A pair of Grendels

[Doon]

Its been over a year now getting these rifle to the finish line but we have made it.

The Zastava was a 6.5 x 39mm which I had re chambered to .264 lbc-ar for my 12 year old son.

The Savage was a bit more involved as I am a lefty.

The donor rifle was a model 11 GL 308.
Purchased PTG bolt head and fitted too work out the feeding problems.
Didn't like the way the blind mag feed with the 308 mag so I purchased a Atlas Workz DBM .

Didn't want to mess with the blind mag stock as it is a nice piece of walnut.
Found another stock at Numrich and in letted it my self.

The next problem was finding a barrel, got lucky and found a new Howa 6.5x55 removed from a new rifle.

Sent the action off to my Gun Smith who also had the Howa barrel and had him fit and re chamber to .264 LBC-AR.

I bedded the action and DBM and used a MTD mag and was good to go.
Very pleased with the out come as it shoots better that I expected, .7 groups during barrel break in .

[1075 tech]

Very nice pair! Nice job. Gives me ideas for an old Remmy 788.

[LRRPF52]

Those are sweet. The 6.5 Grendel is equally pleasant for youth and adults to shoot, with a lot of retained energy for how small and how little it is.

Nice rifles. The suppressed one is a reflex can, right?

[robertc1024]

Very nice. Got to love those wood and steel guns.

[Doon]

Those are sweet. The 6.5 Grendel is equally pleasant for youth and adults to shoot, with a lot of retained energy for how small and how little it is.

Nice rifles. The suppressed one is a reflex can, right?

Thanks
They are over barrel suppressors. 5" forward and 8.5 " back two point mount. Not sure what a reflex can is?
I have one for the savage as well.
I think the Grendel is quieter than my suppressed AR.

http://www.gunworks.co.nz/suppressor-222-to.html

[LRRPF52]

Yes, ones that slip over the barrel are called reflex suppressors.

They are popular in Europe as well. I've used a lot of them there, especially from BR Tuote out of Finland.

[Savage Shooter]

Very nice pair! Nice job. Gives me ideas for an old Remmy 788.

My old stock 788 in .22-250 is nothing pretty to look at - but it sure can shoot. With 50 gr Vmaxs (with a 1:14 twist it doesn't do it's best over 50 grs.) it'll shoot .25 MOA. Have bagged more than a few Prairie dogs at 600+ yards with it. With 35 gr. Hornday NTXs it will top 4500 fps! If your 788 can shoot anything like many of them ( they have a reputation for out-shooting many 700s, which is why Remington discontinued them, so the story goes) it might make a very interesting project in 6.5 Grendel.

[Von Gruff]

That is a nice pair Doon and will be equally at home chasing the local deer and goats or away up after the Tahr and Chamois. I take it that Robbie did the 264 chamber. I know he was pushing the 6.5x39 for a while but must have seen the performance gains with the bolt rifle Grendel chamber. What are you doing for brass??

[Doon]

Hi VG,
I first asked Robbie to re chamber the Zastava but he didn't have a reamer so I brought my own so he could.
When he had the Howa barrel for sale he said it wouldn't work so I did some homework and told him I thought it would.
Then he said it may work, so I took the chance and brought the barrel off him and if it didn't work I was going to have it chambered to Creedmore.
It worked out fine.
I am using grendel Hornady brass and fire formed 7.62x39 as I have a mini 30 also.



I found that changing to federal 205 small rifle primers improved the groups quite a bit.
They are the same load 31.5 gn of cfe223 @ 2.275 123gn sst, the larger group was with WSR primers.
The chambers are meant to be the same on both rifles as I sent him fire formed brass.
I can load out to 2.320 if need be.

[Von Gruff]

I have seen a Tika 6.5x55 barrel on trademe and thought it would make a good candidate for rechambering in the micro actioned rifles. Good to know that it will work. Did you completely remove the existing chamber or just enough that the Grendel case would have a fresh cut? Or was it the 6.5x55 throat that dictated the amount of barrel you ha to cut back to?
I just bought Lapua Grendel cases from Belmont ($175/100 delivered) as I had got 9 reloads from the Hornady brass and think the Lapua should do better. Have stuck to the CCI 450 SRM primer

[Doon]

The barrel was cut as in the pic to allow enough for a fresh chamber and throat I think, 1.055 is the savage small shank diameter.
I think Robbie wanted a new chamber as he doesn't do shoddy work.
35 mm to allow barrel thread and enough for the barrel nut, this is what I had to estimate.

The good thing about savages is that its a straight tang with no off set.
I had trouble with the 123 gn sst with WSR primers in the Zastava so thought I would try a different primer in the Savage which paid off.
The Zastava is 1-9 and the Savage 1-8 twist.
Have yet to try the federal primers in the Zastava yet.

I paid $275 for the Howa barrel, a Shilen was going to cost $650.
I'm happy with the barrel, it shoots 100 gn a-max very well also.
$175 is a good price for the laupa brass.

[smcdurmon]

Nice rifles.

[am4966]

Very nice Doon, I'm sure your son was happy too. Have you given him the rifle yet or waiting for a special day?

[Doon]

Thanks, Yes he has it.
Next job is to get him to blood it on a Deer.