6.5 Grendel feeding issues

[TC338]

I bought my dad a 6.5 Grendel upper to deer hunt with since his bad shoulder prevents him from accurately shooting a standard rifle. He is having issues with feeding on the initial charging of the rifle. The bolt never wants to go into battery after picking up the first round. Usually have to drop the mag and pull the bolt back again and let it seat itself over the round in the chamber. Upper was purchased complete and using 6.5 Grendel specific mags. Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

 

[Axl]

could be in need of some lube on the moving parts

 

[Ckgworks]

It's hard to diagnose with the available information over the internet, but we can guess..... A couple thing with my Grendels......A full mag can be pretty tight and put a lot of up pressure on the bolt sliding forward. Try leaving out a round or two and try it. I have had a couple AR's that were very tight, and needed shot quite a bit, and cleaned/lubed often until they "Broke in"-(This includes magazines), and operated slick. Until they wore in, I had to hit the bolt release to chamber the first round, you could not slowly let the bolt forward......My Guess is it's a combo of new gun and stiff, tight mags. .......If you have the option, try a well used/different brand magazine as well.

I assume that you are shooting Factory ammo....If not there might be something there.

 

[TC338]

It's hard to diagnose with the available information over the internet, but we can guess..... A couple thing with my Grendels......A full mag can be pretty tight and put a lot of up pressure on the bolt sliding forward. Try leaving out a round or two and try it. I have had a couple AR's that were very tight, and needed shot quite a bit, and cleaned/lubed often until they "Broke in"-(This includes magazines), and operated slick. Until they wore in, I had to hit the bolt release to chamber the first round, you could not slowly let the bolt forward......My Guess is it's a combo of new gun and stiff, tight mags. .......If you have the option, try a well used/different brand magazine as well.

I assume that you are shooting Factory ammo....If not there might be something there.

I'll try lubing everything and taking out one round. This is the only Grendel we own so I don't have access to a used mag. I'm completely new to the ar platform so any advice is appreciated.

 

[dv808]

My cousin also uses a Grendel AR for hunting and needs to drop the bolt to get the rbolt all the way into battery. Every time he tries to load a round into the chamber, he'd drop the bolt and I'm sure whatever game in in the area at the time start to scatter. Whenever he tries to "quietly" feed a round, he needs to use quite a bit of force to manipulate the forward-assist and get the round fully into battery. It is possible but quite difficult to pound your palm on the assist.

What we found in his instance was that the extractor was really stiff and needed quite a bit of force to get over the lip of the brass. We found this out when I bought him a set of go/no go gauges. He built his AR himself and never checked the chamber when he was done. When we removed the extractor to test his chamber, the bolt would go all the way into battery. We think it's due to the fact the gun is still relatively new and hasn't really been broken in yet. I told him to buy some dummy rounds and practice dropping the bolt a few minutes every night and see if things loosen up.

I forget what brand of bolt he's using. It's actually his second bolt. I remember that when he first shot the gun, the bolt kept getting stuck in battery. He had to bang the butt against the ground while pulling back on the handle. After his second or third shot, the gas tube sheared off the top of the bolt when he tried to pull back the stuck bolt. I finally got him to buy his first bolt action rifle.

 

[RT2506]

It very well could be a too strong ejector spring. Some people have reported that they needed to clip a coil off their ejector spring to improve function. This also helped some that were getting big dents in the side of their ejected cases where it was being slammed into the deflector. I would lube up everything really good and go shoot it a bunch first before doing any alterations because it could be just too stiff and need running, magazines included.

 

[MudRunner2005]

I bought my dad a 6.5 Grendel upper to deer hunt with since his bad shoulder prevents him from accurately shooting a standard rifle. He is having issues with feeding on the initial charging of the rifle. The bolt never wants to go into battery after picking up the first round. Usually have to drop the mag and pull the bolt back again and let it seat itself over the round in the chamber. Upper was purchased complete and using 6.5 Grendel specific mags. Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Some mags can be faulty. I saw a video where the guy was having feeding issues with his 6.5G, and it was the magazine. He tried a different mag, and the issues stopped. Try buying some higher-end mags like the Elander mags. I haven't had any issues with my C-Products 6.5G magazines.

I wish Magpul would make some PMags for the 6.5 Grendel.

Also, clean the chamber and clean the insides of the upper, and the barrel adapter (where the locking lugs go into) and make sure there's no trash in there. Then lube it up using RemOil or SLP.

It could just need breaking in. How many rounds have you put through it?

 

[TC338]

Some mags can be faulty. I saw a video where the guy was having feeding issues with his 6.5G, and it was the magazine. He tried a different mag, and the issues stopped. Try buying some higher-end mags like the Elander mags. I haven't had any issues with my C-Products 6.5G magazines.

I wish Magpul would make some PMags for the 6.5 Grendel.

Also, clean the chamber and clean the insides of the upper, and the barrel adapter (where the locking lugs go into) and make sure there's no trash in there. Then lube it up using RemOil or SLP.

It could just need breaking in. How many rounds have you put through it?

Around 40

 

[MudRunner2005]

Around 40

Yeah, it might just need some wearing in, and the BCG is still fitting tight and so are the bolts locking lugs.

If the problem persists, contact the company that built the upper, or that made the barrel and bolt.

Also, make sure that the bolt and barrel are both 6.5 Grendel Type 2. That could be the issue. You might have a type 1 bolt, and a type 2 barrel... That could be the issue. What that signifies is the headspace depth in the bolt's face. Type 1 is based on a 7.62x39 bolt, which only has a 0.125" counterbore. Type 2 is a 0.136" counterbore. You need to make sure both the upper and bolt are the same type.

 

[Terry wickenheiser]

I'd lean towards magazine issues. I have heard of many people with Grendel feeding issues that were fixed by switching mags.

 

[5.56×250]

Be careful about reducing the ejector spring strength. It doesn't take much to affect the ejection of spent cases negatively . I had a bolt in one of my grendels that gave me all kinds of grief because the ejector spring was weak and the button it self didnt protrude all the way to the outer face of the bolt. Empty cases would hang up about every 2nd or 3rd time. Before I started adjusting the gas block, I swapped out the bolt from another grendel. It went from hanging or dropping spent rounds right next to the gun , to sending rounds to 4 o'clock in a neat pile 8 ft away.
I think you just need to shoot it more as is and let it break in before you start changing ejector pressure.

 

[lyle2231]

I bought my dad a 6.5 Grendel upper to deer hunt with since his bad shoulder prevents him from accurately shooting a standard rifle. He is having issues with feeding on the initial charging of the rifle. The bolt never wants to go into battery after picking up the first round. Usually have to drop the mag and pull the bolt back again and let it seat itself over the round in the chamber. Upper was purchased complete and using 6.5 Grendel specific mags. Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Get on 6.5Grendel .com. Make sure you disassemble the bolt and lube carrier and bolt liberally. Stuff in the black bottle is popular in most circles.

 

[Chad Erickson]

As a neophyte AR-15 owner shooting the 6.5 Grendel, I had 12 months of such cycling problems. Here are three fixes that totally solved my problems:
1. Purchased the AR-15 cleaning tool and scrapped out the inside of the bolt. Mine was FULL of carbon crude.
2. Upgraded to a stronger ejector.
3. Last, but not least, I replaced the carbine length buffer spring with a rifle buffer spring, and added a heavier buffer. This one did the trick.

It functions flawlessly now. Guess I won't sell it after all. Other hints are to reduce carbon build up by staying away from cheap ammo, reloading with a faster burning power, and cleaning and oiling at 100 round intervals.

 

[Carolinadx]

Some mags can be faulty. I saw a video where the guy was having feeding issues with his 6.5G, and it was the magazine. He tried a different mag, and the issues stopped. Try buying some higher-end mags like the Elander mags. I haven't had any issues with my C-Products 6.5G magazines.

I wish Magpul would make some PMags for the 6.5 Grendel.

Also, clean the chamber and clean the insides of the upper, and the barrel adapter (where the locking lugs go into) and make sure there's no trash in there. Then lube it up using RemOil or SLP.

It could just need breaking in. How many rounds have you put through it?

I had similar issue- Dura Mag 6.5Grendel specific mag solved mine