughts that come to mind:

1. Temperature variation (using a powder/load that is sensitive to temp or not an OCW load)

2. Excessive cleaning (stripping copper out which may change the accuracy)

3. Excessive copper build up

What else?

[JASmith]

Good troubleshooting points.

...or the apparent loss of accuracy could have resulted from a whole bunch of other factors. Did we get a good read on the OP's prior experience in precision shooting?

My own experience has been that there are days where things just don't come together. "Losing" accuracy that soon for me has usually meant problems with scope, excitement at the range, winds more variable than expected and so on.