Speak to me oh wise Beeb, what say you? I was thinking of a low dollar build on a BCA right side charging handle upper with a 20 stainless steel barrel. I’ve got a week spot for that style of charging handle.
but why? (insert ryan reynolds meme) do you plan to hunt with it or just range? buy your own ammo or make it? just curious why you want to go that caliber specifically.
I was between 6.5 Grendel and 6mm arc on my last build. Ended up going 6mm but it was a toss up. The nice thing about Grendel is there is cheaper steel case to be found to feed it.
It's a great cartridge. Despite being 15 years old now, testing has always shown it has better ballistics than 6.8 SPC, 6mm ARC, and whatever new cartridges they've tried to come up with that fits where a 5.56 does. Problem is, the patent holder doesn't have the marketing budget of Hornady/Remington/etc., and unless they partner up or someone hands them a wad of cash, it'll remain a "could have been" cartridge. The other good part was accurate cheap ammo @ <20c/rd, but I guess that's gone now.
I could hunt with it but in 6.5 it will honestly see more range use, the why is I really want to have the 350 legend SS 20 inch upper for some Ohio deer use but it’s out of stock a lot and the 6.5 Grendel appeals to me more than any other caliber option currently available at BCA for a side charging handle. The 5.56, 223 Wylde and 300 blackout hold no interest to me.
It's a good thing I reloaded so I had an excuse to shoot it more playing with different loads, or I would have gotten bored with it. Just keeps poking the same hole all day long... haha. I built mine before ammo was on the shelf for it and partly did it to be a hipster with a slightly unknown cartridge but I think it's definitely one of the best rounds available for that platform.
Not much to add except they did drop the patent stuff when they submitted it to SAAMI. So I'm pretty sure these days you have a lot more options for barrels and other parts. I was thinking i might build an upper but since I already have a 6.8 that I could use for hunting and am building a 300BO for suppressed use, not sure where it falls in line with existing stuff. Not that it's ever stopped me before but I think I'd rather build a 6.5CM upper for a 308 AR, and then maybe a 458 SOCOM for large platform quiet stuff.
Pay attention to Type I / Type II bolt/barrel compatibility situation if you build one. Russian steel case ammo cheapness is probably over permanently. It's fun to shoot, not too crazy to reload, and I feel it's the best way to make your small pattern AR reliably capable of killing deer sized game. It is hell on brass. I have a 16" carbine gas BCA barrel that shoots some stuff real well, and other stuff not so much, and is hell on brass. I have an 18" rifle gas BA barrel that shoots some stuff excellently, and other stuff not so much... and it's still hell on brass but maybe a bit less so. 20" barrel should explore the higher end of it's performance spectrum.
steel case is still a good value, not as cheap as before but 100 grain 500 round fun boxes are a lot cheaper than the other options
If you mean hell on brass as in denting on ejection maybe you should throttle down the gas some. Just a thought
Note that steel case Grendel is also steel jacket bullet with copper plating, it will smoke a BCA barrell ricky tick.
I've fucked with adustable gas, and longer gas this and that, heavy buffers heavy recoil springs, etc as much as I'm inclined to. It's still hard on brass.
