The 6.5-06 has something the others don't.....a very large pile of 270 and .30-06 brass sitting in buckets all over the country.....that's an advantage that is hard to ignore.....and just might be the reason no one makes ammo for it.....it won't sell well with all the "free" brass out there.
But let's be practical....what do we get from a 6.5-06 (regardless of twist) that we don't get from a .25-06 or even the venerable old.270?....and I mean advantages that the "run of the mill" hunter can actually make use of!
yea, yea, yea.....I know.....since when did practicality have anything to do with it? I have used the 6.5 X 55, the .260 Rem, and the .264 Win Mag.....and frankly haven't seen any real advantage one over the other in the field.
I have to hand it to Hornady.....seems their marketing folks could sell ice cubes to eskimos!
Well, to be fair, even with all that brass out there, I suspect they are still managing to sell trainloads of .30-06 and .270 . . . But then taking your side, there are a whole lot of .25-06, .270, and .30-06 actions out there that could be converted with a barrel and that would feed 6.5-06 smooth as can be.
You don't get anything much until you get to ranges most of us don't shoot, and fewer of us should shoot at game . . . But we all want to feed our "inner sniper"!
