So I own a 6.5 Sporter bolt now. What to do with it?

[bruce drake]

So a friend has given up on saving up for a 6.5 Grendel AR Barrel and sold me his Model 1 Sales 6.5 Sporter AR bolt for a song.

So before I start saving up for the same barrel, what other calibers for the AR can this bolt be used for? I'm thinking 7.62x39 and 6PPC but I'm a 6.5 addict so that's my first choice but input from others would be helpful. a 7.62x39 AR barrel is much cheaper but I'd like this next AR Upper to be for further shots than 200 yards as I have my 300BLK AR for that target range.

I just bought a pair of new tires for the car today that I wasn't planning on so this is a long term project now so this gives us plenty of time to discuss this for the next couple of months before Christmas.

Bruce

[MtGun44]

HMMM. As I understand it, the 6.5 Sporter is a 6.5 Grendel under a different name. The
Grendel has an excellent accuracy reputation, and certainly is ballistically interesting, too.

IIRC, the case head diam of the 6.5 Grendel is the same as Rooskie 7.62x39, so you could look
at the PPC series of benchrest cartridges, .22 PPC and 6mm PPC are very well regarded in
accy circles, should fit right in if you can find a barrel and figure out the mag magic to
get one to feed. LOA for 6mm PPC is 2.100 and the magazines for 5.56 have a max
length of 2.050, so you will have to shorten the LOA to feed thru mags.

There is a 30PPC, too, which would seem like a 'round Robin Hood's barn way to get to
7.62x39, kinda-sorta but not really. Minor LOA issues, too.

What do you have in mind? 7.62x39 would seem the easiest.

Bill

[Whiterabbit]

wanna wildcat? I believe the 50 beowulf uses the same case head. Using the 50 beo as "basic brass" you sure could 'neck' that up to .510 or down to anything you could possibly want. how about 6.5 beowulf. 6.5 grendel ultra mag.

Though folks are shooting the grendel past 1000 yards, so really do you want or need more than that to fit the build goals?

[bruce drake]

I'm committed to the 6.5 Grendel now. Purchased a Bolt Carrier and a Die Set for the Grendel. Will purchase a barrel in a few months and hopefully have another AR Upper setup in this caliber by spring.

and yes, I plan to shoot cast in this AR as well.

Bruce

[customcutter]

If your planning on buying a 6.5 barrel in a couple of months you should have put in an order with a mfg last October. You should check out the 6.5 grendel forum. Lots of info there. As I understand it though the bolts are the hold up. So if you send someone your bolt they might move you ahead while waiting on bolts for other customers.

[bruce drake]

Well, if one isn't available when I order it, its just a continued exercise in patience.

Bruce

[TCLouis]

Got a 6.5 Grendel bolt . . .

What better reason can one have to build a 6.5 Grendel rifle

Serious target shooting, plink, play, or hunt, it will fulfill them all.

Only AR Grendel I have shot,belonged to our unit commander. He was a serious competitor and built an upper for 600 back.

He found the Grendel no better than 223 with heavy bullets and the Grendel came with more recoil to manage over a match.

Last five shot I shot from it were at silhouette at little over 800 . . .

Sandbag on a table and leaning into it to steady.

Put the dot of the scope on the forehead . . .

5 shots . . .

5 hits.

He asked if I wanted to shoot some more . . .

Why, we couldn't get any farther away on the range in question.

[lmcollins]

Bruce, I'd stick with the 6.5 Grendle. It is SAAMI speced so all your chambering reamer, loading dies, and factory chambered barrels should work fine, and all be properly co-ordinated to fit together.

The idea is to have more power than the 223 at long range. I'm not an AR guy, but it sounds good to me. It sounds to me like what you need is a barrel with the appriate barrel extension fitted, chambered to your bolt head, and the gas hole of the correct size drilled. All of that stuff ought to be well worked out years ago. Gas holes can always be made bigger, and they do have adjustable gasblocks.

Good luck. I only work on bolt guns.

[Jeff H]

The idea of a .35 Caliber on the 7.62x39 case (ok, .35 caliber on ANY case) has been haunting me for a couple years. There are a few different variations but it just seems like a nice, nominal case capacity for .35 caliber cast bullets to me.

Tough call because, in my own little world, 6.5mm has become something of an ideal diameter for centerfire rifle.

I like the .257s too though and a .257x39 would be very cool.

Nothing wrong with .30s, .22s, 7mms,.... either but if I were building from the ground up, .35, .257 or 6.5 would be the options I would have a hard time choosing between.

[TCLouis]

I used to daydream of 6.5X39 as I hurtled down the highways for work.

Seemed the perfect combo.

Now years later I find 6.5 TCU has about the same case capacity.

Not a recommendation, for this build though.

[bruce drake]

Issue with the 6.5 TCU in an AR-based rifle is that you have to seat the boolit very deep to fit the magazine length limits. With the 6.5 Grendel, you have the shorter case-length to allow you to seat the boolit just off the lands for better accuracy potential.

And yes, if I was building a bolt rifle with a .223 Rem bolt face, I would barrel it for 6.5TCU to take advantage of all the 5.56 brass I have here at the house.

Bruce

[GabbyM]

For cast I'd neck up the Grendel case. A U.S. 30 caliber .308 x .300" bore or a 35. With the 35 bore you may or may not have better luck starting with 7.62 x 39mm brass. Those wildcats have all been done before. Grendel chamber has a straighter case wall so they stack in AR mags better than the RUS 30 round. I'd lean towards the 30 caliber for the higher B.C. bullets and because the little case would strain to push the big 245 grain bullets anyway. Plus there's this new MiHec 30-180-HP mould sitting on my shelf. I've also a nice Saeco 150gr flat nose that I'm sure would work great. 1-12" twist barrel. Ballistics would be just short of a 30-30. I shoot the Saeco from mu 94 over a light load of Rx7 for over 2,000 fps. With a BHN #9 alloy. It smashes up and I've never seen a ricochet. not a deer bullet but great out in the field. No long bore ride to worry about chambering in the auto.

I'd say neck it down to 6mm, Which is a standardized round. With a 1;14 twist barrel but with cast a 6mm x 223 will give you enough powder space. Would still work though.

[bruce drake]

GabbyM,
I own a 7.62x39 Carbine and a 300BLK Carbine already for woods-walking and I already own a 358 Winchester for 35 Cal shooting.

I am rigged for casting 6.5mm boolits and the other use of this upper will be for match rifle use in NRA Highpower rifle matches with those "nasty" jacketed bullets (XTC) and cast for reduced-range matches (1-200 yards).

Bruce

[bruce drake]

JeffH,
A couple of fellows on this forum own 257x45 (257-223REM) wildcats and I am extremely jealous of them as after my 6.5 caliber rifles, my first gunsmith built rifle and preferred do-anything rifle is a VZ-24 Mauser rebarreled to 257 Roberts. That cartridge can be loaded from 65gr to 120gr in bullet weights and can be used for everything from squirrels to deer! Building an AR in 25caliber would be another fun thing to do although I think 86gr would probably be the heaviest boolit I'd load for a 25-223 AR.
Bruce

[bruce drake]

And now I have cast a bunch of boolits for the upcoming project. Titan Reloading in WI had the dies and shipped them in I finally had time yesterday to reform some 7.62x39 brass and cast some bullets. I had an Ideal 266469 mold (140gr Louverin) already from my projects with 6.5 Arisaka and 260 Remington so it was a very pleasant surprise to find the 257100 mold that Twotrees sent me was .270 and .268 across the driving bands! So its pleasant to find a 100gr boolit already on my shelf that saves me $60+ for this next project! Now they sit gas-checked and sized to .266 waiting for the barrel purchase in a few weeks.

Bruce

[bruce drake]

Have the complete bolt carrier group, a charging handle and 120 cartridges loaded and waiting. I bought a slickside upper from a fellow forum member that is enroute and I'm just storing funds up for the barrel as the rest of the parts will come in very quickly after that.

Bruce

[mongoosesnipe]

the Grendel form is your friend for all Grendel related info http://www.65grendel.com/forum/ good luck trying to join though we had a spam bot incident last year so now there is a back log as applicants are sorted though but you can still peruse the forms just not post that said the model on sporter bolt is just a 7.62x39 bolt or as its known in Grendel circles a type 1 there is also a type 2 bolt which is 0.136 deep and is the original colt spec bolt for the 7.62 the deeper face being to accommodate the thicker rim of the 7.62 case, so you will need to be careful about ordering a barrel as it will need to be head spaced to the bolt, when it comes to the Grendel i recommend buying the barrel and bolt together the only barrel that use the type one bolt that you have that dont come with a bolt already are the ones from model one but the ar stoner barrels from midway use that bolt as well thought they come with one matched

[frankenfab]

the Grendel form is your friend for all Grendel related info http://www.65grendel.com/forum/ good luck trying to join though we had a spam bot incident last year so now there is a back log as applicants are sorted though but you can still peruse the forms just not post that said the model on sporter bolt is just a 7.62x39 bolt or as its known in Grendel circles a type 1 there is also a type 2 bolt which is 0.136 deep and is the original colt spec bolt for the 7.62 the deeper face being to accommodate the thicker rim of the 7.62 case, so you will need to be careful about ordering a barrel as it will need to be head spaced to the bolt, when it comes to the Grendel i recommend buying the barrel and bolt together the only barrel that use the type one bolt that you have that dont come with a bolt already are the ones from model one but the ar stoner barrels from midway use that bolt as well thought they come with one matched

Yes, be careful.

Same issue with the 50 Beowulf bolts. Actually they are the same bolts. At least the Grendel is a SAAMI cartridge now, so you can buy your own reamer if you want to.

[bruce drake]

Yeah...I've been on the 6.5 Grendel forum wait list for quite a while. Not holding my breath on seeing a email from them anytime soon either.

I've got access to a 6.5 Grendel reamer to custom fit the barrel if it doesn't match exactly when I get it in. Its just a matter of getting the dang barrel in!


Bruce

[bruce drake]

And I just bought a 16" 7.62x39 AR barrel to put together a carbine to play around with until I get the phone call that the 6.5 Grendel Barrel I ordered comes in.

Maybe by that time, I'll have bought another Upper receiver and bolt carrier group for the delayed Grendel build...

Bruce

[45 2.1]

The idea of a .35 Caliber on the 7.62x39 case (ok, .35 caliber on ANY case) has been haunting me for a couple years.

I have a friend who just did basically that with a 8mm. He shortened an 8mm case to about 40mm, took a surplus 8x57 barrel, set it back and put it on a SKS. He calls it the 8mm SM. Neat little thing and accurate to boot.

[bruce drake]

http://www.in.gov/dnr/files/fw-Deer_Hunting_Equipment.pdf
Basically if its bigger than a 357 Magnum and its a pistol cartridge its ok for deer in Indiana. Funny thing is that a 458 SOCOM is considered legal...but 35 Remington is not...

[andremajic]

I've got an idea for you.

Find a used 6.5x55 swede mauser or arisaka barrel, cut off the chamber, profile and rethread between centers, ream the chamber, and drill your gas block hole.

It should be cheap to find one used, and there are a LOT of these on the market floating around. Barrel extensions are cheap at brownells or del-ton.

6.5 isn't my cup-o-tea, but if I had to do one on the cheap....

Andy.

[wch]

I'm committed to the 6.5 Grendel now. Purchased a Bolt Carrier and a Die Set for the Grendel. Will purchase a barrel in a few months and hopefully have another AR Upper setup in this caliber by spring.

and yes, I plan to shoot cast in this AR as well.

Bruce

You will never regret the Grendel; I like it so much that I have a bolt gun chambered for it too, as we can't hunt with semi-auto's,

[bruce drake]

That's an interesting thought as I have a 6.5 Arisaka barrel sitting on a shelf here in Indiana... Now off to the garage to do some measuring, researching and thinking of a quality gunsmith with a lathe...

Bruce

[bruce drake]

Well sometimes life gets away from you but I have finally returned to this project. I have a 20" AR barrel coming in the mail and it should be mounted by next weekend. Range Time with it is still a no-no until the doctor clears me but it may be the right time to start having my oldest boy pulling the trigger on my experiments while I observe the experiment...

So, I'm going to start with some initial 140gr cast loads to fireform the reformed 7.62x39 brass to the chamber and stand by for hopefully some good groups in the immediate future before the snow hits in Indiana.

After the fireforming, I'll will do a ladder test with both cast boolits to see which will be the better cast load. I have a feeling that the fat .257 mold at 100gr will mesh with the 1:9 twist barrel a little better than the heavier 140gr

I'll be using one of my 5.56 rifle uppers to do the conversion on this rifle. the Conversion is very simple in mounting the barrel to the upper receiver and replacing the bolt with the proper headspace.

Thanks