Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Which dies needed for 6.5 Grendal?

Do you need a small base die? Do you need a taper crimp or will a Lee Factory crimp die work? Any good sources for brass? Thanks ahead , Huntz

I have a set of Hornady Grendel dies. and I also have a set of Redding competition Grendel dies. neither of which are small Bass and I've ran a lot of brass too both and three different ARs and one bolt gun and never had an issue. I guess I should also add I've never crimped.

I have the regular RCBS dies and they’ve served me well. I have small base dies for the 6 ARC, but don’t need them. I only got them as it’s what was in stock when I got ready to reload for the 6 ARC. I’ve also never crimped for any of my rifles.

I"ve never needed small base for any AR platform. We did use them for accuracy stuff in M1As years ago. I"ve no clue why they were better.

I think all that was available when we grabbed a cheap 6.5 ppc was Lee and they have worked well enough.

Taper crimp is for straight wall cases. Thats the use of it. Use whatever you want crimp wise. On crimps and ARs I also have yet to ever crimp an AR round. Likely not quite 250,000 rounds through ARs but you get the idea. Full case of powder basically. Correct neck tension. Life is just fine.

I use regular RCBS dies for the Grendel and the FCD works well when set right.

I got a Redding Body Die, a Lee two die set with the crimp die , and a Collet die separately.

Got like $60 into it...but it will be outlasting me at the Reload Bench.

and I shoot a lot of Grendel.

I use a Forster full length sizing die and a Redding seating die. I don’t crimp.

I use the full Lee set. Works fine. I got my brass from Graf & sons, PPU from the former Yugoslavia. It also works fine at a decent price.

6.5 Grendel Brass from 6.5 Outfitters, as well as Midway. All of mine is Starline so far.
My Dies are the Standard 2 Die RCBS Set, Standard Base.

Bob R

You’ve got a lot of great choices out there. Hornady and Redding are my preferred but you can choose from your favorite manufacturer. I personally prefer on my precision processing of brass to separately size body and neck. You don’t have to do this, however.

I bought the Lee FCD and haven’t ever used it. Neck tension is enough. Johnny’s Reloading bench on YT did a bunch of tests and concluded it didn’t add any particular value to the loading process.

LOL. I could have saved Johnny the time many years ago already

I have the Lee full set and the Hornady set and I end up using the Hornady set with the Lee crimper... I crimp them all as I do anything in an autoloader or heavy kicker... I only have one 6.5 Grendel in a AR and love it...

For brass I guess I lucked out and my local academy had it in stock but I ended up getting all they had