Our military adopting the Grendel?

[Grendel-Gene]

A while back i thought i read somewhere that the military was looking closely at the grendel.... does anyone know if that is true?

If our round were adopted , i bet it would get a lot cheaper to shoot!

Thanks.

[JASmith]

There are several discussions in the "6.5 Grendel Military & Law Enforcement" discussion forum.

Some of the exchanges are lively -- there is no shortage of Grendel enthusiasts wanting to see the Grendel to become a modern military cartridge.

Bottom line seems to be that the Grendel is better than the alternatives discussed to date, but likely not quite enough better than the existing mainstream cartridges to get the needed attention.

[Grendel-Gene]

Too bad... cause the 223 SUCKS!!! ( in my humble opinion )....

[LRRPF52]

5.56x45 is an awesome round for riflemen and guys who have to kick-in doors, clear bunkers, and alleys. You can carry tons of it with minimal weight, it hardly recoils, and it kills people deader than dirt extremely well...has been doing so for over 50 years.

What the Grendel offers is the possibility to rethink the whole Light Machinegun concept, especially when weight is considered.

[montana]

I'm sorry but the 5.56 sucks. I have owned and still do many 5.56 rifles and they are fun to shoot, but any experienced hunter knows how in effective the 5.56 is for terminal performance. For the AR-15 type platform the 6.5 Grendel is the most efficient cartridge to date period. Any cartridge can kill, but to use the most efficient cartridge based on recoil, penetration, weight, ballistics, and cost the 6.5 Grendel is unsurpassed period. Prove me wrong. I'm dug in and waiting.

[stanc]

What the Grendel offers is the possibility to rethink the whole Light Machinegun concept...

A three-caliber system (5.56 rifle, 6.5 LMG and 7.62 MMG)?

[JASmith]

Sure, why not?

It gets a foot in the door. Next step might be a sharpshooter round.

[LRRPF52]

I'm sorry but the 5.56 sucks. I have owned and still do many 5.56 rifles and they are fun to shoot, but any experienced hunter knows how in effective the 5.56 is for terminal performance. For the AR-15 type platform the 6.5 Grendel is the most efficient cartridge to date period. Any cartridge can kill, but to use the most efficient cartridge based on recoil, penetration, weight, ballistics, and cost the 6.5 Grendel is unsurpassed period. Prove me wrong. I'm dug in and waiting.

5.56 will smoke deer just the same. A lot of people don't want to hear that, but it has and will. It also kills people deader than dead quite brutally, especially within 100m. Every 5.56 injury/death I have seen involved some pretty impressive wound characteristics. My opinion is based on real-world experience with 5.56, not something I read in a highly-polished stack of toilet paper, bound with staples. I've seen 5.56 take half a dude's head off, make injuries that normally would be non-lethal, look like someone blew hamburger apart with a 1/4 stick of TNT, and I've seen these types of wounds after 5.56 has skipped off body armor, gone through walls, and skipped off dirt and rocks.

If 5.56 sucked, the SAS, SBS, SASR, Delta, Force Recon, MSOR, Ranger Regiment, SF, SEALs, the Israelis, and countless other special operations units around the world drop it like a bad habit. Most of those units have a lot of input into what weapons they use, and what calibers they use. As a matter of fact, most of those units have actually driven the adoption and mass-distribution of 5.56 because it IS such an effective caliber for an individual service rifle/carbine.

If I personally saw how worthless 5.56 was from my experiences, I'd be the first to tell you. Is it magic? Does it erase people upon contact? No, but it really delivers a lot of bang for the amount of weight it takes up, and effective kills have been made with standard NATO M855 out to 500m, and 800m kills have been made with Mk262 77gr SMK's. Regardless of my experiences, Tier 1 units in the world vote with the weapons they use the most frequently. Right now, the ballot has been in-favor of 5.56 for over 50 years by these units. If you choose to argue with that, go ahead, but they will not be changing.

Now, when it comes to 7.62 NATO, I'm open to looking at a replacement for it. It's too heavy for what it delivers. Because so many weapons mounted on aircraft and vehicles use linked 7.62, there is a natural institutional resistance across NATO to switch to something different. I think something like the Grendel with a long-range trajectory comparable to 7.62 would be one of the most welcome additions to dismounted warfighters' tool box.

5.56 ain't broke, and needs very little tweaking to continue on as an awesome carbine cartridge. Our belt-fed systems are way too heavy, and we don't have a lightweight cartridge that would really serve them well.

[bwaites]

...... 5.56 ain't broke, and needs very little tweaking to continue on as an awesome carbine cartridge. Our belt-fed systems are way too heavy, and we don't have a lightweight cartridge that would really serve them well.

Thus spake the 5.56 nazi, thus it shall be! LOL!

I need to start building 5.56 carbines, though!

[Grendel-Gene]

I have a story to tell you guys...its kinda how i got here to "Grendelia"; I live an hour west of Fort worth in the country and i love to target shoot. I do not however hunt. One evening i came home to find THREE FERAL HOGS in my back yard. I ran in the house and got my little M4 carbine and a magazine of wolf steel cased cheap target ammunition ( all i had handy since like i mentioned i dont hunt. ). I gathered up a few extra rounds ( 5 or 6 maybe ) and put them in my pocket.

I popped up around the house and opened fire. The two small hogs were maybe 100 lbs a piece and they dropped on the first shot. I then followed up on the bigger hog which had already started running away from me. i pumped a few round in its behind as it ran. I briefly returned to the two smaller hogs and gave them and extra shot a piece to make sure they stayed down.

I started walking after the larger hog that had been hit in the rear end. When i spotted it again, it was about 200 yards away and running away. I opened fire and i am sure that i was hitting it often. It finally went as far as it could go on the north east corner of my property ( which is fenced ), But this thing was still alive, cornered, and now facing me. By this time i had emptied the clip. Lets do the math here: 30 rounds of 223 ( all be it target , not hunting ammo ), 4 rounds for the small hogs and 26 for the big 300 pounder!!!.

ASSUMING that I only hit the big hog HALF THE TIME, thats still 13 rounds ( all be it in the ass where there arent any vital organs ). Of course the short 14.5 inch barrel on my particular gun ( 16 with permanent flash hider ) doesnt deliver that great a punch, , especially at 200 yards, the "tough as nails" hog butt hide didnt help either, nor the adrenalin in the hog, nor the cheap russian target ammo... HOWEVER THIS SON OF A BITCH DID GET AT LEAST 13 shots of 223 in the ass... and that should kill ANY HOG!. Dont you think????



Anyway, this thing is bleeding out the ass, cornered, pissed off and staring at me. I reached into my pocket and put in those extra rounds into my mag (all the time wondering if he will charge while i reload...). But the hog just stood there, so i took careful aim, and shot him once between the eyes at about 40 yards. There it died.

Long story short, the big hog should have dropped much sooner and as of that day i never again had any REAL confidence in the 223. It was then that i decided to "go Grendel"... and here I am.

AND YES, i realize that there a many dead communist buried on every corner of this planet shot with a 223... but that doesn't change what i personally experienced that day in April 2010.

[LRRPF52]

Wolf ammo has very thick jackets, and is under-powered. Real 5.56x45 (not .223), is an extremely hot loading for a production caliber, and leaves the muzzle of a 14.5" M4 at over 2900fps for the 62gr, and over 3000fps for the 55gr. If you had been shooting him with steel-penetrator M855 NATO, you would have achieved a different result much earlier I'm betting. Wolf plinking ammo is no measure by which to view 5.56 NATO.

That being said, I still love the Grendel for what it offers, especially in wind drift and retained energy for thicker barriers on game. As for military applications in a carbine, 5.56 is hard to beat.

Machineguns are a different story.

[montana]

Like I said any caliber can kill. Just read about the Falklands war , Black hawk down etc.They told of many cases where the 5.56 failed miserably. The 5.56 is illegal to use for hunting in most states because it sucks on big game. Try to shoot threw a windshield and see how effective it is. It isn't. The 6.5 Grendel is just a better cartridge.The 5.56 has its place but not as our first line military cartridge. You can use what ever you think but I would rather have a cartridge that has better one round kill, better penetration little recoil and long range performance than a middle range varmint round.I have also seen first hand the 5.56 rounds failure to perform as should be expected.The SAS in the Falklands switched back to their FAL'S because of its poor performance.

[Grendel-Gene]

This is the big hog and me.... ( i am the one with the M4 - ha ha ha !! )




Here are "the babies"....

[montana]

Better than the 7.62X39. Its the same weight but better ballistic coefficient. The 7.62X39 has never been faulted for penetration like the 5.56 has. This isn't a Ford Chev argument its based on reality.The cartridge which has the best fundamentals of weight, terminal performance,recoil, penetration, ballistic performance AKA long range performance and cost should be used. The Grendel has them all.

[RStewart]

Poor shot placement with almost any caliber will leave wounded animals. A 60 grain Nosler partition round will kill a 224 lb. deer at 142 yards with a single heart/chest shot. But, I do like the extra shock of the larger rounds the Grendel offers.