Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 6.5 Grendel hunters, what are you shooting?

For those of you guys making meat with the 6.5 Grendel, what are you shooting and hunting with? I'd be really interested in hearing what your loads are chronographing and from what barrel length.

Looking at Ruger Americans in 16 and 22 inch, and Howa Minis in 20 to 22 inches and wondering just what is possible from them all. The 123gr SST looks like a very mean loading available from the factory, same with the ELD-M but I lean towards monos. 100gr TTSX is claimed by Barnes to expand down to 1800 FPS (I'd give it a +200 fps allowance) and their 115gr Tac-Tx way slower than that.

Would love to shoot both one of those and a 7.62x39 with modern handloads this season and take deer with both.

Only hogs with my 20” mini


120 Sierra
123 Hornady hpbt
120 gold dot


All are 2450-2500fps via h4895



I deer hunted with the GoldDots last year but never pulled the trigger.

Howa Mini 22 inch barrel in a Stockys carbon fiber stock. 123 SST's for deer. 90 grainers for coyotes. I also have a Mini 7.62X39 that I've been playing with. The Grendel shoots a lot better, and I prefer it.

Thanks guys!

Both the 22" sporter contour and 20" heavy barrel look really good.

I don’t think my current Grendel has had an entire box of factory through it. With this one, I began loading with 120gr Speer Gold Dots and the results were so satisfactory the other bullets I have are still sitting on the shelf, for a rainy day I suppose. Don’t see those in factory ammo though…..

I’ve not used many Speer bullets in the past, partly because they were hard to find, but I did manage to snag a box of 62gr .224 not long ago. Hoping to get some of those loaded up before our doe seasons begin.

Good luck with them, Pappy! both the .224 and your sweet Grendel load!

I've got a box of Speer factory 75gr Gold Dot for 223 deer work if need be. Hear it works great in 7.62x39 too

We've been using 120gr Federal Fusion.

Factory loaded?

Yes, factory ammo.

Thanks! Didn't know that was available.

Deer and elk.

Bb

My 6.5 Grendel will be out for its third season this year...

I went with the Ruger Predator, pitched the factory metal mag and am using 10 round polymer mags, that are meant for a 223, but work just fine with the 6.5 Grendel cartridge... I've played with mine quite a bit., all across the board...

I own 2 Howa Minis in 223, hence I went with the Ruger Predator... I prefer it over the Mini in a Grendel.

I've taken several deer with mine already.. 3 actually... one was shot with a 140 grain Speer with a charge of 29 grains of W 748 for an MV of 2350+ fps MV. The other two were taken with a 129 grain Hornady SP, with the same charge of 29 gr of W 748. All bang flops...

I've worked with loads with the following bullets and weights. 85 HP Sierra, 90 gr TNT, 90 gr Varmaggedon,
100 gr Sierra HP, 100 gr Hornady SP, 100 grain Ballistic tip, 95 grain VMax, 100 gr A Max, 100 gr ELD, 107 Sierra HP, 120 grain Ballistic Tip, 120 Gr Sierra SP, 120 gr SP Speer, 125 Partition, 100 gr Partition, 105 gr SMP Partition ( factory seconds, built for European Market), 129 grain Hornady SP, 140 grain Rem SP, 140 gr Hornady SP, 140 grain A Max, 140 gr ELD, 140 grain Ballistic Tip, 140 and 142 gr Sierra HP Match.... and a few more odd balls...

worked with light loads using Blue Dot, Alliant Steel, Unique, 2400, 1680 and some others...

then 4198s, RL7, 2015 BR, H 322, Benchmark, IMR and H 4895, 3031, 4064 ( both IMR and AA) W 748, BLC2, and a bunch more...

I can happily report that ALL of them have been accurate as hell in my Ruger American Predator. Have rang steel out to 400 yds, and could have gone further, but its fine at 400 and under. Used Burris 4.5 x 15 on top and Cabelas Covenant in 4 x 16 on top for scopes... 30mm tube on the Covenant... 1 inch on the Ruger...

Using Hornady Brass so far... strong stuff... got batches of 10 that have been reloaded 30 and 40 times...
its not picky about any small rifle primers,

I think of it as a modern day 30/30, that will shoot circles around any 30/30 I've ever shot, and I have some nice ones.

all loads use under 30 grains of powder, and some of the light loads with like Blue Dot and Steel, use half of that....and still push the bullets over 2200 to 2400 fps.

Good luck with your Grendal...mine aims to please on everything I try with it...

When the 120 grain 6.5 Gold Dots were to be found, I bought several boxes to use in my Grendel. For some reason or another, my rifle with the OG bottom metal simply would not feed the Gold Dot ammo, no matter what I did. It cycles okay with the sharper pointed bullets, such as the SST's and TNT's. I believe the problem is in the OG unit, because the Gold Dots functioned fine in a factory mag. Anyway, I decided I liked the looks of the OG bottom metal and decided to just stick with the SST style of bullet. I know they work on deer, and they are really accurate out of my rifle.

I shot 2 antlerless whitetails this past week with the 123 grain SST factory load. The ranges were less than 100 yards and because there was still 93 acres of standing corn in that field that I didn't them to get into, I shot both in the neck and they were DRT. I'm pleased with the performance, but 2 easy CNS kills under easy conditions wasn't a challenging test of the cartridge/bullet combination.

they work really well but they are no longer made near as I can tell.
Am now shooting 123 eld-m @25sumthin fps from an 18" barreled AR, took 5 deer with it last season

Note: I consider this a "bolt action only" load. Lower, but approaching, the 62K PSI that Hornady used for their CZ 527 6 ARC data.
129 ABLR
28.4gr/IMR 8208 XBR
CCI 41
Lapua Case
2.30" OAL (CZ 527 Mag length) 1.675" CBTO, .105" jump to lands.
This goes 2515 FPS from the 19" custom barrel of my CZ. SD = 5. Very accurate. Very temperature resistant.

I've not hunted this load yet but hope to kill a pronghorn and maybe a whitetail doe with it in MT next week. Have heard very good reports of the 129 ABLR on deer from the Grendel. This load carries 1000 foot-pounds to 450 yards and way above Nosler's advertised 1300 FPS minimum to a lot further than I would shoot it. Still doing 1800 FPS at 500 yards, which is as far as I would plan to shoot it at game.

Good hunting,
Rex

This will be the first season hunting with a 6.5 Grendel Howa Mini. Here is what I went with.

I have two Grendels. One is a 24" Encore barrel. For that one I have two loads that shoot very well. Both use Hornady brass. The first uses 28.5 grains of AA2520, a 123 grain SST and a CCI 400 primer to give me 2499 FPS. I have killed a couple of whitetail does and a few hogs with that load. The second load uses 28.2 grains of 8208XBR, a 105 grain Cavity Back MKZ and a CCI 400 primer to give me 2588 fps. I have killed 4 Axis deer with that load (two bucks, two does).

The second rifle I have is a Ruger American Predator that I have had the barrel cut down to 18" on and rethreaded. I have modified two metal mags so that they are 5-shot and about half the length of the 10 shot mags so that they don't stick out as far. I have only developed one load for it so far. It uses AA brass and a CCI 41 primer with 28.5 grains of AA2520 and a 120 grain Hornady A-Max. Haven't clocked them in the barrel before it was chopped, but was getting pretty close to 2540fps in the full length barrel. I am assuming I will be somewhere in the 2450 range now. Haven't killed anything with that gun yet, but it will probably be used for a doe cull later this fall.

The Barnes 115 gr tac tx is the best i have found for deer and hogs

That would be the one I am most interested in! Would be happy to hear any info you don't mind sharing, please. How many deer and hogs have you taken with it, and what were the effects like? How fast are you pushing it?

Thanks for the pics and info to everyone else as well! I appreciate it all. Great to have an idea of what is possible out there with different loads and barrel lengths.

I have a Ruger Ranch in 7.62x39 at the moment, but it seems like other than cheap surplus ammo, theres really no advantage to be had with it over 6.5 G