Savage Grendel Options

[Frontier Gear]

Hey guys. s3silver was nice enough to share some photos and information with me of his Savage Grendel. He also said that I could pass it along on here as well.

He says that they feed very well out of his modified .223 mags. He is using the PTG bolt head.

The barrel is throated to load 123 eldm's to 2.400" so that's good. Rounds look really cool loaded long.

From left to right: Factory 123 amax; 123 eldm loaded to 2.3640"; barnes 127 loaded to 2.3500"

For the feed lips, I popped off the mag and clamped it into the vise with a wood block inside to keep it from collapsing. I then used the heat gun to soften it up a bit. It's very hard metal so heat it up good. I took a pair of pliers and bent the lips outward a little bit at a time. You can see from the pics how far down I went from the top. What you want is to open it up just enough so that a 223 case has just a slight resistance as you pull it straight up out of the lips (not slide forward like chambering a round).


It took about 30 minutes, trial and error, but got it opened just enough for the round to stick up high enough for the bolt to pick up the round. Doesn't look pretty but feeds reliably.

I played with the 308 mag also. It holds more rounds but the rounds would slide from front to back too much because it doesn't have the block. They would sometimes jam up as the follower pushes up on the rounds. This will be a hunting rifle so it needed to feed more reliable.

So far so good.