Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Tired of the 6.5 Creedmore

Make my 6.5 the 6.5-06

That's gonna be a beotch seating those.

Yep, sure do. That's what music majors use to shoot up with....

Now your on to something that will shoot those 147gr and still have a little mag box room to spare.Oh,I forgot,it might have too much recoil........Never mind.

Reading this thread has reinforced some things I've thought for quite a while.

1. Some people don't have the self-discipline necessary to choose what they do and do not read. Kind of like mosquitos and moths attracted to a zapper.

2. Some people don't understand that their way is not the only way.

My own thoughts on the Creedmoor are that it is a well-thought out design and I'm glad to see a popular short-action 6.5 that has a higher rate of twist than the .260 Rem. If I didn't already have a .257 Roberts I'd have a 6.5 CM or a fast-twist 260 in a sporter design to complement my heavy-barrel 6.5-06AI.

Choosing a bullet by primarily by its B.C. isn't my way but I don't care what others do. If B.C. was my primary concern I'd shoot a 115g Berger VLD (B.C. 4.66) or some other high B.C. bullet in my .257 Roberts. Instead I shoot a 75g V-MAX, 100g TTSX, 110g AccuBond and 120g A-Frame (B.C.s of .290, .357, .418 and .382 respectively), depending on what I am hunting. In my 6.5-06AI I shoot a 130g Scirocco II (B.C. .571) a 140g A-MAX (B.C. 550) and a 140g BT/AB (B.C. 509). Maybe one of these days I'll get around to trying the 129g LRAB (B.C. .561) or the 142g LRAB (B.C. .719). In any case, my primary concern in choice of bullet is and will continue to be my judgement of the suitability of their construction vis a vis the intended purpose. A .488 bullet in a 6.5 CM wouldn't bother me at all if it had the construction and provided the accuracy I wanted. Would it be the best choice for 1,000 yard target shooting? No, but I don't do that. If B.C. was my primary concern, I'd sell most of my rifles.

The 250 and 300 Savage were and are perfect deer rounds at most ranges most people hunt at. It's all been fluff since then. If you hunt bear, fine use a bear round. If more new hunters would use mild, effective rounds that they can shoot and not flinch, maybe license sales would go up as the new hunters actually enjoy the sport. Hunters are voters, so are their kids.

good question

What you say about the 250-3000 and 300 Savage cartridges is true, but if they were really as good as the cognoscente believe, why weren't they more popular, more successful, than they were?

I like both cartridges, particularly the 250-3000, and own a pile of them, but don't shoot them very often.

As many already know, the 6.5 Creedmoor is simply a well-designed example of a moderate round that can be truly "multi-purpose". This is achieved by case design, twist, bullet/ammo selection, modern rifle design, and mild recoil levels. Much in the way the 30-06 and 375 H&H have always been considered so flexible for big game hunting because of their wide range of available bullets and factory support, the Creedmoor is much the same when you throw in other criteria to include long-range shooting, higher-volume shooting, lower recoil, lower-cost for ammo/components, and remove some of the need for it to handle really big animals (not that it likely couldn't). The draw of having an accurate rifle chambered for a moderate and efficient round that is factory-supported and well-suited to both shooting for fun and hunting deer-sized game is apparent to a lot of hunters and shooters. Some die-hard .270win/.308win/30-06 guys I know are even starting to see the appeal. It helps when the new rifles are accurate as well.

Bullet design had really breathed new life into classics like the Savage rounds, Much the same reason 9mm has became so much more effective than it was in generations past. Not that they weren't effective in the right hands, they are just more forgiving with todays' selection.

A lot of you miss the point of the Creed's development. The whole point of the creed was to create a round that could shoot high BC bullets and still fit in a short action. It doesn't outperform the 260, but it allows more latitude to seat bullets. To to sit here and dismiss high BC bullets when discussing the Creedmoor, defeats its purpose. Obviously a 6.5-284 or 264 offers more velocity, but they require a long action with more powder and recoil.

Someone brought up a 30'06 with 225gr bullets. Yeah, that's what it takes to beat the Creed. 50% more powder and recoil, and you'd probably have to single feed it. Sounds like a winner, lol!

The 300 savage was hugely popular and successful. As usual, something new, something military, something to sell more rifles, came along. The 250 did well, but at a time not far behind black powder and heavy bullets, it was radical.

Agreed. I like the Creedmoor for the same reasons.

The .300 was a huge success back in the day and would have continued except for that pesky .308 Winchester.

If there had been enough consumer demand for the two Savage cartridges, Winchester would have made more Models 54 and 70 chambered for them. They didn't, so now 54s and pre-'64 70s chambered in 250-3000 and 300 Savage are among the least common and command high prices from collectors almost without regard to condition.

Prior to the end of WW2, Remington only chambered the Model 81 in 300 Savage and chose not to offer any rifles chambered in 250-3000. Since 1946 Remington has cataloged the Models 722 and 760 in 300 Savage and the 700 Classics for one year runs in both 250-3000 and 300 Savage, plus a few non-cataloged limited runs in 300 Savage for Grice and ??.

Marlin has never offered any rifles chambered for either of the Savage cartridges.

The 243 drove a stake into the heart of the 250-3000 and the 308 did the same to the 300 Savage, just like the 6.5 Creedmoor is likely to do to the 260.

I do occasionally shoot the 250-3000 in one of Larry Koller's Savage 1920s or one of John Barness' Winchester/USRA 70 Lightweight Carbines, but not often.

Every company has two loves when it comes to chamberings, theirs and military. Like with the military and love,, reason and wise choices has nothing to do with it.

I believe that publicly traded companies are in business to build share holder equity and in the firearms business the headstamp on the cartridge would be irrelevant as long as rifles chambered for those cartridges would sell. Winchester made 54s and 70s in 250-3000 and 70s in 300 Savage, but there wasn't much consumer demand, so they didn't make many. If there had been consumer demand, you can bet that they would have built more of them.

Other than the short neck, that 300 savage case was ahead of its time.

Indeed. And there is most likely a million or more of them out there.

Elaborating on #2 a bit more, you can buy some decent factory ammo for 18-20 bucks vs 30+ for the .260.