Grendels perfect bullet range?

[Nordy55]

[Troutguide]

I think the numbers hint at 123-129. But I am moving to lead free for my Howa so going lighter but still similar ballistics.

[Redomen]

[A5BLASTER]

160 grain and lighter is where I'm at.

Just match the bullet and barrel length too the job needing yo be done.

[Lemonaid]

So far 120's are my favorite, if I had to choose only one weight. The 90's would be in the number 2 spot.

[Rosecrans1]

There is no perfect bullet range as long as we use our rifles for different tasks. If you varmint hunt, you'll use a lower weight bullet. If you punch paper, you'll mostly stay in the 110 - 130 range. Hunt deer? User preference! Ring steel? Heavier bullets. Self defense with a silencer? Mid weights reduced loads. Etc. Etc. And a few would disagree with the analogies i used here for their purposes.

[LR1955]

When the Grendel came out this was a topic of discussion and it does pop up periodically.

Based on ballistic coefficients of available bullets at the time, and the case capacity of the Grendel, and the restrictions of overall cartridge length due to the internal length of a AR-15 magazine, we figured the ideal bullet weight would be between 110 and 125.

No one made a 110 at the time so it was kind of a toss up between the 107 Sierra and the 108 Lapua, the 120 Sierra, and the 123 Sierra and 123 Lapua.

Bullets lighter than the 107's and made of lead and gilding metal construction did not have the length to give a decent BC. Heavier bullets of the same construction were long enough to streamline but protruded deeply into the case, thus reducing powder capacity and causing some abysmally low velocities.

I never had any luck with the 107 and 123 Sierra but did have a lot of good performance with the 108 and 123 Lapua, and the 120 Sierra. The Lapua bullets soon got so expensive I stopped shooting them.

That said, almost all of my Grendel ammo today is loaded with a 120 Sierra which I consider the best overall bullet for the Grendel. Superb accuracy and pretty much indifferent to seating depth and loads. It will shoot very well with any reasonable load as long as you have a decent barrel.

LR55

[sbowhuntr]

90-100g for yotes and such and 100-120g for deer. Never ventured into the 123g and above as my creedmoore handles the heavies much better.

[mel]

130-140 for target shooting , 90-100 for small varmints 123-129 for game like deer and antelope

[lazyengineer]

For target shooting, I've found the 107 SMK actually to be my favorite bullet, and just got through pounding a 1000 yard Gong with those things yesterday, shot after shot. It has a very sleek profile, so a good BC. Though from what I read, it's game performance isn't really so good - as such wasn't its design. Anyway, I could never get heavier bullets to shoot as well - just me I guess. Others have their favorites, but for me, I use 107 SMK's as my benchmark Grendel bullet now.

For game - I haven't taken any yet, but based on DNS's video's, the 90 TNT is tough to beat on hogs. And I suppose the 123 SST is probably the best baseline general purpose for deer or such, based on the marketing - but no first-hand experience.

I have some 129 SSTs I got for cheap. Some people really like 129's, and I even have some of the endorsed Nosler 129's, designed to expand at low velocity. But still, with 129's, I've found the velocity never really gets up there, especially in a shorter BBL, and so I worry about it having a more excessive arc of fire (i.e. easier to miss if not exactly the distance you zero'd). I worry about as effective of expansion, since the bullet requires velocity upon impact, to perform, and it's not so easy getting heavies like 129's up to faster speed; at least just based on the calculators. When it comes to expansion, there's the bullet expansion itself (important), and there's also the hydraulic expansion of just the energy dump, which is also important, and that takes FPS to do well.

Here's a graphic showing the expansion of a different caliber, but indicitave, as a function of velocity:

Sure, the 1650 fps end one passed the threshold of "expanding", but.. yea.

[LRRPF52]

There are several different ways to look at this:

* Bullet weight and construction for the type of target
* Bullet weight relative to firearm weight and desired/threshold recoil impulse

For a heavier rifle, you can get away with more bullet weight if you're wanting to enjoy the sight picture track that the 6.5 Grendel allows.

The weight/mass of the shooter and type of position you use also plays into this.

Getting kids started with shooting centerfire rifle works better with 85-100gr in the Grendel.

Guys like me who weigh over 200lbs with good upper body mass can shoot any of the projectile weights and not really be affected as much as someone who weighs in the 150lb range.

Shooting off-hand versus bench or prone with a rear bag will affect this too.

For me, when shooting 90gr TNT or 95gr Lehigh Controlled Chaos, even my lightweight 17.6" Wasp profile Lilja Grendel feels almost recoilless bipod supported.

With my 12" Grendel shooting 120 and 123gr, there is a bit more muzzle climb shooting off the magazine monopod position, due to it acting as a fulcrum point on such a short blaster.

Switching to bipod-supported, the 12" Grendel then behaves pretty much like a 16" or 18" Grendel in how it recoils.

For target shooting, if your range is limited to 600yds, the 107gr SMK does really well, but if you want to hear more impact on steel targets, you might consider the 120-140gr weight class.

If you average the 85gr-142gr, you get 113.5gr.

If you add 85gr-160gr, you get 122.5gr.

For reaching past 600yds at or around sea level, higher BC bullets make more and more sense.

Up at higher altitudes, you can get away with lesser bullets and shorter barrels.

For hunting, now you're looking at type of game, desired results on target (2 holes vs massive would profile vs pelt harvest vs dangerous game), average ranges to the target, stalk hunting vs static, varmint vs medium/large game, etc.

There is no perfect answer to this question, due to the variables.

[FLshooter]

[nuthead]

I've been using 123gr amaxs for hunting from a 22' barreled howa mini. 28.5gr of 8208 for 2550fps. It's hammered big red deer and seem to expand fine even on rabbits... You definitely can't eat them after they've been shot anyway

[Stevil]

90-110gr otherwise just too slow I reckon

[OneHitWonder]

Tested 95gn TNT, 110gn Wolf, 123gn Federal match, 123gn eld factory loads, 123gn eld-m reloads, and 129 reloads.

The 123gn seems to be the one that gets 1moa.

From my experience every barrel is different, and will have its own favorite load and weight.