Posted: 4/11/2013 7:35:01 PM EDT
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Well, if you've been following the car wreck that has been my 6.5 Grendel story. So far it's been change something, wait a month until I got a chance to get to the range, shoot, malfunction, repeat, over and over. Today I finally decided to try one last thing and if it doesn't work that was it. The plan was if it failed again I would pack it up and ship it off to Bill Alexander who, very nicely, offered to look at it and do whatever it took to fix it despite the rifle not being one of his.
I took the bolt carrier out and removed the bolt. Got out the Dremel and went to work with a little wire wheel brush attachment. I polished the bolt face and then buffed the crap out of the extractor. It had some really sharp edges that were almost impossible to see but I figured if I ruined it then I'd just get a new one. It's probably not best to go Dremeling gun parts when you're that frustrated but I did anyways. I buffed the sharp edge points of each side of the extractor and as much of the little lip as possible. I cleaned it all up and we went to the range. I was pretty sure failure was imminent with the usual malfunctions or maybe not even work at all because I borked the extractor. I put one round in the mag and shot. No problems, the bolt locked back as it should so I knew, at least, that I hadn't ruined the bolt. Then I loaded ten rounds in the mag since the longest it's gone without a malfunction was 4 or 5 rounds without a malfunction. I shot those ten without any malfunctions which gave me a little bit of hopeful optimism. I loaded thirty rounds into the magazine and started shooting. Until around number 15 there were no problems but then the dreaded FtE jam up happened. At this point I'm not sure if it's fixed or not so I clear it and shoot the rest of the magazine with no more problems. So.....I think......it's fixed!!! I'm still a little concerned because of the one malfunction but to shoot 40 rounds with only one malfunction is fantastic compared to every other time I've shot it. Barring any future major issue I'm calling it fixed  . I believe she's ready for some long distance target dinging.... Brandi is SUPER HAPPY about this...woohoo.
Big thanks to "cnjarvis" for the .44 magnum ammo! It was a real blast! (literally lol). |
| I'm shooting the Hornady 123 grain A-Max which are basically the gold standard for Grendels at the moment. I'm hoping that one FtE was just a random thing but I won't know till I get to shoot it more. The accuracy of the rifle is amazing (so far) and with the Hornady's I'm super excited to shoot it at longer distances now. Presently I don't have access to a range with any distance but I would love to at least get out to 200 yards someday. I think someone said Tri-City range has a 200 yard lane? Now that the rifle is "hopefully" fixed I'm going to have to find someone to teach me the basics of shooting at longer distances and using a scope correctly. Eventually I want to be able to shoot 800+yards accurately but it's going to take lot more experience before that's possible. Fortunately I bought several boxes of ammo before the crazy hit. |
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that's great that you got it going, I haven't gotten to do a build yet, but I do industrial maintenance and I can understand the frustration when a precision machine doesn't work like it is when you "just know" everything is assembled correctly! The bummer of it is I didn't build it, i had it built for me by Loki. I told them I wanted a rifle that was capable of hitting plates at 800 yards and they said it would easily do it. Whether they actually shot it that far I don't know because if they did they would have known it wouldn't cycle rounds correctly. Then the company took a crap along with my warranty  so I got stuck trying to figure how to make it work. Since I'm not a gunsmith and a noob to actually making repairs to an AR it was massively frustrating. Anywho...hopefully my one malfunction was just a random issue and the rifle is now ready for the big leagues .
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Congrats, but..."borked"?  "Borked" : The condition when something (usually a mechanical or electrical item) is totally fubar'd. In a sentence "Damn it...my TV is borked." or "You idiot, you just borked the whole job." or "Dude, you're going to bork that if you're not careful". Today's word of the day is "bork". You have to use it 10 times in the following day after you read this. |
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Glad yer gettin this rig figured out. Nothin like havin a new toy that's broken. And yep, TCGC goes out to 200, there's a few us that are members there. I'd be glad to take you out there sometime. Do they have lots of truck drivers as members out there Rat? 
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Glad yer gettin this rig figured out. Nothin like havin a new toy that's broken. And yep, TCGC goes out to 200, there's a few us that are members there. I'd be glad to take you out there sometime. Do they have lots of truck drivers as members out there Rat?
I dont know, you're old man knows though. |
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Glad yer gettin this rig figured out. Nothin like havin a new toy that's broken. And yep, TCGC goes out to 200, there's a few us that are members there. I'd be glad to take you out there sometime. Do they have lots of truck drivers as members out there Rat?
I dont know, you're old man knows though. Maybe so but you and PC are the experts on getting borked by truck drivers. 
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Glad yer gettin this rig figured out. Nothin like havin a new toy that's broken. And yep, TCGC goes out to 200, there's a few us that are members there. I'd be glad to take you out there sometime. Do they have lots of truck drivers as members out there Rat?
I dont know, you're old man knows though. Maybe so but you and PC are the experts on getting borked by truck drivers.
Your old man has been borked by truck drivers so much he had to get replacement knees. End of story on who's gettin borked.
Back on topic now. 
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Glad yer gettin this rig figured out. Nothin like havin a new toy that's broken. And yep, TCGC goes out to 200, there's a few us that are members there. I'd be glad to take you out there sometime. Heck yeah...I'd love to go. Since the Grendel is now operational I have to start trying to figure out a way to mount my scope to my Savage '06. I got frustrated on it last time and gave up but she definitely needs her eyeball mounted. I've got high hopes this rifle will be a good long range gun too (although not as long as the Grendel of course). |
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Glad yer gettin this rig figured out. Nothin like havin a new toy that's broken. And yep, TCGC goes out to 200, there's a few us that are members there. I'd be glad to take you out there sometime. Heck yeah...I'd love to go. Since the Grendel is now operational I have to start trying to figure out a way to mount my scope to my Savage '06. I got frustrated on it last time and gave up but she definitely needs her eyeball mounted. I've got high hopes this rifle will be a good long range gun too (although not as long as the Grendel of course).  If you can break Rat away from the truck stop, you are doing darn good!
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Brandi My Grendel does not like the 27 rd Mags but functions flawlessly with the 10 rd. mags. as far as 800+ I just don't think the round is quite capable. But I did get a coyote at 360 Yds. Tuesday.  But I have ran it out to 550 yds and it has pleased me with the results.
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Brandi My Grendel does not like the 27 rd Mags but functions flawlessly with the 10 rd. mags. as far as 800+ I just don't think the round is quite capable. But I did get a coyote at 360 Yds. Tuesday. http://i1157.photobucket.com/albums/p590/Sparkydv/IMG_20130409_192616_zps5183c0ae.jpg But I have ran it out to 550 yds and it has pleased me with the results. The 6.5 Grendel probably would reach 800 yards but not as well as a 30 cal 190. The only way to know is try it out with several different loads. We regularly shoot the rams at OKC Gun Club with 308s and his 30/06s. But that is only 550 yards. . He helped get a 1000 yard range set up then had a oil well put in the middle of it.
My old man was talking about a 6.5/300 Win Mag wildcat a few years ago until he found out what the throat life was. He likes the 6.5x55 saying it is a one hell of a nice long range caliber. But he and I both are left eyed dominant, left hand shooters so he never messed with the Swedish Mausers. He just thinks single shots and bolts are a hell of a lot more accurate than semi autos. He has scoped his M1As several times then removes the scopes to put on bolts or single shots. He put a 6-24x Burris Signature on a 22-250 Encore. He says that is the only scope he really has that would work for shooting 800 to 1000 but he has shot with a 3-12x Burris XTR at 700 yds with 155 gr SMK.s out of a Savage 308. The truth is how many times are you going to shoot at extreme distances like that and where? All we are interested in is killing game and varmints and very few places can you shoot distances like that. |
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Brandi My Grendel does not like the 27 rd Mags but functions flawlessly with the 10 rd. mags. as far as 800+ I just don't think the round is quite capable. But I did get a coyote at 360 Yds. Tuesday. http://i1157.photobucket.com/albums/p590/Sparkydv/IMG_20130409_192616_zps5183c0ae.jpg But I have ran it out to 550 yds and it has pleased me with the results. The 6.5 Grendel probably would reach 800 yards but not as well as a 30 cal 190. The only way to know is try it out with several different loads. We regularly shoot the rams at OKC Gun Club with 308s and his 30/06s. But that is only 550 yards. . He helped get a 1000 yard range set up then had a oil well put in the middle of it.
My old man was talking about a 6.5/300 Win Mag wildcat a few years ago until he found out what the throat life was. He likes the 6.5x55 saying it is a one hell of a nice long range caliber. But he and I both are left eyed dominant, left hand shooters so he never messed with the Swedish Mausers. He just thinks single shots and bolts are a hell of a lot more accurate than semi autos. He has scoped his M1As several times then removes the scopes to put on bolts or single shots. He put a 6-24x Burris Signature on a 22-250 Encore. He says that is the only scope he really has that would work for shooting 800 to 1000 but he has shot with a 3-12x Burris XTR at 700 yds with 155 gr SMK.s out of a Savage 308. The truth is how many times are you going to shoot at extreme distances like that and where? All we are interested in is killing game and varmints and very few places can you shoot distances like that. Agreed! |
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That's what sucks about our ranges, not many places will allow for pushing out to a grand. I don't think any of my rifles, save for my mosin... Maybe my M1 garand, could go to a grand. I'd have fun trying though. I know full well a M1903 can go at least to 800 cause Marines in WWI were dropping Germans at Belleau wood from that distance with 03 springfield using 7.62x63
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Are you using factory or reloaded ammo? I had some issues with my reloaded rounds. Apparently I wasn't resizing the brass correctlu and wasn't pushing the shoulder down enough which caused fte.
I would think the round could reach 880 yards with the correct load. I sould my rile and don't remember the ballistics but isn't it suppose to be supersonic at 1000+ yards? |
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LOL |
| I don't know how far mine will shoot accurately but there are plenty of people out there making 800 - 1000 yard shots on video. Most of the people who are shooting Grendels say shooting 600 targets is almost boring with their rifles so I have no doubt the cartridge and rifles are capable of doing way more than 600 yards. Obviously that's shooting little steel plates at a distance not hunting distances. I'd be happy to make accurate shots at 200 right now but the rifle should be capable of shooting at 600 yards without much work with an experienced shooter at the trigger. |
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According to my old man, it is great if you can hit a freon jug at 1000 yards but if it can't blow through both sides. It is just an accurate shot. I totally agree but at those distances all that matters is making the little plate go "ding". Shooting for accuracy and score is what the Grendel does best, its a great hunting caliber within realistic distances. |
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I think it would be cool to push a shot out to a mile +.
That would REQUIRE a spotter who is shit hot and a few serious calculations, I.E. wind, elevation, temp, humidity, mirage, time of day, etc. Probably the biggest being the Coriolis effect at that distance. But it would be a hoot to try it
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I think it would be cool to push a shot out to a mile +. That would REQUIRE a spotter who is shit hot and a few serious calculations, I.E. wind, elevation, temp, humidity, mirage, time of day, etc. Probably the biggest being the Coriolis effect at that distance. But it would be a hoot to try it Yeah those military snipers with the big guns who can make shots like that are amazing. I'll be tickled if I can make a 500 yard shot someday. |
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You've made 1 mile shots with open sights? Are you Superman? No, he is a jarhead. His measuring abilities are questionable. He is expert in convincing others 3 inches is 8. 
Or so Patrickcudd claims.
But he is a Marine and his shooting abilities have got to be good. 
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Lol, no I meant hitting my target accurately at the 500 yard line with iron sights. Lol, I figured, I was just kidding. Still...you must have super eyes cause there's no way I could even see a target at 500 yards. Oh trust me, a black, human sized target at 500 against a black FSP isa bitch to find. But I did it in recruit training (all Marine recruits have to) and a few times in the fleet. When I got the the fleet they issued me a scope to be a DMR but I still had to qualify with iron sights. |