What I think is odd, is the 6.5x55 has been around for 100 years and the 6.5 Creedmoor just duplicates it. I don't see the "oh wow" attraction. I read people raving about it, but WTF? I'd prefer the 6.5x55 just because it is classic. My younger brother's favorite deer rifle is a 700 Classic in 6.5x55. He also has a 6.5x55 on a '96 action, but it isn't quite as accurate.
Bugger,
Have explained all this before, but will have another go at it:
Generally older handloaders are the ones voicing your opinion. This is because they apparently can't understand any rifle shooter who doesn't handload, but the vast majority of shooters do not. For them the 6.5x55 cannot duplicate 6.5 Creedmoor "ballistics," because 6.5x55 throats are all over the map, the reason many ammunition companies load it down somewhat, especially in the U.S. Accuracy can also vary considerably, due to the same throating problem, and older 6.5x55 rifles may not be able to safely withstand "modern" pressures.
The 6.5 Creedmoor was indeed designed to approximate the "best" 6.5x55 ballistics, and solve the problem created with the .260 Remington in modern "short" actions when shooters started wanting to use longer, high-BC bullets. This was done by creating a somewhat shorter cartridge than the .260, with a chamber throat specifically designed to work well with higher-BC bullets.
This worked so well that even very "affordable" 6.5 Creedmoor rifles shoot very well with "affordable" factory ammo (or at least the ammo was affordable before the present buying panic"). This is NOT true of the 6.5x55, or even the .260, because few ammo companies ever leaned into loading really accurate ammo for the .260--and when they did it cost more.
I have fooled around with at least eight 6.5 Creedmoors. My first was a walnut-stocked Ruger Hawkeye purchased in 2010, mostly out of curiosity and a potential article or two. I also bought a few boxes of Hornady ammo. The rifle's very first 100-yard group measured around .6 inch, and it shot pretty much like that with ALL the ammo.
Since then I've owned four more 6.5 Creedmoors, mostly because I was curious about whether they would do the same thing. Have also fooled around with a few 6.5 Creedmoors costing 5+ times as much as that Ruger, and some factory rifles costing a lot less. The WORST factory ammo accuracy from any of them--a rifle then retailing for around $200--was three shots in an inch. Most did a lot better, and the expensive rifles didn't do a great deal better than the "affordable" rifles.
In fact I know several handloaders who didn't bother handloading the 6.5 Creedmoor until ammo became hard to find and more expensive. They could buy off-the-shelf loads that shot so well they could spend far more time shooting, rather than handloading--and then sell the fired brass to handloaders.
If the 6.5x55 could do all of that, in very affordable factory rifles with affordable factory ammo, then the 6.5 Creedmoor probably wouldn't exist. But the 6.5x55 doesn't do that, and never will.
