Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles More good news for 6.5 Creedmoor shooters!

Hornady is offering a 129 grain Interlock hunting load in their least expensive, American Whitetail, line.

Nice!

If anything keeps this cartridge around, it will not be that it offers anything new, but that there is very good factory ammunition being made for it.

Factory ammunition and a SAAMI specified 8" twist rate. The lack of those 2 things really hurt the 260 Rem. Some Lapua brass would be nice, but that won't have much (any?) affect on long term popularity.

David

I got 3 boxes of it last week.

Jeff, have you heard anything else about the runs of brass WW was supposed to do this summer? Specifically 7 WSM?

Also, tried to PM you about a rifle you mentioned selling, but your PM box is full.

Nice i have been shooting the 120gmx superformance

The Hornady factory ELD-M ammo is scary accurate. Out of a handful of groups, I don't think it's ever been over .5" out of a Ruger American Predator. Looking forward to trying ELD-X ammo. My loads with RL17 are in the .5-.6 range so I guess that'll do too.

The popularity of the Creedmoor is really soaring. It's great to see a reasonably priced hunting round for it being produced.

I've great luck with the whitetail load in 270, 30-06 and 308. It has been surprisingly accurate.

I bought three boxes of it last evening. The price was right at just a sniff over $20 per box.

I have three 264 win mags, two Sako L-61's and a pre 64 Westerner. All with 26 inch barrels. I like them a lot. I bought a Savage hunter-predator in 6.5 Creedmoor. It has a 24 inch barrel. Out to 350 yards it kills deer and pigs just as well. Burns a whole lot less powder. I wish Remington would chamber the 6.5 Creed in the 700.

Nothing wrong with the .260 except poor execution. At this point, the CR makes more sense due to more choices being available. Gotta think the Lapua brass can't be far off, but based on the Hornady .243 brass I'm using, it ain't bad.

Does Hornady still put the load data on the 6.5 ammo boxes?

Pappy, the Hornady brass is trash - soft, primer pockets are consistently shallow, flash holes are egg not round, and neck thickness varies by at least 0.002". Winchester is making some and it is decent, which is what I am using now, but the two newest 6.5's I have had built are chambered in 260 with a 298 neck and throated for 140 bergers at magazine length. Until Lapua makes brass for the Creedmoor, the 260 much better meets my needs. And it is a good 50-70 fps faster. However, these are my PRS guns. I don't think I would worry as much in a hunting rifle. Although, 6.5x47 seems to be picking up a following.

yeah. some folk don't like to prep brass.

I ran 50 .243s through the collet die just now and there might be one that has a flash hole that is ever so slightly out of round, but I can't be sure, even viewing it on the inside with a decapping pin inserted. I would imagine that drilling the holes entails that risk somewhat. They are all centered nicely and of course, burr free.

I don't have a ball mic and the hand trimmer didn't touch the mouths, so I couldn't eyeball the necks. That'll have to wait till later, as will deciding if they're soft or not.
The case mouths were all round, square edged, and ding and nick free, unlike some.

Wouldn't exactly say I don't like it, but after doing a couple hundred LC .308s, I might be a little tired of it just now.

Can someone explain this to me? And please pardon my ignorance. I can understand a target shooting/ competition load needing to be inexpensive, but do people really fire that much hunting ammo to have cost be much of a factor? I guess working up a load would require some bullets, and maybe if you're talking a varmint round, where you're shooting tons of pests. But for big game? I'd think a bullet could cost $5 a piece and it still wouldn't be much, given how little are shot. I'm probably way off base, but I'm curious.

Combine inexpensive ammo, like this, and inexpensive rifles, like the Howa 1500 and RAR-Predator, and you get a synergistic marketing effect that makes the manufacturers of the firearms and ammunition happy. Cheap and available ammo prompts people to buy rifles chambered for that ammo.

Target/competition ammo is often more expensive because it is produced to a higher standard with more expensive bullets.

Federal's American Eagle target loads are about as inexpensive as the American Whitetail hunting loads.

In the grand scheme of things, you are right. The cost of a round of hunting ammo is just a drop in the bucket. Even if you go to the range once a year with your hunting rifle and burn a box of ammo, the cost is inconsequential.