Thread: Operation Grendel Tactical Featherweight

Well as the title says, I wanted a super lightweight and short carry rifle in a “do it all cal” ….Grendel was high on my list with its great ballistics but I also wanted a true micro short action wit a light and super compact action.
Top of my list was a CZ 527.
CZ America offer a 527 in Grendel but its not available here so I picked up a custom build.

The donor rifle is a CZ 527 carbine in 7.62x39 now fitted with a target profile Truflite 1-8” twist ultra match barrel at 14.5” long and fitted with a 6.5mm Hardy compact over barrel suppressor.



So the plan was to make it either a take down or be collapsible “tanker” style to the most compact it could be (while remaining over 762mm) so a folding or collapsible stock was top of the design list. I also wanted to make a very light and minimalistic pistol gripped chassis to bed it in.

The barrelled action and other essentials weighed a fraction over 2kg. There wasn’t a lot more weight I could safely reduce from those parts other than some barrel fluting or a carbon wrapped barrel which is on the to do list.





I did drop a few grams by fitting a carbon/delrin extended bolt knob bit that was more to get better leverage on the tiny action.
















Next up, into the 4 jaw chuck went a block of 6061 T6 square bar to machine a thread for a milspec AR15 buffer tube.













Once threaded it was into the mill to cut the inletting profiles of the action and magazine.










After a few pre-fits and adjustments to get the mag catch working smoothly I took to it pretty hard with angled shaping drilling and fluting to remove any material that wasn’t needed for structural strength.

















One more pre-fit with some odd AR parts I had on hand and a measure up before prepping the new chassis and rifle for Duracoat. The 9” fore end, light weight adjustable stock and Fab defence AK grip were still on order.
Minimum length achieved with Magpul extending stock and the total weight is still a very respectable 2.6kg (5.7 lbs)







A good degrease, spray and bake with some Tactical OD Green Duracoat and it all looks like I had envisioned.
















Final assembly once all the AR parts arrived and its mission complete.