Not grendel looking for some advice

[Zeneffect]

Have a varmint match in November that is limited to .224 projectile size. It will be unknown distances, varmint sized targets, no warmup or sighters.

I have the time and money to build a rifle before then just to run this match but I am undecided about cartridge. There are some rules about upper speed limit not exceeding 3200fps.

We looking at valkyrie at this point? Just stick with .223? 22-250 is probably a touch fast and wrong twist rate for the weight I want to run (75-80gr)

Thinking fast and flat is going to be the key

[VASCAR2]

https://www.65grendel.com/forum/showthread.php?25271-help-with-heavy-22-grendel-load-data

https://www.65grendel.com/forum/showthread.php?18541-22-Grendel-hog-gun

[Klem]

Zene,

77-80gn match bullets in a 1:8 twist is perfect for 22-250. I competed a few weeks ago using .223 with 77 TMK's in 1:8 Krieger medium Palma profile, 23" barrel, 1:8-twist on varmint targets out to 300M. 22-250 is overbore for sure, but in a bolt gun with decent barrel will be even faster, and the best combo on the line to start the match.

[Konocti's Wigwam]

The new 22 Creedmoor shouldn't be overlooked, IMO. I didn't know they had a 22 Grendel as Vascars points out, that looks interesting. 22 Creedmoor is likely to take most of the .22 sector, IMO.

[Zeneffect]

I'm looking hard ar 22arc right now

[biodsl]

I'm looking hard ar 22arc right now

This is probably the round the Valkryie was supposed to be. Hornady does such a good job with all their cartridge introductions. Has there been one flop in the last 15 years?

Totally unsubstantiated opinion: Hornady was an early provider of 6.5 Grendel ammunition. Personally, I think the cartridge had a huge influence on Hornady. They took Bill Alexander's concepts and applied them to the .260. The 6.5 Creedmoor was the result. They did it again with the PRC family and now the ARCs.

[LR1955]

This is probably the round the Valkryie was supposed to be. Hornady does such a good job with all their cartridge introductions. Has there been one flop in the last 15 years?

Totally unsubstantiated opinion: Hornady was an early provider of 6.5 Grendel ammunition. Personally, I think the cartridge had a huge influence on Hornady. They took Bill Alexander's concepts and applied them to the .260. The 6.5 Creedmoor was the result. They did it again with the PRC family and now the ARCs.

Nothing new about converting a cartridge by making its shoulder sharper and blowing it out. Ackley is the originator I think.

I believe the 6.5 Creedmoor evolved from the .260 and not from the Grendel.

LR-55

[JASmith]

Nothing new about converting a cartridge by making its shoulder sharper and blowing it out. Ackley is the originator I think.

I believe the 6.5 Creedmoor evolved from the .260 and not from the Grendel.

LR-55

True -- but one thing Bill did was to pay attention to large volume manufacturability. That influenced some choices ih the Grendel format and we see those carried forward into the newer Hornady designs.

[LR1955]

True -- but one thing Bill did was to pay attention to large volume manufacturability. That influenced some choices ih the Grendel format and we see those carried forward into the newer Hornady designs.

Perked my interest.

What choices in the Grendel format did Alexander and Brennan (?) come up with that Hornady used and in what designs? What Hornady cartridges are directly attributed to the Grendel?

I do not see anything magical about the Grendel design. I do see getting it to work in an AR-15 as being pretty innovative though.

LR-55

[biodsl]

Again, total speculation on my part. I'm simply saying that progress rests on the shoulders of those who came before. Perhaps Hornady's inspiration was not the Grendel. Perhaps it was the Winchester Short Magnum series. Probably it was both. The early 2000s brought the "shoulder sharper and blowing it out" of cartridge design to the forefront. I'm simply saying that Hornady's affiliation with AA and their work manufacturing brass (pretty sure the ammo came later) ammo for the Grendel likely influenced Emary and Thielin, the guys who developed the Creedmoor.

[LRRPF52]

This is probably the round the Valkryie was supposed to be. Hornady does such a good job with all their cartridge introductions. Has there been one flop in the last 15 years?

Totally unsubstantiated opinion: Hornady was an early provider of 6.5 Grendel ammunition. Personally, I think the cartridge had a huge influence on Hornady. They took Bill Alexander's concepts and applied them to the .260. The 6.5 Creedmoor was the result. They did it again with the PRC family and now the ARCs.

Hornady had made an improved 300 Savage called the 30 TC, working in conjunction with Thompson Center. 30 TC provided .30-06 speeds from a .308-sized case, due to more efficient burning of the propellant mass resonated against a 30 degree shoulder. Since it was marginally-better than .308, it never caught-on due to how dominant and available .308 was in the market.



When Hornady saw Remington hesitate/drop the ball with the .260 Remington, which was gaining a lot of steam in the growing precision rifle competition circuit in the 2000s, Hornady simply necked down the 30 TC to 6.5mm, and thus was born the 6.5 Creedmoor. 6.5 Grendel had already been around since 2003 and 6.5x47 Lapua had been introduced in 2005.

Success is often built on multiple attempts and failures, and Hornady was at the right time and place with all the development they had done with 30 TC to capitalize on it finally with 6.5 Creedmoor, then marketed it exceptionally well to where it is now a staple cartridge on store shelves taking up wide swaths of the space across multiple manufacturers.

[LRRPF52]

[lazyengineer]

Have a varmint match in November that is limited to .224 projectile size. It will be unknown distances, varmint sized targets, no warmup or sighters.

I have the time and money to build a rifle before then just to run this match but I am undecided about cartridge. There are some rules about upper speed limit not exceeding 3200fps.

We looking at valkyrie at this point? Just stick with .223? 22-250 is probably a touch fast and wrong twist rate for the weight I want to run (75-80gr)

Thinking fast and flat is going to be the key

This is just me, but with all those restrictions, and being a one-event purpose item; I'd just take a 20" NM Service Rifle AR with 600 yard competition 80 gr ammo and single load that. I know plenty of people who run that out to 1000 yards. Or I'd run 77gr MK262 ammo, if semi-auto had value. I guess I just don't get excited by the longer range .22 options; and want a bigger heavier caliber bullet if I'm going farther than 600 yards and don't think a .223 has enough to do it. But I'm also biased because I already have that gear and load and am pretty heavily practiced with it.

Sounds like you have budget and gumption to make something more purpose built. That being the case, .22-250 bolt action or AR10 HBAR; in 1/9 or maybe 1/10; running 80gr bullets. Which typically top out around that speed limit.

[LRRPF52]

What type of action is allowed?

[Zeneffect]

Any