The .125 bolt face depth needs to be thrown out forever. I will never buy a BHW barrel as they made the original design "type II". That kind of retarded shit is why the 6.5 is unpopular. If you aren't buying a complete upper it starts to be come a headache because of companies labeling stuff Grendel that isn't. Call it .264 LBC not a 6.5 Grendel.

Maybe I should stop shooting mine.  Bolt will give out any time now I reckon....

Hold on there.

BHW didn't invent a chambering called Type II (that dubious distinction belongs to steve satern and dave kiff). BHW just used that designation to distinguish which head space a given barrel had (.125" vs .136").  While I happen to agree with your initial sentiment (.125" bolt face was never meant for the Grendel), BHW does make a good product, which they do happen to sell as the .264 LBC. To be fair, Carl Caudle & company polled the members of their old forum, asking which bolt depth was preferred. Clearly, they sampled the wrong people (in my opinion), as they soon will be offering the .125" chambering, exclusively..

I think we found the 6.8 SPC II truther.

Sorry, my bad.

They are already on the exclusive .125 failboat as of this year.

Not me, and it is not my intention to stir up 6.5 vs 6.8 debate here. I have ARs in 223, x39, 300BLK and 308 but not into 6.5 or 6.8 yet. There are strong supporters in each caliber (6.5G vs 6.8SPC), but I'm still observing till the dust settle more. I do like the 6.5G while there are cheap ammo available and better ballistic over 6.8 SPC in long range but I have my reservation as stated. I'm not a long range shooter, ballistic advantage at long range mean little to me. But, if there are cheap 6.8 ammo like 6.5G, I would be in favor of 6.8 since 6.8 SPC has smaller base diameter, potentially stronger bolt lugs.

Don't mind me!

It's interest8ng that you have the x39.  How many bolts have you broken.  Same bolt as the  6.5grendel with a .125depth.

To be honest the .125 bolts don't break very often either.  Lots of 7.62x39 shooters haven't had a problem.  If its a well made bolt it will last.  I do agree that the different chambers are confusing.  I don't think anything labeled grendel uses anything but he .136 bolt face.  The .125 are always 264lbc.

I have broken both bolts (.125&.136) but I have broken more 5.56 bolts. If you shoot long enough you will break a bolt.  I have a  .125 bolt barrel that shoots extremely well. I had to polish the extractor but it still shoots good. This argument that one far exceeds the other is just that an argument. If you're barrel receiver and ammo is quality it will more than likely shoot acceptable.

I like both the 6.5 and the 6.8 I have always stated that.  Both are hard to beat under 300 yards for deer and pigs. What I like about the 6.5 Grendel is it just plain surprises you once you get to shooting it. That low a recoil and in the longer barrel the muzzle blast is minimal. Then there is how flat and how it actually handles the wind. Paper ballistics are one thing but actually shooting it at different ranges and different days is when you really get to feel the Grendel. I think it's a hard to beat ranch rifle period.

.125 bolt has an advantage that it is the same as 7.62x39 which is plenty and cheaper. .136 helps on extractor, not so much the bolt lugs. If extractor broke, .125 (7.62x39 bolt) can use easy to find .223 extractor. The Grendel has less taper than 7.62x39, steel case may be harder on extractor and .136 extractor would be stronger theoretically. But again, it is all about timing, if the system is timed well and balanced, a semi auto can eject spent cases without an extractor!

I've tried hard to dispel this.

Les Baer used AA Grendel bolts from the start, as best as our research can determine.  I know AA started out selling them bolts.

The .264 LBC-AR from Les Baer used quality 6.5 Grendel bolts, and I haven't seen anything indicating that he changed.

Chamber types don't determine bolt face depth.  There are no call-outs for bolt face depths in the SAAMI drawings.

The .125" bolt face depth came from people trying to source bolts off the open market, where no Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation were done even on 7.62x39.

Many shops wanting to make barrels but no adhere to the standard figured they could do it better, cheaper, quicker, so they ordered .125" face depth bolts from whatever vendor they could find or had a relationship with.

This was and is a mistake in my opinion, especially when you look at the mechanical engineering aspects of rim thickness, extractor snap over, and primary extraction forces in a gas gun.

Ive shot 5.56 for years. When mk262 came out, i was a fanboy of it. And it honestly leaves much to be desired, especially when shooting 600 yards. When i stood up the grendel/.264lbc, same length barrel, my percentage of hits went through the roof. Its boring. An apples to apples comparison between blackhills 77gr, and the blackhills 123's both shooting SMK's at the same range and conditions, well, its no comparison really, i get a nice 4-5 inch grouping with the grendel ammo, not so with 262. The ammo cost is the same, the performance being much better in the grendel. I dont know what magic BH does in their grendel loads but its much more consistent than their 262. Wind drift and energy is king at distance depending if your killing steel, or critters. But i think some of the arguments in the past pages arent comparing equal rounds and price points, not to mention handloads thrown in there. I now have a .260. Its a particular tool for a particular job. And the grendel is only giving up about 300 yards to it when going long using factory ammo.  Except, its a 7.5 lb rifle compared to the 13 that is the .260. Guess which id rather carry regardless of caliber? I recently saw 262 at cabellas that was priced equally to .260 that i get from Prime, no way im shooting 262 when that happens. I say all of this to make the point that dollar for dollar the grendel makes more sense FOR ME. When i go to reload, it will make even more sense, even if you are loading crazy expensive bergers in your .223, im sure LRRP will have a load recipe for grendel that would run circles around it.

To the OP, id say time and availibility. Sure cheap brass cased ammo to attract others, but im not sure why youd buy it if your not hunting or target shooting to begin with. A can at 30 yards doesnt need to be hit witn high bc bullet with that much kinetic energy. Nor would you use 262 to do that as well.

I have a lbc with a. 136 bolt and it shoots quite well and I mod 1 with. 125 that will shoot just a tad better. I had a 16"AA upper that a friend liked well enough he gave me a slight profit. As I have stated quality barrel bolt combo usually leads to an accurate rifle. I do wish they were both the same but I'm not going to trade one to standardize just because the status quo cries about it.  I can remember this same argument over the 6.8 spec II about the pressure difference. Just use common sense and if in doubt measure the bolt face calipers are cheap. Cheap bolt is a cheap bolt no mater the caliber.

I need a like button.

This right here.  I've spent a good portion of my life trying to connect with .223 Rem target loads on steel plates at distance, and it becomes extremely difficult past 400yds, depending on the wind.  In low winds, you get better hit probability out to 600yds with most center fire, bottle-necked cartridges.  What we care about in long range shooting the most is the ability to resist wind deflection, followed by some other priority for the particular discipline.

For me, I like to see and hear the impact on the steel.  When I shoot Grendel on steel at distance, a lot of people get weird looks on their faces at the range because what they see and what they hear does not make sense to them.

Yes, my 14lb .260 Rem smacks the steel harder, no question about it.

Every time I go to load for .223 Rem, with the vast assortment of target bullets I have, ranging from 69gr TMKs, SMKs, Scenar-Ls, to 75gr AMAX and 75gr Hornady BTHPs, I look over at my rows and rows of 86gr GS Customs, 95gr VMAX, 107gr SMKs, 123gr AMAX, 129gr SSTs, 129gr ABLRs, 130gr Bergers, and then think about connecting in the wind I know will be present, and how boring it is, even with my shorter barrel Grendels, to connect on 12" plates out to 700yds, and say to myself, "maybe some other day little .223, some other day".

I'm actually looking at my Retros and thinking about pulling the barrels on them, slapping in the Anderson M4 barrels after re-profiling, so maybe I'll take the retros out to shoot.

I like the .223 Rem a lot, like 5.56 NATO a lot, but as a rifleman, the 6.5 Grendel seems like Goldilocks to me.

Sure, I'll get a 6.5 Creedmoor built up for me in a lighter frame, maybe get one of the Savage MSR-10 Hunters.

I'll keep my .260 Remington 14lbs beast.  I actually went to process some .260 Rem brass yesterday.  I found several cases that were 2.050" long, when you need to trim to 2.025".  Trimming cases, yay!  Guess I'll load those .260 Rem some other day.

I just found myself shooting 6.5 Grendel much more often, which was never my plan initially.

I thought it would be just a fun little AR15 to play around with, maybe see how it does and take it to some 2-Man Team Sniper Competitions if it proved worthy, while relying on the .260 Rem for competitive work.

Who knew there would be 42 factory loads for Grendel within a few years.  Keep in mind that when I got into it, you had AA ammo, some garbage 123gr SP Wold Gold, and hand loading, with brass always sold out.

I like to use what works, and for my purposes find myself asking what can the 5.56 do that Grendel cant. When shooting steel at 600 you hear 5.56 barely, and may not at all depending on environmental factors. Grendel smacks hard enough theres no doubt you connected.

Bullet design is making considerable leaps and bounds every year. We now have .308 that can be mag fed thats still supersonic at 1500 yards. It costs an arm and a leg but is being done. Id like to see a higher BC than .510 for 6.5. Perhaps a 105-115grn bullet with greater than .550 BC's that still flies fast enough to be a consideration for use in the Grendel.

And yes, im looking at necking down grendel cases to 6mm and getting more or less what i want, just how much more for the money do i get is the question..

My 5.56's have been collecting dust for the last 4 years. I too am noodling at rebarreling a few of my retros to 6.5 so i can enjoy retro goodness still. Perhaps a 20" DMR, or rebarreling the MK12 clone to grendel. At least theyd get used more. Im thinking of a recce type build as well, that may be a good "compromise with length and weight, coupled with a 1x6-8 ish optic so i can still occasionally shoot it long, therby getting max utility from it.

I was never a fanboy, like i said, im always looking at what works through not just electronic data, but what i have experienced of what it can do in the field. I am a convert though. And find myself going back to it time after time.

They have been on there since last December.  A month ago Nathan said they were cleared for production but there is a lot in front of them in the industry forum a month ago.  I don't know how solid Joebob's pricing was but they were pretty steep I thought vs Faxon's other barrel offerings.

As someone building a rifle parts availability and pricing is a constant thorn in my side.  I have built a 5.56 and a 7.62x39, parts are plentiful and consistently priced.  For 6.5G you have the cheap Anderson barrel (which actually has pretty good reviews) and then it skips to $300 and goes about as high as you want it to.  AA has good pricing on theirs but there is a pretty good sized hole in the middle of the market yet.  And there can easily be $20+ price difference between even comparable 6.8 and a 6.5G barrels... which is irritating too.

Meanwhile .300BO and 6.8 parts are between the 5.56 and 7.62x39 for availability and pricing is pretty similar.  Probably volume making it more worth their time to pump them out.  

Cabelas has three rounds chambered in it now $20-25 about the same as 6.8 and .300BO, they only had one when I started this last fall so that is improving pretty rapidly.

I really think we need more volume... which is happening.  Rome wasn't built in a day either.

Not a fanboy, have never fired a 6.5G.  Started out as a whoopier than your usual AR with low recoil for my GF to have a hunting rifle.  She doesn't want a thing to do with it so it kind of evolved into a hunting/target rifle for myself.

This. its just another wildcat until its a nato round.

But what if it's a round produced by the Russian War Machine?

All Russian ammo plants are State-owned to serve, ultimately, the interests of the Russian defense establishment. Sort of like our Lake City Army Ammunition Plant.

The Russian Barnaul plant makes steel-case 6.5 Grendel, imported by Wolf. At 23¢ per round.

Ergo, 6.5 Grendel is more than a wildcat.

Just messin' wicha!

(Serious about the 23¢ per round, though.)

42 factory loads and SAAMI approval years ago does not equal wildcat.

4 new factory loads from Federal, including Gold Medal Match (130gr Berger Hybrid OTM) is not wildcat.

How many cartridges that have been around forever have never and will never have a Federal Gold Medal Match line for them?

So .243 Win, .25-06, .270 Win and 7mm Rem Mag are wildcats?

Like the 22 Sav. HP (5.5 x 52mm) is a wildcat?
There is only 1 manufacturer of ammo that I know of

Add to your list the 30-30,22-250 and 375 H&H  all wildcats since they were never Nato!   The grendel is never going to be as popular as the 223,308 or 7.62x39.  But I see it growing rapidly and being similar to something like the 25-06 or 7mm08.  Popular calibers where you can find ammo at most sporting goods stores(even some walmarts) but your going to pay a little more for it compared to something like the 30-06 or in the grendel's case the 223.

Name me one of the popular cartridges outside of .223 Rem, .260 Rem, .308, .30-06, .300 Winchester Magnum, and .338 Lapua Magnum that has been manufactured in the Federal Gold Medal Match line.

There are 2 new ones they added this year:

6.5 Grendel 130gr Berger Hybrid AR OTM
6.5 Creedmoor 130gr same bullet above

I can't imagine what kind of production Berger had to spool up to keep Federal in bullets. They've come a long way.

If " leap in industry " means more mainstream, or popular, I'd consider the train of thought that "mainstream " rarely has an opportunity, or access to a range or hunting experience over 300 yards.

I have no statistics, but would guess most don't even frequent a shooting experience over 100 yards.  

The demand will simply never be there to justify the supply. But hey, now that there's hope for the supreme court, at least it has a chance for a next leap.

I'd love to have  6.5G , read a lot about it. I'd love to shoot 1000 yards. Its just not in the cards right now.

6.5 Grendel isn't just a target cartridge.

It's the most capable hunting cartridge in the AR15 with factory ammo support and SAAMI standardization.

That is the appeal for most shooters, and also gets people into the AR15 who would have never considered an AR15 without the 6.5 Grendel combo.

I agree that most shooters in the US will never shoot at long range.

A lot of them will hunt, and the AR15 6.5 Grendel offers them something that packs a lot of terminal performance, that doesn't have heavy recoil, and can be packed into a short profile without losing lethality on medium game.

For those of us who have almost unlimited access to long ranges out here in the West, we can use a lightweight AR15 for both target and hunting, and a lot of our hunting distances are a bit longer than heavily-forested areas of the Eastern US.

Even out there, you still have scenarios where deer and coyotes will poke into a farm field on the other side of your position, and those shots can often be 200-400yds.

And it is bigger than the .223 for those of us that live in states that limit how small of bullet you can use for deer hunting.  When we had a rifle season the limit was .24+, I keep that in mind since it will probably come back when the deer population comes back again.

The reason I picked it for my GF was it was a caliber that would hold its own fairly well with much bigger calibers without beating the crap out of the shooter or require either the bulk or expense of an AR10.

Here's a pic a forum member posted several years back of his wife's bull elk taken with 125gr Nosler Partition in 6.5 Grendel.

He left her at their camp so he could go fill his tag, heard a shot several minutes after trekking out, ran back to camp, saw this:

I call BS, LRRP.  Probably had a neighboring hunter bring in his kill so she could shame her husband.  Everyone knows women can't hunt or shoot...even with a 6.5G.

On a serious note, I notice the barrel threads seem to be exposed on that rifle.  No crime in that, just though it curious.  Whatever the case, he's a lucky guy to have an obviously talented wife who shares the sport.

I need a like button!  But my old eyes can't tell if the barrel threads are showing.  My neighbor killed several elk with a  .243 win. so I'm not going to call B's.  I've killed some mighty good sized hogs with mine and would not be afraid to tackle elk under 200 yards. I would love to see Ruger offer their Ranch rifle in the grendel.

You can watch what a 6.5 Grendel does to elk on video.



6.5 Grendel vs cow elk...DRT

LOL!...my eyes aren't really that great either.  And since it looks like a fluted barrel, it's probably a heavier profile, so I'll bet there's a thread protector on there.

Ah this story.

Shots were taken with acogs.

This is why we have multiple rifles.

Unless it's adopted by the military and brass ammo is dirt cheap the average video game playing tacticool wannabes who don't shoot anything but pop cans are never going to warm up to it. For the folks that actuall kill shit with AR's and like to shoot distance the benefits are obvious. But I'm afraid the masses fall in the former category not the latter. A cooler name like 264 black out might help with that bunch too.

The Grendel is mainstream. The next step for it to be plainstream is a two part step.

First is a domestic gun maker like Ruger or Mossberg to roll out one of their small actions in 6.5G to compete with the Howa Mini Action.

The second is for the ammo to show up on Walmart shelves.

I can buy Remington .300 Blk for $17 a box at Walmart. How pedestrian is that ?

Black Out is kind of like Black Ops right?

But for a lot of people the 6.5G won't really do a whole lot more than 5.56.

Six-Five Grendel sounds plenty cool as is.

Yes for the masses busting pop cans the 6.5 or 6.8 gives no advantage. But if you hunt with your AR instead of just trying to look all spec ops cool burning up rounds then it does matter. That's why service members were trying to get their hands on the sierra 77 grain rounds. The 5.56 in an m4 sucks at terminal ballistics. Especially with military ball ammo.

I think thousands of dead afghans would disagree with you.

99% of service members don't know how much M855 weighs.

I could be wrong, but I don't think any dead Afghan is gonna disagree with much of anything.

I don't disagree with you, but in reality I wonder if any said service man or woman cares much what a round weighs when its performance is plain to see?

I hope nobody is preaching that 6.5 Grendel is an ideal, or even a very good, elk cartridge.  It can of course kill an elk, but I hope that hunters would only take shots at moderate ranges and be very careful about shot selection with a marginal cartridge like that.  Unless you get them in the CNS, in my experience it is important to get a lot of penetration and to make big holes in them.

In regards to how lethal the rounds are?  I thought the green tip was pretty devastating around one hundred yards, which is realistically speaking the only range that really matters with rifles in a properly set up squad.

Agree its not a elk caliber.  Really would compare it closely to a 243 maybe a 257 roberts, neither pf which are good elk cartridges!   On game the Grendel is at it's best at 300 lb game under 300 yards.  It can take game on the smaller side of that scale to 400 maybe 450 yards and bigger game(400 to 500 lbs) closer.  Go outside of that and you are going to have more failures.

I feel the same way with the  .223 on deer but it's used every year.

New bullet designs have expanded the potential for many cartridges.

You obviously don't know what wildcat means. 

No, I  wouldn't have got into if I  was stuck with the SAAMI with the compound throat.

I won't argue that but it's hard to change years of dealing with other people's failures.