Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 6.5 Creed pro's & cons

I'm looking at getting into a 6.5 Creed with a composite stock for an everyday go anywhere in Texas shooter from Bull Frogs to BIG Boss Boar Hog's. Looks like I have just sold a too pretty to take to the deep woods Tikka T3 Gorgeous wood stocked swede , and spent all morning looking at Cabella's & Bass Pro's websites that claim to have inventory only an hour + from my home in East Texas.

These guys prices on line look almost decent with a Sale tag of usually $100+- off ... if they still have the inventory to sell when I get there next week.

So I'm looking for Opinions Please in the $650 to $850 + TTL price range, in a composite stock go anywhere shooter by brand & model name, with whatever war stories & opinions as this hopefully is gonna be last rifle I'm gonna buy at almost 80 years old . Call me spoiled but the T3 as typical, never had a moment of issues of any kind except that I wasn't gonna paddle a jon boat out of the deep woods & Black Lagoon movie looking water in the new Neches River TPW Forest with that T3 Swede...and have been working on getting the extractor replaced on my Mayfield Kentucky built Marlin Model 7, composite stocked, SS 270, that is perfect for and was bought specifically for this kinda job. PTL it shoots like a dream but ya have to use a cleaning rod to tap the spent round out the chamber every time you pull the trigger. What a PIA for sure.
Ron

A couple years back I bought a clean used t3x blued model 24 inch barrel for 450 bucks, it's the best shooting rifle for that money I've ever had. These days the t3x ss ones sell for 869 and no ONE discounts them about 100 less for blued model...mb

I would watch for these to go on sale. They usually do a sale every fall where these are $100 off. You are already familiar with the t3 platform; why reinvent your wheel?

https://www.sportsmans.com/shooting...bolt-action-rifle-65-creedmoor/p/1463077

AKw THAT is what I'm looking for and at a $100 or more off I'd stand in line to get one.
Thank You Sir for the heads up, All hands on deck pay attention lead.
Ron

The Kimber pro desolve in 6.5 is on GB for about $800 right now. Stainless.

That is the one I would buy. Hands down. Funny story: One of my buddies was interested in buying a nice lightweight stainless 6.5 creed and I told him to go to the range with me and we would shoot mine. I needed to work up a good load anyway. I told him it was a good shooter. Here are a couple targets from that day:


It worked out well for me as well because my buddy confirmed the load was pretty good. This was during load development for the rifle. My buddy was so convinced that he went to Cablea's that day and bought one. I told him he could get one for $100 cheaper down the road at Sportsman's, but he wanted to be a little different and went with the camo stock Cabela's exclusive superlite. He's shot his a bit, but it does not shoot as well as mine. Mine is slightly fine tuned to tweak all the precision out of it. Here's another target that shows their potential:


No war stories with this rifle, they function flawlessly. I don't see any negatives by going this route. The Tikka's are by far one of my favorite push feed hunting rifles. Second place going to the tried and true Winchester model 70..

+1 on the Sportsmans Warehouse sale. I picked up one of the Superlight's in 6.5 on sale for a project. X Caliber made me a 358 Winchester for it. One of these days I'll get it done.

I’d go Tikka if possible, savage makes accurate rifles, Ruger Americans are nice too.


You will like shooting it. I load 120 Barnes for my two Savages.

I won a Browning X Bolt a couple of years ago. Plastic stock, SS action and bbl. I like it a lot. I've pretty much retired my 6.5x55s. Don't know if it would fit your price point but definitely worth taking a look at.

Most guys I run into that want opinions on a new rifle only want to spend $400-600. If they'd bump up the $$ figure a bit, I'd tell anybody to grab an SS Tikka T3 variant in their preferred chambering. And when it comes to preferred chamberings these days, the 6.5CM and .308Win generally have the most ammo on the shelf at the local stores.

Weatherby Weatherguard?

Wood stocked Tikka too nice to take to the woods? If I worried that much I’d buy a beater Savage. IMO, NO gun is too nice to take hunting. That’s what they’re for. Anyway, buy whichever you want. At 80, I’d not wait for a sale. Get it today and start enjoying it.

Tikka

He could have also bought a Tikka take off stock. Those are damn cheap. I bought this one on ebay for $79.00:



It was a new take off. I'll use it.. Too late for the op now, as he already got rid of his 6.5x5, but that would have been a great option. Replacing a stock is about a 4 minute job..

My local Murdochs ranch store had one of these sit on the shelf for over 3 months at $599. I was glad when it finally sold, I was weakening everytime I walked into the store. I came close to buying it everytime I walked in the place but I couldn't justify it since I had a perfectly good 260.

Edited - the one at Murdochs was a Lite, not a Superlite.

drover

Seems to me the Creed creates a lot of animosity among those who feel their fav round is being challenged, those who jealously don't have one and those who don't like idea of something new or different. Those are the Cons.

Pros: It's a great round with great ammo on dealer's shelves that will often out shoot one's best handloads. That's also an affront to conventional wisdom, handloads always beating factory load.

And the ammo isn't overly expensive. And, relatively inexpensive guns in dealer's racks that can, out of the box, often outshoot expensive custom rifles, another affront to one's manhood.

So, it can be a challenging, disruptive round to some, a great round for others.

I happen to be a fan.

Just my opinion.

DF

I am slowly warming up to the idea of the 6.5 CM and I love the T3X Superlites. I had one in .30-06 I wish I had never sold. I did picked up a T3x Superlite from Sportsman's last week for my son's 12th birthday but the one that followed me home was in 7mm-08.

Looked at some 6.5 creeds today at Academy, one the larger Houston Texas based chain stores. Never could get waited on and only about half the EE's necessary to run the store on hand. Lots of CM ammo on hand. Talked to 3 or 4 other customers also waiting to get waited on and every last one of them gave a Triple A response to my questions about the Creed's viability here in the deep woods of east Texas.

Went across the parking lot to the biggest gun dealer in Tyler (pop about 100K+) and sits on a 100+ year old Oil bidnizz HQ of East Texas . Got a young man to stand still and tell what he knew about the rifle in ? Showed me a super slick Italian ? brand I'd never seen before but at $1400 + was a little rich for my blood on an unknown item....and they had lots of Creed ammo on the shelf at cheaper than the big chain store down the street.

Got to get paid for the T3 Swede I'm selling and settle down and stop all the " Yes Maam" I'm just Looking and I ain't touching nuthin" chasing the "New Girl in town" and am planning a trip to Cabella's just north of Dallas to see what their Creed's actually look and feel like, before the $100 discount dries up.

Thanks All for the opinions and insights. Told the wife Santa Claus was coming to our house this year...gotta do SUMTHIN Outdoors now that I'm beginning to beat the almost year long battle with shingles.
Ron

Yeah, I think most assumed that. No one besides Cabela's and Sportsman's sells them. The lites can be had for damn cheap. The last ones I bought were around $500 scoped.. Try that with a superlite and get back to me.

They are the easy button of calibers, as much as it pains me to say it

6rds thru the new X-Bolt this morning, 1 to verify boresight, 5 for a group to see potential. Must say I was surprised and elated.