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That is "Gods Own Country"; not sure why we call it that. Otherwise known as Land of the Long White Cloud, Aotearoa, New Zealand.
So, I'm a hunter. Most often for feral goats, truth be known, but our staple fare here is Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) and Sika (Cervus nippon). People with access to private land shoot quite a few fallow deer, but that's not me. In the South Island, there is alpine hunting for Chamois and Tahr but I haven't used my Grendel for them yet - possibly the 7mm08 would be more suitable.
Grendel by log 300px.jpeg
I decided to try the Grendel, because my Sako 85 7mm08 was getting longer and heavier every year. And I'm a firm believer that a light rifle should shoot a light cartridge. Gives the bedding, the barrel temperature, the suppressor, recoil and scope mounting a chance to deliver good performance.
A very good friend gave me his Sako Vixen, which was factory made in 6mmPPC. The barrel was 1:14" twist so it was not going to be ideal with anything bigger than 70-80gr and the 223 can do those. I also think you need a decent weight of lead to kill a deer well and 120gr is not too bad. The drawback of course is mzuzle velocity .. but more on that later I'm sure you all know its pros and cons better than me.
I got a Shilen #3 contour barrel as it was similar to the one on my 7mm08 which is great on that gun. Once I felt the new rifle, I knew I could have gone down to #2 or even #1. Anyway there are a lot of advantages to having some weight in the barrel ... which I'll also mention in future I'm sure. The barrel is 16" by the way. With Grendel its "Go Short or Go Home" (my opinion).
Suppressor is a DPT, which is a NZ made brand. They are aluminium and have modular baffles, of which I removed most of them so it's nice and short (not going home, mate). Others say it doesn't tame the report very much for them but I can shoot it quite comfortably without protection. I do use muffs or plugs on the range of course.
The stock is, again a NZ made brand, Southfort. I understand they send most of them to the USA so they are a bit hard to come by here. This is a slim line, light weight hunter style stock.
I used a few different scopes on it till I could get one set up to my specifications. It's a Leupold VX3i 4.5-14x40 with parallax and CDS dials in cm/100m. It paid extra to get a heavy duplex reticle. A lot of my hunting is in dark forest ("Bush" to us) and it can be quite hard to see the standard duplex so I traded off perhaps some fine accuracy on the range for reliable useabilty on the hill. Only Leupold really make lightweight scopes that are rugged enough and good enough.
Grendel in grass55.jpg
There seem to be more Grendels around here now than there were a few years ago but it remains to be seen whether it becomes a mainstream cartridge in NZ. So, it's great to have a whole forum Horde here to chat with and compare notes !
So, I'm a hunter. Most often for feral goats, truth be known, but our staple fare here is Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) and Sika (Cervus nippon). People with access to private land shoot quite a few fallow deer, but that's not me. In the South Island, there is alpine hunting for Chamois and Tahr but I haven't used my Grendel for them yet - possibly the 7mm08 would be more suitable.
Grendel by log 300px.jpeg
I decided to try the Grendel, because my Sako 85 7mm08 was getting longer and heavier every year. And I'm a firm believer that a light rifle should shoot a light cartridge. Gives the bedding, the barrel temperature, the suppressor, recoil and scope mounting a chance to deliver good performance.
A very good friend gave me his Sako Vixen, which was factory made in 6mmPPC. The barrel was 1:14" twist so it was not going to be ideal with anything bigger than 70-80gr and the 223 can do those. I also think you need a decent weight of lead to kill a deer well and 120gr is not too bad. The drawback of course is mzuzle velocity .. but more on that later I'm sure you all know its pros and cons better than me.
I got a Shilen #3 contour barrel as it was similar to the one on my 7mm08 which is great on that gun. Once I felt the new rifle, I knew I could have gone down to #2 or even #1. Anyway there are a lot of advantages to having some weight in the barrel ... which I'll also mention in future I'm sure. The barrel is 16" by the way. With Grendel its "Go Short or Go Home" (my opinion).
Suppressor is a DPT, which is a NZ made brand. They are aluminium and have modular baffles, of which I removed most of them so it's nice and short (not going home, mate). Others say it doesn't tame the report very much for them but I can shoot it quite comfortably without protection. I do use muffs or plugs on the range of course.
The stock is, again a NZ made brand, Southfort. I understand they send most of them to the USA so they are a bit hard to come by here. This is a slim line, light weight hunter style stock.
I used a few different scopes on it till I could get one set up to my specifications. It's a Leupold VX3i 4.5-14x40 with parallax and CDS dials in cm/100m. It paid extra to get a heavy duplex reticle. A lot of my hunting is in dark forest ("Bush" to us) and it can be quite hard to see the standard duplex so I traded off perhaps some fine accuracy on the range for reliable useabilty on the hill. Only Leupold really make lightweight scopes that are rugged enough and good enough.
Grendel in grass55.jpg
There seem to be more Grendels around here now than there were a few years ago but it remains to be seen whether it becomes a mainstream cartridge in NZ. So, it's great to have a whole forum Horde here to chat with and compare notes !
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