Seems like people are awfully emotional about the 6.5 Creedmoor on here. I'm buying one because I hear it's not unpleasant to shoot and has excellent factory ammunition available, not because I think it's a miracle cartridge.
Seems like there's a lot of overlap between the creedmoor and many other non-magnum cartridges like the 7mm-08 and 270 Win - a "the deer won't know the difference" sort of situation.
At what point, as you move up the scale in terms of caliber and case size, do you start seeing a clear increase in performance on game from the creed? I'm asking because I like to have rifles that do different things and aren't very redundant.
In short actions, I think that the "eliminated redundancy" step up from the 6.5CM would be the 338FED.
In long actions, the 30-06 seems like as good a place as any to start.
I don't mind redundancy and have hundreds of rifles that are chambered for dozens of redundant cartridges. l have seldom met a cartridge that I couldn't like somewhere along the spectrum from "yuck" to "wow".
One nice byproduct of the 6.5CM's popularity is that manufacturers are starting to sell factory varmint loads, making it a more useful dual-purpose round for those folks who don't reload. Federal is advertising a varmint load with the 95 grain VMax at a claimed 3,300 fps MV that would be strong coyote medicine if they are accurate in your rifle.
I don't understand the strong feelings for or against some cartridges that some folks seem to have, or why they will spend time arguing the merits of one verses another that is, objectively speaking, functionally redundant. I guess that some people just like to argue for the sake of arguing and some folks seem to feel that their way if the only way, all other ways being inferior.
My advise would be to buy a rifle chambered in 6.5CM, if that is what you're thinking of doing, and shoot it a bit, maybe 40 rounds of 5 different brands and bullet styles of factory ammo. If you like it, keep it. If you don't like it, sell it. You'll spend a little money on the ammo and you may lose some money if you sell the rifle, but experience is seldom free and good experience always has a cost. Everybody is different and two people experiencing the exact same physical event may perceive it differently. If you depend on the experience of others to make your decisions, you may make a decision that is sub-optimal for you.
