My Personal Reload Data

After the prepping has been completed run each casing through the Full length sizing die. You will feel resistance during this process, and that is normal. If you find that you are bottoming out on the casing before you reach full draw on your press, this is normal. Don't force it. You will end up with either a totally deformed case or worse yet, a stuck case! This ain't no fun. I know from experience. You only need to resize enough to get the cartridge to chamber in your weapon. Note: In most cases, you notice a slight deformity in the neck area of the casing after resizing. This is normal and will "blow out" during the fire-forming stage of the process. Exessive deformity may not permit the casing to chamber in your firearm. Be diligent in your first few casings to make sure you do not change the casing too much so that it will not chamber and "lock-up" properly and safely. Note: At this point it may be prudent to remove the sizing lube from a few cases and check for proper chambering in your firearm.

Once all the brass has been resized it would be prudent to tumble the brass in a tumbler with clean media for at least one hour to remove all the excess sizing lube. ***Note: This is especially true if you are using an AR platform for this process. This may be a dangerous step if you fire the "lube-laden" casings in an AR rifle. The casing may not adhere correctly to the chamber which will cause undue pressure to be excerpted upon the bolt and could damage your rifle!! Once tumbling is complete, make sure to inspect the flash hole and the interior of each case and make sure there is no residual media remaining.

After the lube has been removed from the casings again check for any imperfections in the case. Big things to look for here are split necks, cracks anywhere in the casing especially around the shoulder, any damage to the casing around the web area. There will be slight crimpling on the shoulder due to the fact that the 7.62x39 case is tapered. This is the first time you should check for Case OAL. Any cases that are longer than the maximum case length of 1.526" should be trimmed. Alexander Arms posts that 6.5 Grendel cases should be between 1.520" and 1.526" in length. If you have any casings that are long, you should trim them now. All cases should have the case mouth deburred and chamfered inside and out.

The great thing about loading to fire-form is the fact that you can "clean up" some of the excess components you have laying around. If I break down any cartridges for any reason I keep the components in a separate area and use them for "other than ideal" loading excursions. This is where I got rid of a lot of my "odd-lot" components for 6.5mm. I also had to purchase some items, but I did a little "cleaning" during this process as well.
Hodgdon BL-C(2) is a listed powder for the 6.5 Grendel. That is the powder I used for the fire-form loads. I used some "odd-lot" primers that I had removed from other casings (Rem, Win, CCI). Like I stated before, the 7.62x39 Russian case uses a Large Rifle primer, as apposed to the Small Rifle primer used in the Lapua (AA) brass. Just remember that if you do use Russian cases to fire-form you will need to use LR primers. I also used up some of the excess bullets I had in my inventory. All of my fire-form loads have used 120gr bullets so far, as that is what I had excess of. I used Speer Hot Cores, and Nosler BT in these tests. Both bullets worked wonderfully, but I would expect most any 6.5mm bullet would reap the same result, not including the above 130 gr bullets. The 6.5 Grendel was not really designed for any bullets above 130 gr so I would stay away from that arena. Much over that and the bullets are too long and take up too much case capacity to be of any real purpose.

Now for the load I used. I used two different powder charges of Hodgdon BL-C(2). The first round of fire-forming I used a charge of 27.0 grains. The second round I used 24.5 grains or 1.6cc (Lee dipper). Both worked wonderfully from my Encore. As mentioned I used an "odd-lot" of previously used primers (most from the parent cases) and some new Winchester and CCI primers. I used 120gr bullets exclusively and they were either Speer Hot Cores or Nosler BT. I seated both bullets to a COL of 2.180" and did not use any crimp. The bullets were held firmly from the resize and I saw no need to crimp as this would only add pressure, which I did not need.