AR in 6.5 Grendel
This was it, the first one. My first real project that I started a few years ago. I bought a cheap HVLP spray gun and ordered some Cerakote in order to build a functional, good looking rifle around a 6.5 Grendel Barrel and bolt that a friend of mine sold me. Being that I work with a bunch of other gun-nerds, people are always bringing in gun parts to sell left over parts from projects past and being a gun nerd myself, I had about 1/3 of this gun lying around in my shop already.
This was not the first time I had built an AR, but the first time I had cerakoted one. The upper and lower were Aero Precision as was the hand guard (I forget which models as this was a while ago.) The trigger was a Giselle SSA that I won (basically as a consolation prize) at one of the first Memorial 3 Gun matches. I was incredibly close to last place, but not close enough to get the several hundred rounds they gave to the guys who finished behind me, so they could practice. If you haven’t been to a Memorial 3 Gun match, I highly advise it. Those guys are great.
The grip and buttstock were pretty standard Magpul fare, and the rest of the parts were pretty standard, either CMMG pins and springs, or surplus or donated bits that were lying around. The only two stand outstanding parts remaining are Knights Armament ambidextrous mag release and a Phase 5 extended bolt release. Both excellent parts but not in congress. I’ll get to that in a minute though.
The big deal here was the Cerakote, and what first got me into the process. I started by watching a few videos on Youtube, particularly from the channels Branson Cerakote and Alaskan Mancave. The process of learning and figuring out exactly WTF I was doing started here and is continuing to this day. I used burnt bronze and FDE (flat dark earth). I had the bright idea to do accent pieces in burnt bronze and and the larger components, like the upper, lower and hand guard.
The smaller stuff, like the buffer tube. muzzle brake and castle nut were done in burnt bronze. The mag release and bolt catch were burnt bronze as well, but I had to change the mag release out, due to some functional issues it was having. With these two components on the same rifle, you will have issues locking the bolt open manually, and it was not staying open for an empty mag. So before selling it, I changed out the mag release to a standard milspec one. I sold the rifle shortly after finishing the build and putting about 60 rounds through it for about $200 over what I had into it. This was right at the start of Covid and everything was shutting down. So I tool that $200, bought some more Cerakote and moved on to the next project. But for the record, I had no intention of selling this rifle as it was an absolute tac-driver of a unit.