Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 6.5 PRC.

Or a 6.5 PRC

^^^^ This is kinda scary. ^^^^ If stores are stocking ammo for rifles that don't exist, we've got a pretty good recipe for failure. When the next buying period comes around, retailers simply will not re-order merchandise which doesn't sell, and this ammo cannot sell if there are no rifles to use it in.

I hope what we have here is that Hornady knows something we don't, and a few major manufacturers will be bringing out 6.5 PRC rifles shortly.

I'd love to see Winchester and Ruger both do so, and even Remington (although I would not buy a Remington). All of Winchester's WSM models would be easy to adapt, as would Remington's old SAUM models. Ruger chambers both RCM and WSM models, so easy there, too. This cartridge also seems a natural for what Browning has been doing lately with the outstanding X-Bolt series of rifles. I'd like to see this in the standard X-Bolt versions as well as what would seem perfect for the Hell's Canyon Speed and Hell's Canyon Long Range.

A lot of Creedmoor and GAP rifles for sale right now

That is pretty much lineball with my results from my 6.5-06. 3050fps was the best I managed with the 6.5-06 in a long throated Ruger No.1 and Hornady brass.

My 6.5 SAUM easily beat that by 100fps with a slightly longer barrel (25.3inches) and out to the 65k PSI level of that brass I would expect 3200 but a short barrel life.

As indicated in my previous post, when loaded to magazine length in a short Rem700 action the SAUM is 100 to 150fps faster. My 6.5 SAUM with neck turned Norma brass takes 72gn of water on the dot, with a 130gn Berger VLD seated to 2.825in overall length I have 65gn of water remaining. By contrast a 6.5 Rem mag starts with 68gn and ends up with 59gn after same bullet being seated to the same OAL. I would expect similar results from the PRC.

Perhaps I'm just an old fussy-butt, but it occurs to me that leaning on the PRC to turn it into a .264 Win Mag is defeating its purpose and getting farther away from the virtues that make the mild .26s so attractive in the first place: good barrel life and good performance with modest recoil. The PRC as designed is an incremental step towards a bit more power and flatter trajectory than the others without getting into the stuff that made the .264 less than a hit over time. Looks promising.

The boys wanting to soup it up could just skip ahead to a .26 Nosler or 6.5-.300 Wby, but maybe that won't gratify the oulaw mentality.

I finally got too curious, and decided to measure the water capacity of the 6.5 GAP and 6.5 PRC with a 140-grain Berger VLD seated to standard overall length. I used Hornady brass for both, and it turned out the GAP held around 62 grains of water, the PRC 57 grains. Since any gain (or loss) in potential velocity is approximately 1/4 the difference in powder room, when loaded to the same pressure in the same barrel length, this means the PRC will get around 2% less velocity, about 65 fps with loads in the 3000-fps range.

For comparison I also checked the capacity on a 6.5-06 case (Remington brass), which turned out to be half a grain less than the 6.5 GAP.

Even a hardcore hairsplitter would have trouble finding much to rant about there. Looks like another case where one would match their choice to the action or boltface on hand or the production rifle they like.

Meanwhile in Blue Ridge country, the Grendel still looks like a good choice for what I do, oddly enough in the only blue and walnut " deer rifle" I have, unless you count my 10 pound .243, which most days I don't!

People’s Republic Of China

Some fine stuff comes out of the PRC; the gal who brought me coffee in bed this morning for example!

So the GAP does more in a 2.8" short action than the PRC can do in a long action? I still cannot figure out the "why" of a PRC.

Possibly that Hornady already makes .300 RCM brass. Also Not Invented Here syndrome.

Not playing in this pen, but I'd be inclined to go with what Hornady is pushing since they seem to support their stuff well.

Did she get it there fast without a lot of recoil? Was it hot, but not excessive throat eroding hot—flat, but won’t burn your barrel?

I like a little recoil from a woman. Discretion prevents me from discussing my barrel here.

LOL. Yea, probably belongs in the pistol forum.

snubby?

Works for me every time.

Asian gals are easier to impress than some others too, thankfully.

Maybe they're just more polite.

There’s an old Polish proverb, “The bigger the farmer the bigger the potato.” This proverb has no correlate in Ireland.

Could be, but I'm willing to be fooled.