[Phalanx]

The more it sure does look promiseing. I was reading about it and one place said it came around as a spin off of the short mags in Hunting rifles.
It is close to the 7.62x45 ,the original round the CZ 58 was chambered in.
Some guys are trying to convert their 58 rifles back to this round ,except the round isn't all that available and it is very expensive.
Besides the grendal has better ballistics and a heaver bullet , and Black Water said it was the holy grail of bridging the gap between a Battle Rifle and a carbine after all these years.
Right now the VZ 58 is the only rifle i know of that could fire this round unless you guys know of something else.
Some how i feel this will be another Robinson first ,the first American production rifle in the 6.5 grendal .
Crazy ??? maybe so , but McCain picking Palin was considered crazy also , and Alex like those two is also considered a Maverick.
The trouble is getting Alexander to ease up on his Patents , Hell name it the 6.5 Alex ;D ,he might like that.

 

[ny32182]

I don't know the definition of a "production rifle" in this case, but AA has been making 6.5 AR15's for quite a while now...

Anyhow, I like what I have read about this round, and would really like to give it a try in the XCR. The two things holding me back are kit availability (of course), and secondly, I recently discovered that the brass is obcenely expensive for something that could potentially be intended as a high-volume carbine round. Like 3-4x more expensive than 6.8 brass.

Besides that, I've heard that there are a couple different chamber and pressure specs associated with this cartridge? I'd like to get a better idea about the details of these kinds of issues, as well as how the exact specs on the future XCR kit compare, before sinking money into it.

 

[aziator]

6.5 looks real promising to me as well, until I look at the cost to shoot it.

It is like that nice sporty car I bought back in college, it was the greatest thing in the world to me and I could afford it, until I got that first insurance bill and realized I underestimated how much it was going to cost to drive it.

6.5 is a reloading round for me and in a platform like the XCR it would be shot lots. When you start looking at the price to reload it and get quality brass...well lets just say I think I will stick with my 6.8 and pick up a nice black rifle in 308.

 

[gunner69]

Aziator, I have ordered the 6.5 Kit. That said, after research, I find our Aussie cousins use the standard 7.62x39 case resized to 6.5x39 with the same case sholder angle. Almost as good as the 6.5 Grendel and cheap to reload, WTF???? They love it and a simple die resize (like the 6mmx.223/6x45) gets you there. No propiarity BS either. ;D ;D ;D

 

[TerraShrewsbury]

saw a 6.5 at the range the other day. All I can say is.... bIG..... BOOM. lol. I FELT the shockwave from that thing.

Still uncontrollably drooling....

 

[sinjin]

Gunner69,

Read your post and remembered seeing a webpage about resizing 7.62x39 brass to 6.5. See the link below. The primary drawback seemed to be that at least some 7.62x39 brass (Wolf?) uses large primers, while AA and Lapua brass factory 6.5 brass uses small primers, and some say that makes a performance difference.

Does all 7.62x39 brass use large primers?

http://www.brleather.net/Reloading_Data/Reload_6.5_Grendel.html

 

[gunner69]

Sinjin, Nice article you posted. Wolf is the only maker (at present) making 6.5 with the large rifle primer. My take is that, when coming up with the caliber, Alexander Arms used the small rifle primer and different case sholder to force users to buy cases/ammo from them. Converting 7.62x39 cases to 6.5 G is a pain in the Ass. Most folks use the AA or Lapua cases and pay $$$$$ to do so. If it were a true 6.5x39 EVERYONE could just resize their 7.62x39 cases and start shooting............. leaving Alexander Arms with a hell of a lot less to take to the bank. :2cents:

 

[ny32182]

sinjin, very interesting indeed. I had heard the term "fire forming" before, but never actually read about the process. Sounds similar to what I imagined. Sounds like it would be a lot of fun to try, but looking at the practical costs: All prices from Midway.

Cost of AA brand factory 6.5 brass: .64/each.

Cost of Winchester brand 7.62x39 brass: .33/each.

Using the method in the article above would also require:

Any acceptable bullet; cheapest I see is a Hornady spire point for .23
Powder, approximately .09 for a 25gr fire forming load
Primer; I'm currently paying about .034 each.

Total cost to form your own: .684/each in materials, plus all that time and effort invested.

So, sounds like something that might be fun to try just to see if you could make it work, but is it really going to be cost effective compared to factory brass on a large scale; initially, it doesn't look like it to me.

Those costs are actually so close that it makes me wonder if that is how AA determined the market value of their factory brass.

 

[sinjin]

I think you're right, ny32182. When that guy wrote that web page, I image that 7.62x39 brass was cheaper than it is now (especially if he had a good source of once-fired brass), and 6.5 Grendel brass was more expensive, and harder to find, than it is now. The gap has closed from both ends, making it a dubious proposition today.

 

[RC20]

A serious contradiction when you are shooting a round thats capable of .5 MOA or less out of a gun that will get 1.5 MOA (maybe close to 1 with a good scope setup).

This continues to look like a round being put in AR just because it fits physically, not becasue it has any merit for that type of gun, be it self defcense, target shooting, 3 gun, or hunting.

If you want a better round than the 5.56, then the 6.8 is it. If you have the right twist (1-11 or 1-12) and right spec chamber (i.e. not the SAMMII thingy) you get 2800 FPS out of it.

If you want to max it out for long targets or hunting, get it in an 18 inch barrel.

Fires fine, brass costs come down. The 6.5 is always going to be a bouquet cartridge.

 

[sinjin]

I don't know about all of that, RC20. One of the arguments that some Grendel defenders make is that the round can do the jobs of both 5.56 and 7.62 caliber ammunition, allowing the number of calibers used by the military to be reduced by one. That is an argument that is independent of the issue of what type of firearm it is fired from. In other words, the argument is that, if grendel solves the alleged short range lethality problems of 5.56, and can perform the longer range duties of 7.62, allowing its elimination, then it deserves consideration along with 6.8SPC, which, according to them, only addresses the former.

 

[stanc]

One of the arguments that some Grendel defenders make is that the round can do the jobs of both 5.56 and 7.62 caliber ammunition, allowing the number of calibers used by the military to be reduced by one. That is an argument that is independent of the issue of what type of firearm it is fired from.

I agree. Unfortunately, so far there is little evidence to back up the idea that 6.5 Grendel is capable of replacing 7.62 NATO. Proponents seem to have based their position on two things.

One was a demonstration at Blackwater a few years ago, in which armor glass designed to stop 7.62 NATO was penetrated by 6.5 Grendel loaded w/ 144gr FMJ bullet. (The 6.8 SPC people present reportedly declined to shoot at the armor "because they didn't have the right bullets.")

The other is the long range accuracy attainable with the Lapua Scenars (high-ballistic coefficient, match projectiles) around which 6.5 Grendel was developed.

The trouble is, 144 grains is generally considered -- even by Bill Alexander -- as too heavy for a general purpose round. Optimum weight appears to be 105-125 grains, but the high BC of the Lapua match bullets is not seen in the only off-the-shelf FMJ bullet in that weight range; the Norma 120gr FMJ has a BC of 0.428, which is only very slightly higher than that of 7.62 M80 Ball. Since Grendel muzzle velocity with that bullet will be approx 200 fps slower than M80 (when fired from same length barrels), and the Norma bullet weighs 18% less than M80, it's questionable if 6.5 Grendel can actually produce trajectory and penetration "good enough" to replace 7.62 NATO.

Also, the Norma 120gr FMJ proved unspectacular in gelatin testing, with a slightly later yaw than 7.62 NATO.
http://www.65grendel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=840&highlight=gelatin

Can a more streamlined 6.5mm FMJ bullet, with better terminal ballistics be designed and manufactured? Probably. Will it give performance sufficiently close to that of 7.62 NATO to make 6.5 Grendel a viable replacement? That question can't be answered until such a bullet is actually made and tested.

P.S. There's one other matter yet to be resolved: 6.5 Grendel is not compatible with the link configuration used to feed the M249 machine gun; 6.8 SPC is.

 

[sinjin]

P.S. There's one other matter yet to be resolved: 6.5 Grendel is not compatible with the link configuration used to feed the M249 machine gun; 6.8 SPC is.

I have seen this discussed, elswere, but do not have the knowledge to judge how significant an issue this is. The general concensus seems to be that it would not be as easily adaptable as 6.8SPC, but I have seen no discussion, of any real deph, about exactly what would be necessary to allow Grendel to work well with that weapon.

 

[stanc]

P.S. There's one other matter yet to be resolved: 6.5 Grendel is not compatible with the link configuration used to feed the M249 machine gun; 6.8 SPC is.

I have seen this discussed, elswere, but do not have the knowledge to judge how significant an issue this is. The general concensus seems to be that it would not be as easily adaptable as 6.8SPC, but I have seen no discussion, of any real deph, about exactly what would be necessary to allow Grendel to work well with that weapon.

That's because nobody knows exactly what can be done, nor will anybody know until somebody successfully comes up with a viable link design and converts an M249.

 

[gunner69]

How about links from the RPD it uses the 7.62x39 (Parent case for the Grendle). ??? If that is the ONLY holdup WTF? Why not just resize to the Aussie 6.5x39 specification and not have to pay anyone "ransome" for the case angle? If enough people used the Aussie diamentions Alexander might lower his prices..................... or loose a lot of business. :2cents:

 

[stanc]

How about links from the RPD it uses the 7.62x39 (Parent case for the Grendle). ???

I'm sure that approach would work...in an RPD. But, the RPD uses non-disintegrating links, a type that the US Armed Forces does not use. Remember, the idea is conversion of current (and future) US military 5.56 weapons to 6.5 Grendel, not conversion of obsolescent Russki 7.62x39 guns.

If that is the ONLY holdup WTF? Why not just resize to the Aussie 6.5x39 specification and not have to pay anyone "ransome" for the case angle? If enough people used the Aussie diamentions Alexander might lower his prices... or loose a lot of business. :2cents:

Maybe. I dunno. Would anybody who began manufacturing and marketing 6.5x39 ammo be able to charge significantly less than AA 6.5 Grendel ammo? Compare prices of American-made 7.62x39 or 6.8 SPC to AA prices for 6.5 G.