Who has tried an AR-Stoner 6.5 Grendel barrel?

204 AR

204 AR

Well-known member
The reviews on Midway look pretty good but I was wondering if anyone here had any real life experience with one.
Thanks
 
I read some other reviews on other sites that werent so good about the AR Stoner barrels. I was looking at that same barrel. Might want to do some searching before you buy. I believe there were some quality issues.
 
Yeah I figured they are kind of hit-or-miss. Stoner offers some attractive deals considering a lot of their barrels are fluted, decent price and even come with a bolt. Roll of the dice....

I need another upper like a hole in the head anyway...
 
I had a .223 barrel which shot accurate enough (just under an inch). The .223 barrels generally get good reviews, but the 6.5's don't. AR-Stoner is just midways house brand so whoever fills the contract makes the parts.
 
Satern makes this barrel, it's their Liberty line. It's their more cost effective button-rifled line of barrels. There's some info on 65grendel forum about this recent batch. Some of the throats are short, some are ok.
I'd pass on this batch and consider one after they figure out the issue.

The reason I'm following the issue is because I've been waiting over a year for my Grendel barrel from them and I am nervous that it won't be correct.
 
Originally Posted By: Redleg84Satern makes this barrel, it's their Liberty line. It's their more cost effective button-rifled line of barrels. There's some info on 65grendel forum about this recent batch. Some of the throats are short, some are ok.
I'd pass on this batch and consider one after they figure out the issue.

The reason I'm following the issue is because I've been waiting over a year for my Grendel barrel from them and I am nervous that it won't be correct.

The issue with the "short" chamber isn't an issue... it's a SAAMI chamber, and is quite tight. Cleaning it appropriately and shooting factory ammo has not been an issue for MOST of the folks with the new barrels.

A customer of mine has that exact same barrel I ordered for him, and it shoots both 123 Amax and 123 SST perfectly...

Nonetheless, if there is an issue, sending it back to them for a once over has proven to be fine. They're also running a "SAAMI Grendel 2" style with a longer lead, so you can push the longer bullets out to the lands at mag length.
 
Stay away from those barrels. I have gotten the 6.5 Grendel bug lately so I have been doing a bunch of reading.

Here is a synopsis:

AR Stoner is Midway's house brand. A variety of manufacturers make barrels and other AR parts for Midway under that name. Many of these parts are top notch as my own experience with a AR Stoner 300 Blk barrel has shown.

The 6.5 Grendel AR Stoner/Liberty barrels are made by Satern manufacturing. Satern has previously has a good reputation among the 6.5 Grendel/LBC community. While the actual chamber dimensions appear to follow the 6.5 Grendel SAAMI spec many of these barrels have a extremely short throats. This has resulted in high pressure spikes, bullet setback with Hornady and other factory ammunition upon chambering and difficult extraction.

Midway appears to have supported it's customers pretty well and gave 100% refunds on unfired barrels returned within 60 days.

Satern on the other hand has not been so forthcoming. For a long time they refused to acknowledge a problem existed. Then they blamed the ammunition. They have stated they are using SAAMI spec reamers to cut their chambers. While this may be true the throats do not appear to be SAAMI spec. Independent analysis from several gunsmiths have confirmed this. After much back and forth they remain adament that their barrels are in spec but have offered to "Scrape" the throats into what they call a "Grendel II" spec for free, however customers are stuck with shipping to and from Satern (About $40)

http://saternmachining.com/

I will likely be sourcing my barrel from Lilja.
 
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