Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Drinking the Creedmoor Kool-Aid?

I have had several and the Bergara Ridge Wilderness SP has been the best and the standard Bergara Hunter a close 2nd.

I can only speak from my experience. My Tikka T3x Lite 6.5CM has grouped all the factory loads I’ve shot well, and the loads it really likes are .5 MOA. With only a few exceptions, POI is pretty close for the factory loads I’ve tried 125 - 143 grains.

How's the Mesa shoot? Ammo and scope? Thanks.

For hunting here in Alaska all me and my family use is .338's and 30-06's. Bought a Tikka Superlite Creed couple years ago for a grand son to use and it shoots very well. I had the barrel cut to 22 inches and this is a hunting rifle to me and should work ok on any of our Alaskan critters, but don't plan on chasing wounded brown/griz in the alders with it. So far no critters have been killed with it, but see no reason it won't do the job if we do our part.

Put a SWFA 3-9x42 HD mil scope on it so me and the grand kids could learn the mil system and see what all the fuss about twisting turrets for hunting is about. I don't see us using the dialing feature very often, but maybe on a caribou hunt. We rarely need to shoot past 200 yards. The rifle is fun to play with at the range and makes me wish we had a local deer population.

For now I load the 127 grain Barnes LRX in Norma brass, Federal 210 primers and a case full of H4350. All of this is very easy on the shoulder and that Tikka trigger is simple to adjust to a light crisp pull. For the most part I am not a fan of detachable magazines in what I consider a "serious" Alaskan hunting rifle and we did have one magazine issue on a early caribou hunt. Which is why I carry a pair of the 5 round magazines in the field.

another Swede guy here......

Not sure what the CM does better than the Swede has for the last 125 yrs

in stock at Euro Optics

https://www.eurooptic.com/JRTXA351-Tikka-Tikka-T3x-Hunter-65x55-SE-224--barrel-MPN-JRT.aspx

So many different brands of brass are good. Hornady, starline, and even the sellior and bellot brass has been just fine. No need to over spend on fancy lapua brass. Its not necessary

I really like my Swede. Had it done with a full Mannlicher stock. Its very accurate and a pleasure to shoot and look at.

Always amazes me when people spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on a rifle, scope, dies, etc...maybe even several rifles and scopes....then gripe about the cost of brass or bullets.

Checking Midway for reference--

Starline 6.5CM brass is $0.47 a piece for 50 or $0.45 a piece for 500 which is the cheapest listed.

Hornady is $0.64 a piece for 50...$0.48 if you spring for 250 cases.

Lapua is $1.00 a piece.

If you are a competition shooter going through hundreds of pieces of brass a year...I could understand the concern.

If you are a hunter that MIGHT fire a few hundred shots per year with that specific rifle...then just buy the better brass and enjoy the wonderful consistency and case life that is going to come with it since its going to last you several years anyway. If you get 10 firings on that piece of brass, then the brass only cost you $0.10 per shot anyway.

Maybe you didn't actually read my post. I stated that " I should say that I've found both Hornady and Nosler 6.5 CM brass to be as consistent as any brass I've ever used."

I should add that I own and use some Lapua brass as well. Does that clarify?

Except that it does it with optimized and standardized pressure, chamber and throat and brass dimensions which make it an "easy button" solution for precision with off the rack rifles. This is particularly good for those who don't handload.

I read it...loud and clear. Similarly, I too have and use Hornady brass as well as Norma, Win, Rem and some other odd ball brands. For my M700 .223R varmint rig, I use mostly Win because I find screaming deals on 1x fired brass and just sort through for cases that have <0.001" neck wall variance. I save the culls for my AR15.

I have had good success with Hornady...but when checking neck wall concentricity, I still see more variance with Hornady than I do with Lapua or Norma. And as has been discussed many times, neck wall (and overall) concentricity is a huge factor in straight ammo.

Since the OP was very keenly focused on ACCURACY first...my first recommendation for brass was Lapua due to the stellar consistency I have experienced with that brand over others.

Did I go into a full "Karen" rant? Sure...but it does make me go all "crooked dog glance" when people say they want top level accuracy then gripe about the cost of brass after investing all kinds of money elsewhere.

Well, now there's Alpha brass that's even MORE better than Lapua. Gotta keep up with the Cool Kids. You should toss all that other crap.

If they made brass for a chambering I owned, I would probably give it a run...

Guess that means I'm not one of the cool kids.

Like I said, there's no reason to buy Lapua brass for the creedmoor. Starline and other manufactures are good enough. Read the reviews on the Starline 6.5 creedmoor brass and the tests they put it though. There was an article published by rifleshooter, that you may want to read. The author loaded it 15 times without any failure of any kind and it still maintained sub moa accuracy. Here's that article:
Rifleshooter tests Starline 6.5 creedmoor brass

As for me, I have tested the chidt out of it myself and have been very pleased with it. Last year I put 1,300 rounds though one of my creedmoor rifles and then I sold it to a buddy. That rifle is still shooting sub moa 10 shot groups:

For a POS savage, that rifle shoots pretty good. Oh yeah, I shoot competitively as well. I also don't believe anyone here has bested my MOA all day long challenge score with their 6.5 Creedmoor rifle:


You are more than welcome to try to best my score with your Lapua brass. I don't think it's going to happen though, as there is usually just a lot of talk about how good something is, but no body here is willing to post up proof. One of my creedmoor rifles is hard on brass because it is an auto chucker:


I shoot crappy S&B brass though this rifle mostly because it is hard on brass. S&B works well enough in this rifle:


However, Starline brass works in this AR10 as well:



Now for Hornady brass, I like that chidt too. I will buy the cheap azzed American gunner when it goes on sale. I've bought it for as little as $150.00/case of 200. For factory ammo, it shoots pretty good in most rifles. Here's another one of my creedmoor rifles shooting 10 shot groups:


Guys want to "drink the creedmoor kool-aid" and for good reason. Great factory ammo for the creedmoor and its easy to load for. What I think is wrong is when guys come on here saying you got to buy a certain brand of this or that and cant prove its any better than the competition. Again, show some proof that your Lapua brass is better. I like Lapua brass and use it, but for the creed, not so much....Its just not necessary.

Lapua keeps on winning.

Great brass. Winning ways!

https://www.lapua.com/new-world-champion/

Good to learn that Lapua is the ONLY brand of brass to buy. Have used a lot of it over the years, and while it's very good the smallest 5-shot group from a "sporter weight " 6.5 Creedmoor was with Hornady brass, which measured .333 inches. And the load kept shooting in that same general range.

Have tried a bunch of new brands of brass in the past couple years, and there are MANY that are just as good as Lapua--or maybe even better.

Do I need to replay former PM Jean Chretien again?

A proof is a proof because it's proven.

Anschutz makes a dandy. Not cheap, but answers all your criteria.

First off, I'm not a gunwriter, and I was really skeptical when the Creedmoor came out and a fairly slow adopter of the cartidge. My reasoning was much like the above. With that said from memory, I've since shot five 6.5 Creedmoors. I think two have been Tikkas, a Blaser, a Barrett Fieldcraft and my dad's Bergara HMR. With the Tikkas, Blaser and Fieldcraft, same-hole five-shot groups at 100 were the exception not the rule. I think each of my rifles had exactly one "bad" load that shot 1-1.25 MOA for five. The rest were sub 1/2" for five. My four rifles mentioned above are the four most consistently accurate rifles I've ever fired. I find it odd, that I've shot hundreds of factory and custom rifles and the four most accurate I've messed are Creedmoors. I'm starting to think it could be something about the cartridge, though I'm not totally sure why they shoot so well.

Also, my dad is reporting insanely small groups with his Bergara at 1,000 meters plus. I haven't shot it much, but we were wearing a 1,600-meter 2 MOA target out from a variety of positions, including various rests, prone and off sticks a few weeks ago. Even in Llano Estacado blowing wind, hits were relatively easy.

For the money for a light weight hunting rifle, I really like the Tikka in 6.5 Creedmoor.

Regarding brass, Hornady and Starline have worked for me.

I never have problems/issues with Lapua, Hornady, or Nosler brass. (and am evaluating Starline as a possible addition to my "in-list")

The reasons I tend to navigate to Lapua, is because I like to use the same manufacturer as much as possible, and I get so many quality-reloadings out of Lapua.
(If I had started out with Hornady or Nosler, I would probably put one of them in my number-one position.)

My 50-years of manufacturing experience taught me that companies which produce great products, over-and-over-again and year-after-year, have "excellence" ingrained in their culture.
Certainly Lapua, Hornady and Nosler all fit that culture of excellence.