6.5 Grendel - Recovered ELD-M - Large Muley Buck

[Stinky Coyote]

Well the jacket pretty well intact and on the offside of a 192 yard high shoulder shot my kid made on the partner youth muley draw this year. Impact 2270 fps, launch 2605 fps. Factory Hornady Black 123gr ELD-M ammo. 27% weight retention, core must be blown up with the baseball size part of the spine that is missing, buck was 175 on the hook(limbed, no hide/head/guts), not sure what live weight would be but guessing minimum 250-275 lbs? He was a pork chop, rolled onto his back and was round like a barrel.

Some pics on insta if you can view the link, if not the summary so far with 3 seasons on the Grendel and this ammo from 3 different barrel lengths 16.1", 20", 24" we have 6 critters down (deer/sheep/deer/coyote/moose/deer). Average shot distance 175 yards(192,170,238,200,125,125), average recovered distance 5 yards (0,0,0,0,15,15).

https://www.instagram.com/p/CHv2zUzp..._web_copy_link

Little squirrel guns are just perkin right along.

[JohnB]

Congrats, big body mule.

[Twisted Canuck]

Nice pics of the bullet.... But that hog of a mulie is the main event! More pics of that! Good job. Surprised the Grendal didn't just bounce it off the hide....you sure you wouldn't be safer with an SKS?

[DiabeticKripple]

wouldnt it be awesome if we could take out our MacDef or ATRS AR's and shoot some deer?

Except Turdeau had to go ahead and ban them for no good reason. He said he wasnt going after hunting rifles....

[waldedw]

Congrats on the buck, obviously the bullet worked but my guess as to why the bullet shed it's core and only the jacket remained with 27% weight retention is because the bullet is a 123 gr ELD-M match grade bullet not designed for game.

Just my 2 cents worth

[6.5 shooter]

Just goes to prove you don't need an artillery piece to shoot big bucks. Wish more folks would learn this lesson and teach young hunters how to shoot rather then how to flinch. But I have been on this merry go round before...and the haters will keep on hating...the little gun that CAN.

Congrates to you and your son .. job well done.

[Ranger CS]

I am curious, how did you determine the impact velocity?

[Stinky Coyote]

Originally Posted by Ranger CS

I am curious, how did you determine the impact velocity?

Ballistics calculator. Like bison ballistics online ballistics calculator.

[KazIce]

That deer is my spirit animal. Never missed a meal. Always had seconds and thirds. Nicely done


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Stinky Coyote]

Originally Posted by waldedw

Congrats on the buck, obviously the bullet worked but my guess as to why the bullet shed it's core and only the jacket remained with 27% weight retention is because the bullet is a 123 gr ELD-M match grade bullet not designed for game.

Just my 2 cents worth

These bullets do fantastic work. They’ll go through a couple feet of softer stuff and mushroom to your satisfaction but they also remove 4” of moose femur or full moose antler with partial skull plate attached. Sure a mono or otherwise delayed controlled expansion may penetrate deeper and get the pass through but I very much like the blend of energy dump with more than adequate penetration of these high bc sd rapid expansion bullets at moderate velocities. No complaints so far, burning 29.6 grains of powder per shot and getting the most from it.

This eld-m went 1” further in ballistic gel than the sst ‘hunting’ load btw with a 2250 fps impact. 19.7” penetration with the eld-m.

http://www.65grendel.com/forum/showt...367#post212367

The above link about 1650 fps impact velocity. You’ll be pretty safe with 1800 fps impact on anything around here and the Grendel will hold that to 450 yards out of a 16.1” barrel launched at a measly 2386 fps. Add 125 yards to that from my cz 24” doing 2605 fps.

The eld-m are awesome imo. Just don’t launch em at 2900 plus. They rock in the moderate velocity ranges, as do ballistic tips, and a-max.

[marky_mark]

No lead in the jacket
I’d call that a failure

[FCLightning]

Originally Posted by marky_mark

No lead in the jacket
I’d call that a failure

If it failed you would never know what was in or not in the jacket.

[waldedw]

Originally Posted by Stinky Coyote

These bullets do fantastic work. They’ll go through a couple feet of softer stuff and mushroom to your satisfaction but they also remove 4” of moose femur or full moose antler with partial skull plate attached. Sure a mono or otherwise delayed controlled expansion may penetrate deeper and get the pass through but I very much like the blend of energy dump with more than adequate penetration of these high bc sd rapid expansion bullets at moderate velocities. No complaints so far, burning 29.6 grains of powder per shot and getting the most from it.

This eld-m went 1” further in ballistic gel than the sst ‘hunting’ load btw with a 2250 fps impact. 19.7” penetration with the eld-m.

http://www.65grendel.com/forum/showt...367#post212367

The above link about 1650 fps impact velocity. You’ll be pretty safe with 1800 fps impact on anything around here and the Grendel will hold that to 450 yards out of a 16.1” barrel launched at a measly 2386 fps. Add 125 yards to that from my cz 24” doing 2605 fps.

The eld-m are awesome imo. Just don’t launch em at 2900 plus. They rock in the moderate velocity ranges, as do ballistic tips, and a-max.

Seriously come on man, you have a bullet that retained 27% of it's weight, has no core at all left and your quoting ballistic charts trying to convince us that this " bullet rocks and is awesome and dose a fantastic job "

[58thecat]

Hmmmm only see one pic and then this insta what ever wants me to create an account etc....nope.....got any other pics?

[58thecat]

Originally Posted by waldedw

Seriously come on man, you have a bullet that retained 27% of it's weight, has no core at all left and your quoting ballistic charts trying to convince us that this " bullet rocks and is awesome and dose a fantastic job "

Well it ain't no Barnes X.....

[marky_mark]

Originally Posted by FCLightning

If it failed you would never know what was in or not in the jacket.

So exactly like this one

[FCLightning]

Originally Posted by marky_mark

So exactly like this one

No, a failed bullet is like the one that is still running around in a deer somewhere. Or like the one that punched a tiny hole through and continued into never, never land and the deer is still running somewhere - or maybe not, but we will never know because the deer was never recovered.

[Stinky Coyote]

It aint no barnes or accubond and it aint no magnum, it's just a little squirrel gun with an attitude.

The cartridge or the bullet need no help from me, they've been putting lots of meat on the ground for 16 years, don't shoot the messenger, just showing you what it's been doing for us over a few seasons now.

58...lots of pics, pm me your email or mobile and i'll send em to you. That post shows them all but i get not everyone has insta and i don't have the pics online anywhere else so it's the only way to post here unless i send them.

Had that not been a major bone hit on a larger animal it would have just been another easy pass through as most of it has been, even despite the rapid expansion construction. That same son got his first deer last year, nice little 4 point whitetail at 238 yards with a 20" barrel Grendel with that bullet and it was a pass through, also a high shoulder shot but on the level, this big muley we were elevated so had some angle through him to help keep things inside but also quite a bit larger spine and probably weighed twice what that whitetail weighed, so it takes a fair bit of bone and critter to keep these slippery eld-m's inside for any sort of review. That buck took every one of those 1407 ft/lbs that landed on him, the rest of the deer or sheep we've shot took plenty too but a bunch always seems to end up in the dirt or rocks behind them.

I'm not super into the necro as we are pretty in the moment doing this stuff, we have enough large bone bigger animal hits and softer regular hits to confirm anything the numbers would have suggested and maybe even the experience has exceeded expectations a little. It can handle and destroy major bone, it can clear a couple feet in the soft stuff. That's plenty for us. It will do anything we need here in Alberta. It could be loaded with 100gr barnes ttsx a couple hundred fps faster but we mostly about class 2 game deer/sheep with the occasional moose draw, the eld-m working just fine.

Doing our part is more important than anything else, so we will focus on that as always.

And ya this was not a failure story, that's the kind of performance i like to see. When those back legs slam up and that big head whips to the ground like best of the west...and that bullet is a total mess along with that much spine....total success, exactly what i want to see. I prefer that type of performance vs stuff designed to go through 3 or 4 feet of anything, we aren't really into those kind of shots.

[Scottmisfits]

I had a soft point hunting bullet, cup and core, do exactly the same thing. We found the cup, but not the core.
How is it a failure when the animal was recovered, no tracking, and put in to a freezer? And this bullet style that I’m talking about has taken quite a number of animals over the years as it’s a fairly old design still being used quite commonly today.
Hunting, I’m sure, was so much simpler before there was a new bullet design “optimized” every year in a great marketing hype. No doubt that tolerance have gotten better, reloading practices have gotten better, etc. But in what I see, no matter what cartridge, no matter what bullet, etc, this was successful in doing the intended job from the user.

[marky_mark]

Originally Posted by FCLightning

No, a failed bullet is like the one that is still running around in a deer somewhere. Or like the one that punched a tiny hole through and continued into never, never land and the deer is still running somewhere - or maybe not, but we will never know because the deer was never recovered.

The jacket separated from the core at a relatively low velocity on a deer
That’s a 100% fail
Had this been a moose or elk at higher velocity, your results could have been far different
It’s not a matter of, if your going to lose and animal.
Just a question of when

[waldedw]

As hunters and reloaders we all know that a bullet can fail but it is up to us to start with a bullet that is designed for game, ie: don't load match or target bullets for your hunting loads, load a bullet designed for game, remove one variable that is under your control, you owe that much to the animal.

[FCLightning]

Originally Posted by marky_mark

The jacket separated from the core at a relatively low velocity on a deer
That’s a 100% fail
Had this been a moose or elk at higher velocity, your results could have been far different
It’s not a matter of, if your going to lose and animal.
Just a question of when

Dead animals are the measure of success, anything else is a thought exercise for those who feel like they need to think about something.
If you shoot enough animals eventually you will likely lose one, but if we are exercising thoughts, my thought is that losing the animal is skewed very, very heavily towards shooter error than "bullet failure"

[marky_mark]

A 123gr bullet in a 6.5 cal is very light
It doesn’t have enough lead to be able to sustain the losses when it’s travelling through flesh
Anyone having success with match bullets while hunting are typically using the heaviest bullets available
Not sure why you wouldn’t just use a bullet like a 125gr partition
It’s not like your going to be shooting this rifle to 1000 yards
Their bc’s are .449 vs .506

[JD848]

Originally Posted by marky_mark

The jacket separated from the core at a relatively low velocity on a deer
That’s a 100% fail
Had this been a moose or elk at higher velocity, your results could have been far different
It’s not a matter of, if your going to lose and animal.
Just a question of when

x100 on this post . This is why when guys post things about shooting horns and femurs at 75 yards and high shots specially with a bullet that is not intended for hunting purposeses it is very wrong in my opinion.5 shoots on a moose and had a 7 foot pattern ,first he sat in with sticks in willows which was a wrong move and the moose was in willows then stood up and was shaken up and then somehow manage to find a kill zone with a Grendel with recoil for a kid and almost messed up with what I now learn was a match bullet.

You get a bit of an angle shot off a rib and you blow out the rib and that deer is history.

Now you post about a very high spinal shot at only 192 at a 20 inch target kill zone and you think it was a good kill.

The Grendel is not the problem Stinky,like it or not it's all the stuff you posted blowing your horn on this thing with 29 grains of horse crap in it.

This is why hunters need to read this stuff, so don't believe everything you read, specially young hunters.

It's a very accurate bullet meant for targets and very unethical to write and brag about using a piece of garbage on an animal.

Ive been reading enough of this crap so I am out,cheers.

SECTIONAL DENSITY can be between your ears also.

JD

[marky_mark]

Originally Posted by FCLightning

Dead animals are the measure of success, anything else is a thought exercise for those who feel like they need to think about something.
If you shoot enough animals eventually you will likely lose one, but if we are exercising thoughts, my thought is that losing the animal is skewed very, very heavily towards shooter error than "bullet failure"

All you need to do is lose one animal, and you realize mistakes that need to be addressed and never repeated. I lost a b&c whitetail shooting core lokts out of a 30/06. That combo will never be used in the field again by me. Ever

Well when you eliminate the chances of it being shooter error
Then you work on the next variable after that, which could be from bullet failure

Losing any animals for any reason is unacceptable

[Stinky Coyote]

Originally Posted by marky_mark

The jacket separated from the core at a relatively low velocity on a deer
That’s a 100% fail
Had this been a moose or elk at higher velocity, your results could have been far different
It’s not a matter of, if your going to lose and animal.
Just a question of when

100% success, when i launch 2900 fps or faster i prefer accubonds

for sub 2700 fps launch these ballistic tip/a-max/eld-m/pointed soft points all work great at moderate velocity if they have appropriate for game sd to begin with as they shed and dump while still having plenty of bullet length staying on the tail to keep driving deep while doing lots of work, no way i'd want this 123 eld-m screaming out of a prc or even a creedmoor unless for coyotes or antelope, the 140/147 eld-m's would be my choice in the creedmoor but in the prc i'd want bonded bullets, those are just my preferences, i liked accubonds in my .270 and .270 wsm, tried a few others but preferred the bonded with those speedsters

most 20-22" barrel grendels are going to spit this 123 eld-m factory ammo at more like 2500 fps, ideal launch velocity for great performance window out to 3-400 yards, reloaders could get 2700 fps out of 24" at the top end but even from my little ruger american ranch 16.1" launching factory ammo at 2386 new barrel (i'm guessing it will break in to about 2400 fps) it still going to deliver 1800 fps impact to about 450 yards with that super moderate launch, in these velocity windows the eld-m types with high bc/sd do awesome work, shoot what you like

this muley example with my fastest grendel and big bone, a little hot so really didn't expect to find any bullet period after seeing that spine damage, figured it would have been total explosion and a little hot for that bullet but...

now seeing that it peeled back 4/5ths of it's length and mushroomed to 3x diam before shedding core in the carnage...i'm more than ok with that, it did 1407 ft/lbs of work though a fatting hitting major bone, and got to the other side, it's able to do that because it's long and starts with plenty of sd it can lose along the way as the front half really does some work, it's able to do that because it's rapid expansion construction, it is a mirror to a .308 168 gr for length/weight to frontal area relationship for it's ability to penetrate given same impact velocities, if you like two holes most and less damage cone through the game then shoot ttsx and bonded bullets and shoot them faster and faster to increase damage cone, this particular combo just runs the right velocity range to maximize the potential of rapid expansion construction on a longer high sd bullet, you just get a lot for the powder you burn this way, not a lot of waste

[Stinky Coyote]

Originally Posted by JD848

x100 on this post . This is why when guys post things about shooting horns and femurs at 75 yards and high shots specially with a bullet that is not intended for hunting purposeses it is very wrong in my opinion.5 shoots on a moose and had a 7 foot pattern ,first he sat in with sticks in willows which was a wrong move and the moose was in willows then stood up and was shaken up and then somehow manage to find a kill zone with a Grendel with recoil for a kid and almost messed up with what I now learn was a match bullet.

You get a bit of an angle shot off a rib and you blow out the rib and that deer is history.

Now you post about a very high spinal shot at only 192 at a 20 inch target kill zone and you think it was a good kill.

The Grendel is not the problem Stinky,like it or not it's all the stuff you posted blowing your horn on this thing with 29 grains of horse crap in it.

This is why hunters need to read this stuff, so don't believe everything you read, specially young hunters.

It's a very accurate bullet meant for targets and very unethical to write and brag about using a piece of garbage on an animal.

Ive been reading enough of this crap so I am out,cheers.

SECTIONAL DENSITY can be between your ears also.

JD

hilarious, there were no willows, it was a prairie moose, stand of aspens, i like your narrative though

my kid shot the last 2 deer, i set the rifles up, 200 yard zero, he's doin just fine bang flopping em

your rigs can go through 3-4' and double femurs etc. that's fantastic, good for you, i'm ok with everything i've seen, the moose was dead with shot one, wish i had taken the time to show you the couple feet it did though the good stuff, the other shots were whatever freehanding through the aspens because i could still see him, he was never going past the first 15 yards of couple hops, i shot till i couldn't see him, so was able to see what happens in a big heavy skull and a femur at 125 yards, as well as the middle, there is nothing wrong with that, it's just a baby .308, 21st century 30-30, and a 6.5 Creedmoor short...all rolled into one sexy little package you gots some butt hurt for sure

now, we have been doing our part, there could very well be days where we screw up, that's hunting, we know who to blame though when that happens....it's not the cartridge or the bullet, we know that for a fact, word

also, it's a bullet, how it's marketed doesn't change that, the eld-m performs better than the hunting marketed sst in the 2250 fps gel test, huge perfect mushroom and 19.7" penetration...that muley was hit with 2270 fps on big bone that will challenge all but the toughest bullets, don't get too hung up on the 'marketing'

[marky_mark]

It has crap for sd because it’s light for its caliber
It’s not long because it’s only a 123gr bullet
So when the core falls out right after impact and it turns into a huge weightless parachute, it’s not doing anything of significance internally anymore

I don’t know what you do for a living but you a really good at selling a disaster as a success lol

[BigJon]

Originally Posted by marky_mark

The jacket separated from the core at a relatively low velocity on a deer
That’s a 100% fail
Had this been a moose or elk at higher velocity, your results could have been far different
It’s not a matter of, if your going to lose and animal.
Just a question of when

I disagree with this. Some bullets, such as modern Nosler ballistic tips 9of some calibers/weights) have a jacket and base that make up half or more of the weight of the bullet. Even with a lost core that's a good size chunk of projectile to continue penetrating and damaging tissue. That design isn't by accident.

I've never been bothered to see jacket/core separation. I've seen it a number of times on all manner of game (including elk and moose) with rib cage shots and shots that broke scapula/humerus on both entry and exit (with bullet recovered under the hide).

I also shoot and kill game with the high weight retention/penetrating bullets (Barnes TSX/TTSX) from time to time.

I am not strongly attached to one or the other, they all work. However I do like the wound channels created by the cup and core 'weight-shedding' type of bullets.

For what it's worth the only big game I have ever hit and lost was a decent whitetail buck that I hit twice, broadside at 150 yards with a 168 TSX from a .30-06. I have to think I hit him well in the chest as it was an easy shot but I never recovered the deer and I just don't know. Followed him a long ways, he bedded down and bled a couple times and eventually I stopped finding blood and lost his tracks amongst other deer tracks.

Other animals killed with that same box were hit and miss type of performance. Good performance on 1 elk (quartering shot through shoulder to rear of rib cage on opposite side at 60 yards) and 1 moose (two shots broadside at 100 yards tucked close to armpit, he stood there wavering around with blood leaking out so I put the second one in and he trotted 15 yards or so and fell over). Two lung shot mule deer didn't travel far but they took awhile to expire. Both had a small hole through their lungs with a small amount of bruising around the wound.

Anyway, I probably veered off topic a bit but what I am getting at is core/jacket separation ain't so bad...haha

[Stinky Coyote]

the 123 gr 6.5 does not have crap sd, it has excellent sd for the weight of bullet, the 6.5 line up has always had unusually high sd compared to anything else, so even the lighter 6.5 bullets have fantastic sd compared to all the normal hunting bullets from the usual cartridges

well, since some of us seem to have forgotten the perspective then...

.308, 168gr eld-m, bc .523, sd .253
.264, 123gr eld-m, bc .506, sd .252

45 grain weight difference(26.8% lighter), 0.044" diameter difference(14.3% less diameter)

lots of big game killed with 100 gr partition out of .243 to 300 yards with roughly 2950 fps launch that not too many seem to argue, partition bc .384, sd .242, that's 18.7% less weight than the 123 and 40.5% less than the 168 and 8% less diam than 123 and 21% less than 168, while the .243 partition example is going a whopping 10% faster with 4% less sd than the 123 gr Grendel...while burning 26% more powder

i know both the .243 and Grendel combo's work well and compare well to each other, i'll take the slower heavier fatter Grendel over the faster lighter .243, both will get'r'done, the Grendel just more efficient by doing essentially the same thing with 26% less powder burned and arguably the higher sd of the Grendel 123 gr bullets would be better choice for any 3rd class game opportunities as well as being over 120 grains in weight with larger frontal area that many seem to prefer

the 6.5 Grendel in practical purposes is the 21st century love child of the .243 win & the 30-30, or you could also call it a 6.5 Creedmoor Short, or the baby .308 win

not trying to tout it as an 800 yard elk rig, but anywhere you'd choose a 30-30 or a .243 this will do the job of both nicely, and covers 0-300 yard big game work without breaking a sweat, which is where 98% of it all happens and 95% under 200 yards where it hardly matters at all what you use