Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Building a AR in 6.5 Grendel

Has Anyone built a 6.5 Grendel and what barrel and components did you use?

I plan to shortly, so im interested in hearing myself.

have decided to use a les baer lbc barrel on mine but must save some pennies first

I would think the bolt for the 6.8 SPC would work fine for the Grendel

I'd go 6mm AR instead.

Two...

16" built with Alexander Arms stainless lightweight barrel. Mine appears to have been made by ER Shaw, but I think the manufacturer of these is a variable. Regardless, I've got it shooting the lighter bullets at about 3/4 MOA. Not bad for a light little gun built to be a predator calling rifle.

24" built with a Satern match grade barrel. This one is a tack driver with AA's factory 120gr Ballistic Tip load and my handloads using the new 123gr A-max. It is a real pleasure to shoot and I've even shot it at a thousand yards a bit. It rang a steel gong effortlessly. I cant wait to get this one into a nest of varmints.

To set you straight, the 6.5 Grendel uses its own bolt that will come with your barrels. The 6.5 G and 6.8 have quite different base diameters.

6.5 LBC with an AK bolt face bolt.

It use the 220 Russian case and i hadn't check the case head diameter.

I have 3, one an Alexander Arms Overwatch upper with a Shilen barrel. One a 16"mid length using an Alexander barrel and bolt along with a Adams Arms gas piston, and Daniel Defense Lite rail, the third a 24" built the same as the 16", only using a Ranier arms billet upper.

The gas piston uppers feed and cycle better than the factory build gas impingment model from Alexander Arms, It seems to be more critical of loads needing higher pressure to operate.

I'm not sure about the bolt for a 6.8 working for a Grendel, I think one for a 7.62x39 would be better. I am acutally forming Grendel brass from 7.62x39, by simply sizing in a Grendel die, loading and shooting to fireform. It works great, the fireforming loads, a bit lighter powder charge(maybe 1-1.5gr) work fine, cycle the action and are very accurate, although not quite up to the standard of a well crafted load in a fully formed case, but plenty good enough for fun target shooting, plinking or some varmit hunting. The range I use only goes to 300 yards, and so far I have only shot at 200 and have been satisified.

My barrel is supposed to ship next week. It's actually a 264 LBC from Les Baer. The 264 LBC is a 6.5 Grendel with a throat just enough different that Les doesn't have to pay Alexander Arms royalties, they reload using the same dies and brass.

Can't wait to play with it.......................DJ

Just ordered my Upper last week , 264 LBC /6.5 Grendel with 24 inch SS barrel FF tube. should be ready in 4 weeks cant wait for it to show up. $563 complete upper dont think i did bad at all getting a custom built upper to my specs for that price.

checked on the les baer bbl today 525.00 for a bare bbl and no bolthead. 80 extra for complete bolt and carrier

The extra 80 is just for the bolt. Les Baer stuff certainly ain't cheap!...........DJ

I'm getting a 264 LBC chambered bbl from LW pretty reasonable.
I think woody said $350 with the bolt and it's polygonal rifled.

Guy on snipershide and predatormaster offering a 'group buy' special on Grendel rifles. Parts lised under classified ads.

Specialized Dynamics IIRC.

I built one on midwayusa for $535, just have not bought the parts to assemble it though. Was seeing what it would run me to build VS an assembled upper from a vendor.

You figure that actually isn't that bad IF its a top barrel top barrels are around 300 bucks or so for a blank. Add 100-150 for the smithing, and consider you have to put an extension on it too... 450 would be nice, 525 isn't crazy.