Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 6.5 Grendel deer/antelope loads...

Picked up a Howa mini for a new young hunter and need some ideas where to start... she will be hunting deer and antelope with the rifle... what has been working for you?

I'd start 100 grain Nosler BTs. Seem a bit more forgiving and it's good out to 300yds. You can later go with other pricier components as it will happen, just saying.😉

I really like the 120 gold dot in mine. Good expansion, good penetration. I've yet to recover one. I've taken deer to 400 with this bullet. 8208 and CFE223 have been the best powders for me. I think others have done well with Lever' but I haven't played with it at all. The 123 scenar was the most accurate out of mine and did well on game. I like the 123 sst as well. It seems to expand a bit more than the gold dot, real good on deer and antelope. We recovered a few of the SST I just can't get them as accurate as the other two in my rifle. Heavies seemed to favor the CFE, lighter bullets the 8208.

I also used the 100g NBT out of the Grendel loaded to ~2650 fps. My 60 lbs. daughter did quite well with it this past season for her first deer. Sorry I don't have the load info right now. Our basement is being worked on and stuff is packed away.

If i had a rifle not an ar i would still try anything 100-120 grains.

Just let your rifle tell what one it likes.

IMO you can't go wrong with the 129 ABLR bullet in the Grendel; it's a perfect match with the low expansion threshold of that bullet and it penetrates deeply. Because of powder space constraints, Lever is the powder to go with for that bullet. Otherwise, pick one of the 120/123/125gr bullets you like and shoot it.

Thanks for all the intel should give me a place to start...

123 gr sst or eld and 8208 xbr around 28 grains. Most accurate load in my grendel. The

I’d try Gold Dots as my first bullet. I’ve used Gold Dots in .308, 6.8, 7.62x39 loads - every one I was able to achieve good accuracy loads that work on game.

GD bullets tend to be fairly affordable bullets, so I like loading th em because I can load extras for practice. I use GD bullets in rifles for deer hunting, and I don’t think deer (or antelopes) are tough enough to require the ultra premium bullets.