98Z5V

Yep, they're calling 1:8" twist these days, for the heavies. 103gr ELD-X (.512 G1), 105gr HPBT (.530 G1), and 108gr ELD-M (.536 G1) from Hornady are pretty badass. My 6 ARC is a 1:7" twist, so I'm gonna shoot the heaviest thing that I can find for that bastard. Right now it's the 108 ELD-Ms. 200 factory loaded rounds already waiting, and another 300 to load and "determine my handload..." After that, I'm switching to the 110gr A-Tips. They're rollin' a .604 G1, which is just crazy. The .243 Win bolt gun I have is a 26" heavy barrel, but it's a 1:9 1/8" twist. I think I'll stick to the 95gr stuff for that, which are still good. I'll try some heavies in it, and see what it likes. If it doesn't like any 103, 105, or 108gr stuff - I'll just load that up and shoot it through the 6 ARC.

New 6.5G BCG arrives tomorrow. I'll build this thing this weekend. Well, I'll rip down and rebuild the Valk, into a 6 ARC. For the upper, it's just a barrel replacement, so it's nothing to do. Replace a different BCG, load a different mag... Done. Shoot groups, or re-zero a scope to shoot real groups. That's minor. If I can get my hands on a MagnetoSpeed V3 before this weekend, I'll shoot the initial shot strings this weekend. Yeah, when it's 116* here. FML.

I'll find out, brother. You know for a fact that I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. 1.5 mils of difference at 850 yards is HUGE! 50* to 105* is huge, too. And it's in the Relative Pressure... "Station Pressure" in my Kestrel... Sam at Panhandle Precision explains this much better than I can... Kudos to Sam. GunWerks blows this out, too, in a written article - but he breaks it down to Density Altitude. DA is a combination of pressure, temp, and humidity, into one number - and it's an important number: https://www.gunwerks.com/blog/long-range-pursuit-2/post/shooting-under-pressure-22

Has to be powder specific, but that's suppoed to be a temp-stable powder, too. Which makes me wonder... That's just one wild temp range extreme to deal with, and the biggest change is the Relative Pressure - not directly the Barometric Pressure, but the Relative Pressure, from the temperature change. After seeing that - and I couldn't get the 18 Grendel on the 850 target at 105*... and that's Accurate 2520 powder... I stopped on the Grendel, but I stayed after it on the Mk11 gun. I'll get a powder that's supposed to be completely temp stable - even if I don't have one sitting here, and I'll specifically test this. It's gonna take me 6 months to do it, completely, but I'll get my hot-weather data before August is over, while it's still hot-as-fuk here. I'll shoot that same load again on an early January morning, 2021...

Time to update this thread with new info, just so it stays pertinent. I picked up 1100 primed once-fired Lake City .308 cases from @dpete, and formulated a brand new load for a brand new 18.5" Mk11 gun. I made the decision to jump to the Hornady .308 178gr ELD-X projectile, just because it's so much better than the Hornady 178gr HPBT that I was using before. The bonus in all this is, it's the ELD-X, and works great for hunting, and slays dragons target-shooting. It WORKS. Running Accurate 2495 powder at 40.6 grains with a CCI 200 primer gets me 2530fps in 50* weather. It gets me 2630fps in 105* weather. There are no brass issues, either at 50* or 105* - just takes two different dope charts for those extremes. 8.5 mils at 850 yards for one, 7.0 mils at 850 yards when it's superhot out...

Pretty cool. Good to see the Grendel Forum behind the 6 ARC.

If it was only up to Drew @imschur, I think that's the way it could be - I think he has a Man-Crush on me. A Bro-Mance. @Robocop1051, @edgecrusher, and @Matt.Cross got tired of my free ride, and made me start producing, or get out... They're Hell to work for...

It's like a boat, man. Do you have a boat? A boat is just a hole in the water that you keep pushing money into. "BOAT" just means "Break Out Another Thousand..."... Same way with these things. Money-pit - just like a boat... But these thing don't lose their value, over time. And don't need much maintenance, from keeping them to turning into a complete piece of shiit - like a neglected boat would... You're not in bad hands here, relaaaaaxxxxx... We're looking OUT for you right now. Might seem strange, I get it. Over time, here, you'll realize that we weren't just fuckin' with you... we have your best interests at heart here. ***Whether YOU know your best interests,right now, is not our concern - we already know what those best interests are... once you showed up here...***

Man! I'm SWEATIN' after that!.... You're gonna be FUN here!... I don't mean that as a slam, by no means - from your history, you just don't fuk around... Now based on that, you need to WATCH OUT for several people on this board - I'll point them out as they post up... You need to WATCH those fuckers - they're only out for your money... Some of these guys are Shady As Fuk. I'm just sayin'...

I support everything that Aero Precision told you.

Don't know about the Stoner A3 uppers, personally. Just build from Aero Precision M5 receivers - never seen a single issue from them, and I have a pile of them for reference. 6.5 Creemoor ammo feeds just fine through the regular-suspects of .308AR magazines. Don't build just an upper, man. Even though an AP M5 upper would pin to your DPMS LR-308 lower receiver. Here's my rationale on this - what good does 1.5 guns do you?... What can you do with 1.5 guns? Only one thing at a time is the short answer. If you really want a 6.5 C gun - just build another gun. 2.0 guns beat 1.5 guns, every single time that you run the math...

I get it...

@Charlie - check these out, brother. They're nice, I've already fingered them and licked them.

Just released today. I handled these at the last SHOT, and they're pretty damn nice. I'm not gonna put them on the pedestal of a LaRue LT-158 mount, that I love so much, but they're easily on par or slightly better than the Armalite (old school) scope mounts, and the Rock River Arms scope mounts (almost clones of the Armalite mounts). These are nice, men. These mounts are part of our mid-tier optics line called GLx. GLx brings premium technology and materials into an approachable price range. Made in the USA, Primary Arms GLx Scope Mounts utilize cutting-edge materials to secure your rifle scope with exceptional consistency. All GLx Scope Mounts feature black zinc phosphate-coated steel hardware, providing 65 in-lbs of torque to eliminate optics shift. Combined with a lightweight 6061-T6 frame, these mounts are a powerful balance of strength and agility. They're available in 30mm and 34mm, and I'll be checking out one of these 30mm mounts SOON. The 20-MOA one, to be specific. Click it. https://www.primaryarms.com/1+Scope-Mounts/OpticType+30mm/custitem_optic_series+GLx?trk_msg=18G2IIIB2LT4F2CE447HUSUCB4&trk_contact=8V0L65B89JG3CKL2PPP2IG35AC&trk_sid=D3PO05LA40KN48U8FCO8NJ9P9G&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=BUTTON_1&utm_campaign=20_07_AD20_GLxMnt-Rdy2Ship

RIGHT!...

It's killing me, brother - with what's already sitting here. I should be shooting this thing already. That'll start happening, very soon. I'll just use the Aero handguard that on the Valk right now. I'm already stealing it's upper receiver and full lower, anyway. No reason to take it's lower apart. All I'm basically doing is taking the barrel and BCG out of the Valk, and putting in a new TC Grendel BCG with this 6 ARC barrel. Change Valk (6.8) mags over to Grendel mags - we're in business. I don't even have to touch the leveled scope - Won't even take it off the upper. No need, it'll work just fine for slingin' lead and getting it zero and through the chrono. After I get about 50 rounds of brass, it's game on for reloading. You sure? There's zero price difference. Your call.

They don't keep me on the payroll just because I'm SO DAMN SEXY...

On the magic 6 ARC that I've got going, I have potentially another (almost) 3 months that I could wait for this upper kit. For the time being, I'm not going to wait to shoot this, and start load development on this cartridge. So, I ordered some small parts tonight, and I'm gonna rip some hard parts out of the .224 Valk, reassemble a "temporary 6 ARC gun," and get on with this stuff. I picked up another ToolCraft 6.5 Grendel BCG (The Valk runs a 6.8 SPC bolt/BCG), a gas tube and lo-pro gas block. I'm not gonna disturb the gas block on the Valk barrel. I'll pull the barrel, mount the 6 ARC barrel in the Valk upper, and do my initial runs on this gun like that. When it's all said and done, I'll just have a spare Grendel BCGsitting around. With the amount of Grendels on-hand, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Time to get this shiit going men. Not waiting forever to get the initial firing, initial data, and load development started...

Receiver sets are coming in next week, so I'll grab the upper and lower. M4E1 set. They have the limited edition Freedom set coming, and John got some of those before they sold out - you want plain M4E1, or the Freedom version? Here's the markings on it:

Yep, you're both fucked... Luckily, I fucked myself on that stuff about 10 years ago...

Makes perfect sense to me, especially to run it in both. My 45/70 load could go up another 5.0 grains. Yeah, fuk that. Everyone here that has shot that bastard knows that another full 5 grains of powder would be just brutal. It sucks as it is now...

Hilarious, brother!!! I didn't see your post until right now, but I got up this morning, hit my coffee, and stumbled upon that video... Something from Rob Dahm's 4-rotor vids led me to that one...

Got ya.

From what I've seen throughout the years, the Hornady reloading data is conservative, quite a bit so. All my precision rifle loads are always over whatever the max listed is. Just where ever they work out for that particular gun or load, but they're always over the top of the table numbers. NOTE FOR OTHERS - I do NOT condone starting out with a load that's OVER the max listed in any reference material. However, if you're well-versed in this stuff... Where you end up is where you end up. Just be smart about it.

Here's the factory manual for your gun - your specific rifle is on the far left, on the cover page of the manual: https://www.vintagegunleather.com/gun-manuals/pdf_D/dpms_pantherarms.pdf 4-digit serial numbers up to (confirmed) 4,5xx - were all pre-ban guns (made prior to the Clinton AWB). That one you have, definitely has some age to it. Looks like a 24" barrel, though - but maybe it was cut down throughout the years... DPMS manufactured 10,300 total rifles before 13 Sep 1994 - those were the total number of "pre-bans" that they had to account for.