Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 6.5 Remington Magnum

I am thinking of having a rifle built in 6.5 Remington Maganum, does anyone have any experience with the calibre?
I will be using it for general hunting for feral animals ( Please note, I live in Australia, therefore feral animals are pigs, goats foxes etc, with the odd deer )
Questions
1) Barrel Length
2) Barrel Twist Rate
3) General Barrel Life
4) Perhaps I would be better off building a 6.5/06

Any Help appreciated

There was a recent article in a magazine on this caliber, but can't find it online. Think it was in Rifle.

Spoke highly of it, but this caliber wasn't a big hit at the time it came out. Factory ammo options pretty limited...if any at all.

The best reviews tend to be with the 6.5x.284 Norma, albeit factory ammo still hard to come by other than from Norma.

Also, 6.5 Creedmoor is getting good press. And then there's the .260 Remington. Factory ammo choices available for both of these.

If you're into handloading, then it's whatever tickles your fancy. Certainly '06 brass is the easiest to come by.

FWIW.

Have a look here:

6.5 Rem Magnum---old cartridge new powders

John

I'm in the early stages of a mountain rifle build and thinking

22-23" - rem mag/sporter contour
1:8
Barrel life will be more rounds than I will ever shoot it
I didn't consider a long action cartridge because donor is a short action, mag bolt face.

It is within sight of a .264 Win with longer barrel life and a shorter barrel; 24". You can make brass from a 7 mm Rem with not much trouble. Mine is on a Ruger standard action and will run 3275 fps. using a 125 gr. Nosler or 3325 using a 120 gr. Sierra. My rig all up weighs 7 lbs. in a kevlar Brown stock.

Good article on the .264 Win. Mag here...

http://www.shootingtimes.com/2013/05/13/hot-off-the-press-shooting-the-264-winchester-magnum/

I had a Remington in 6.5 Mag in the early 70's. It had a 18.5" barrel and shot 120 gr bullets just fine. They were fast and accurate. But that thing had a muzzle blast that had to be seen to be believed. We used to shoot it at night just to watch the fire ball. I have no idea what it would be like with some of the more modern powders, but with 120 gr bullets and a 22" barrel, I think the Remington 600 would have lasted a lot longer. 140 grain bullets used up a good bit of powder capacity because the overall cartridge length was limited in the Remington 600 action. If your rifle has a magnum bolt face and with modern powders and a longer barrel it might be worth looking into.