Grendel experiments

g Bo

New member
I’m new to reloading. Bought the equipment about a year ago and have had a well polished reloading friend asking me for a year when he could come over and teach me.

I’ve been shooting coyotes for a couple of years with my AR Grendel (night and day) also called in a lion. I pretty much used factory Hornady 123 grain SST’s and have been looking forward to developing a Grendel load on my own as hot, accurate, safe and devastating as possible.

Anyway, on to the reloading results. I’ve been reading posts on this website as well as dozens of other sites about different loads, powders, bullets and so on. I’ve taken dozens of screen shots and pages of notes, many results from all of you.

By the way, thank you for all of your very helpful information.

I purchased two different bullets, a box of 90 grain Noslers and 95 grain vmax
A pound of benchmark powder. Also one pound of CFE powder.

Not knowing what to expect here’s what happened.

I also checked the FPS of the hornady factory 123 sst rounds, 2400 FPS
(All the FPS results will be averages of three shots.)

Results in the order I did them.

Loaded three each, 90 grain Noslers, Benchmark powder,
Grains of powder. FPS
29 gr 2674
29.6 gr 2767
30 gr 2789
The 29 & 29.6 both grouped at just about an inch, the 30 tightened up to less the 3/4”. It seemed as if speed tightened the group.
I was really pleased and almost stopped there but decided to compare the vmax with the same powder. Assuming they would be abit slower because they were 5 grains heavier.

Loaded three each, 95 grain vmax, Benchmark powder.
Grains of powder. FPS
29 gr 2700
29.6 gr 2752
30 gr 2822
Again the 29 & 29.6 grouped not quite as tight as the Noslers 29 & 29.6 groups (abit over an inch) The 30 grain tightened up to less than 3/4”.
It was amazing to me (a new reloader) the 5 grain heavier vmax were faster than the lighter Noslers. I guess the boat tail helped with that?

It seemed the casing was close to full with the 30 grains of benchmark so I wanted to compare the weight of the two powders I had purchased To see if I might get more grains of the CFE into less room. I took a empty Grendel casing and filled it with benchmark and did the same with CFE 223 then weighed each powder as I poured it into the cup on my scales.
Bench mark volume = 33.2 grains
CFE 223 volume = 36 grains (interesting)

I then loaded three each, 95 grain vmax, CFE 223 powder
29.6 gr 2335 FPS
30 gr 2397 FPS
30.6 gr 2450 FPS

None grouped well at all and way slower. ( over 400 FPS )

Next I went back to 95 grain vmax, bench mark powder
30.4 gr 2838 FPS
30.6 gr 2911 FPS

The 30.4 grouped in a clover leaf and the 30.6 grouped abit over a 1/2”

Looks like I found my coyote load.
I’m going to load up five each.
95 grain vmax 30.4 grains
90 grain Noslers 30.4 grains

And try them out tomorrow
 
Back
Top