Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Tikka 6.5 Creed Handloads

I have a stainless lite inbound and am interested in what you guys are getting with 130/140/147gr pills. Seems as thought the 24.4 inch barrel will assist good velocities. I've no intention of shooting factory fodder. Cheers, DG

The only load I've tried is H4350 and Hornady 143 ELD-X. It works great. I did order some Barnes 140 gr Match burners,but haven't gotten around to loading them yet. They were recommended to me by another shooter at the range. The price is very good, around $26 or $27 for 100 IIRC. A little cheaper than the Hornady's for range work. I think I'll stick with the ELD's for hunting.

140gr bullet of your choice and somewhere between 42 and 43.5gr of H4350.

Norma Brass, CCI BR2, 2.875" oal, 43.5 of H4350 - pushes a 139 scenar at 2840 average in my 24" Tikka CTR. Nice rounded primers and could probably push it a bit harder if I wanted to.

I've had such good success with the Hornady Precision Hunter ammo that I have yet to load one round. The 143 grain ELDX is a remarkably accurate and deadly bullet on game.

Not Tikka, but my Fieldcraft 6.5 CM likes 41.5 H4350, 42.5 RE 16 and 46.5 RE 26 w/ the 139 Scenar, 142 Nos ABLR and 143 ELD-X.

Same here, although I will try different hand loads some day.

My daughter's Camilia really likes Hornady American Whitetail. Freaky little groups. I've never had much time for factory fodder. When I started out,it was nothing special. This little round is making it hard to duplicate,let alone improve on its performance.

120 Barnes with IMR 4350. Kills pigs well. I haven’t shot a deer yet .

DG1964 I have the same Tikka as you in 6.5 CM. My particular rifle has a long throat and plenty of room in the magazine to seat the bullets well out. Consequently though, the pressure and thus the velocity is lower with the same loads than most 6.5 CM rifle owners seem to get. 43.2gr of H3450, Lapua SP case and the 143 ELD-X only gets 2,675 fps in my rifle. You may find your rifle is the same. I would start at 39gr of H3450 and work up from there.

After numerous range sessions I've settled on 44.3gr H3450 with the 143 ELD-X for 2,750 fps average (Labradar). The rifle is very accurate although to get the best out of it I had to remove the two little nubs in the barrel channel that the barrel was resting on to make it fully free floating.

Have only shot two deer with the Tikka CM as I haven't had it that long, however one was a head shot at 296 yards as that's all I could see plus a little neck. The other was a lung shot at 163 yards and it staggered for about three seconds and then dropped dead.

Thanks for this info - I'm considering swapping to the long action bolt stop and running the large mags to counter the long throat issue you mentioned. That should allow me to maximise case capacity without requiring a huge jump to the lands.

Can you tell me if your rifle shipped with a M+ magazine? I've heard that Tikka have equipped the Creedmore with a longer mag than they provide in the .308/.243 mags length - but I've yet to confirm this.

I have H4350 on hand and am considering picking up some Reloader 16 since it's reported to boost velocity without running into pressure. I'm going to be shooting the 147gr ELD-M's and the 143gr ELD-X's - I'd be happy with 2750fps.

Cheers,
DG

Mine came with a mag length of 75mm or just a fraction under 3". Plenty of room to load the heavier bullets out to reach the lands if you want.

Excellent info, thanks - my Tikka .308 mag allows for a max COAL of 2.83', so being nearer to 3 is a good improvement - Tikka have been listening.

My 22" Tikka gets 2650 fps with 42gr. H4350 and the 143 ELD-X @ 2.800". The 24" barrel, which was a laminate version gets 2685 fps with the same load. It was my understanding that all 6.5 CM came with the M+ magazine.
We'll see - AK bound in the morning with a caribou tag.

I got one of the stainless Tikkas and lopped the barrel to 21". I am getting 2700 with 147 eld and RL17.

This is 42.4gr of H4350 and 140gr SGK. That was the first and only load tried in "load development." It was too good to deny, and results have been typical and repeatable since then. 5 rounds fired last season meant instant death to 4 pigs and a mature WT buck. I haven't run it across a chrono yet, but will play with it at range to get some accurate numbers shortly.

Tag

My Tikka is not the stainless, but the blued model. Same 24.4" barrel.
Brass - Nosler
Primer - CCI 200
Bullet - Hornady 143 gr ELD-X
Powder - 42.2 gr H4350
OAL - 2.800

Velocity runs right around 2710 with ES in single digits and accuracy is consistently right around .2 for three round groups.