Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 264WM vs 6.5PRC

But will the 6.5 PRC outpace the 7mm PRC in popularity or will the 7mm PRC doom the 6.5 PRC like the 7mm Rem Mag put and end to the 264.

I say this because many 6.5 PRC show up on long actions, same as used by the 7mm PRC, which requires one.

son killed a huge bull elk on public land no guide either with a 30 inch arrow so ya any centerfire rifle with a good bullet can kill an elk.

I think the PRC is so popular because so many of the younger shooters (not necessarily hunters) are getting into long range shooting. Performance is on par with the 270 Win but exceeds the Win at distances beyond 500 yards do to the BC of the 6.5 bullets. Overall, I think it's a great cartridge but I have two 270 so why bother with a "270 short". The long range shooting community is all about short action cartridges, the 300 PRC excepted, so there's not much interest in the museum piece cartridges like the 270. I had a nice 264 in a Win 70, very cool, kinda like my 257 Roy but I had a 270 and figured why bother.

Plenty of incorrect assumptions here.

I’ve got both the PRC and have had a few 264’s. The 264 seems about 100-125 FPS on top of the PRC with the same bullets.

Never seen the short throat on the Model 70’s hurt anything with todays long bullets.

I can't seem to get the same accuracy out of my 270 as I can the 6.5 PRC or my 6.5 Creed. Both will shoot in three shot groups in the .2's when I'm on my game. I can't get the 270 Winchester even close to that.

Craig Boddington implies that the 6.8 Westerner is the new hotness, but I'm on the 6.5 train, a place I thought I'd never be after a lifetime of 7mm and 30 cal magnums.

Among the reasons the 6.5 Creedmoor and 6.5 PRC (and other new cartridges) tend to be more accurate is their chamber throat (leade), which starts out as a cylinder just barely above bullet diameter before tapering into the lands. This tends to keep the bullets straighter as they move from the case to the bore.

The .270 Winchester's throat/leade, like many other older cartridges, is tapered, which doesn't help keep the bullets straight--and is why seating depth is often more critical in such older rounds.

For many years, we have been told the belt on magnum cases was superfluous. Later, it was not just superfluous, but detrimental. It caused feeding problems, headspace issues, reloading issues and contributed to chronic dandruff. So it was that we began to see the introduction of the beltless magnums (like the ones Charles Newton marketed over 100 years ago). At the same time, perhaps due to lifestyle differences, shooters began having trouble operating bolt action rifles with long bolt throws, so we got short Magnums. Now, these are a lot different than such cartridges as the Remington short magnums (350 and 6.5) because those cases had belts and would barely launch a bullet.
Strangely enough, when I built 6.5 Rem Mag rifles, 40 years ago, with 24 inch barrels, they performed pretty well. I put 8 twist barrels on them because I always thought an 8 was better in a 6.5. The belt seemed to be a fairly innocuous, if unnecessary, feature of the case. Today though, brass is hard to get and top quality brass, nearly impossible.
The PRC checks the boxes necessary for a modern cartridge. It is beltless, shortish, and well advertised. It may not perform a lot differently than the old 6.5 Remington, but it will perform a lot better with factory loads because 6.5 Rem factory loads suck!
In many respects, everything being accomplished with modern offerings could have been accomplished by changing a few things on existing cartridges. Throat configuration, bullet offerings, different powders, and other changes would have done the trick. Unfortunately, some changes could not be accommodated by rifles already chambered for these cartridges, so it worked as well to just start fresh.
I am always saying, if Winchester had chambered the Newton cartridges, there are a whole bunch of cartridges we would never have seen. A Ruger 77 in 30 Newton would be a fine rifle. Do you know, a 30 Newton will still push 180's to 3100 fps?
In the end, the cartridge case is nothing but a powder holder and a gasket. Some gaskets catch and hold the attention of shooters; others do not. GD

Good post in general, but this statement here is prime-quotable material.

The biggest advantage to the 6.5 PRC is good reamer designs and the availability of good quality brass like Lapua. When I did load development on my first 6.5 PRC, every load I tried shot 0.5 or under. My second PRC shot the first load I tried in the .2s. Its and easy round with low recoil, quality brass, and good powders.

If it's that good, guys should quit dicking around with those PPc's and BR's. Good reamer designs? What does that even mean? I'm pretty sure they use the same six flute design as for every other reamer. Quality Lapua brass? Like the 30/06? Sounds a little bit like make-believe to me. GD

Yep, as usual gaydog just doesn’t quite get it

why no love for the 6.5-06? Think it has the Same case Capacity as the all new PRC

Dense much?

Smart enough to know there no magic bullets. When I started chambering rifles with parallel throat, just over bullet diameter, I was cocky enough to think I had the answer. My rifles shot real well and I won enough to feel pretty confident. Now, 45 years later, I've seen enough to be a little less assertive in this regard. Regarding cartridge design, I do believe there are some designs which make a better gasket. Cases with a strong head might allow one to load just enough hotter to find the sweet spot. This was amply demonstrated when the 6PPC took over from the 6x47. 6x47 brass was weaker and would fail right when you wanted it to work.
There is no doubt in my mind that ammunition manufacturers do a better job with some cartridges. There is not a lot of pressure to make precision 303 British, so they don't. If they did, the average rifle wouldn't know the difference. However, a well built rifle, fed precisely made 303 ammunition, will shoot as well as any other rifle shooting any other cartridge.
With the modern cartridges, like the PRC, the development has been a fairly holistic endeavor, but this doesn't necessarily mean the cartridge itself is anything special. It only means that the expectations for the entire system were set above those for the 260 Remington, for instance.
The 6.5/284 Norma was standardized as a precision cartridge and it worked fairly well (no better than a 6.5x55, mind you) except that the primer pockets tended to give out about the time one was approaching the place where it was starting to perform real well. The PRC should have a stronger head so it will allow that little bit extra. In this regard, it is a better gasket; so was the 6.5 Remington. It holds a suitable amount of powder, so it is a decent powder holder as well. Don't dispute any of this. What I dispute is the belief that this could not be done just as well with similar cartridges which already exist. I know it is possible to make a 308 which will shoot sub 1/4 moa. Likewise, I know it is possible to make a 7x57 shoot damn close to that. These are not, in their original factory guise, precision cartridges, but rifles which chamber them can be made to be so. GD

From my view, he gets it quite well. Would you care to demonstrate how he doesn't?

A couple more comments:

The 6.5 PRC, like most of the new "accuracy" cartridges since the 6mm PPC appeared, has a 30-degree shoulder. The 6mm PPC ended up with one after Lou Palmisano and Ferris Pindell did considerable pressure-testing of various case designs, finding 30 degrees resulted in the most consistent pressures and hence velocities. This may seem like BS or unimportant minutiae, but Rob Reiber--the recently retired long-time head of the ballistic lab at Hodgdon--says he definitely saw the same thing over the decades. While obviously very accurate rifles can be built for cartridges with a wide variety of shoulder angles, 30 degrees does indeed result in the most consistency.

Might also mention that when doing an article on case shapes, none of the several pressure-lab people I interviewed said that there was a case shape that resulted in "extra" velocity with the same amount of powder--which was one of Winchester's early claims about the .300 WSM. Instead the pressure-lab folks all said potential velocity is directly proportional to powder capacity--but that case shape did affect pressure/velocity consistency.

Shorter cases in a given caliber also results in more consistent pressures/velocities, another reason so many "accuracy" cartridges of various sizes have followed the 6mm PPC basics since it was introduced--which of course include the 6mm and 6.5 Creedmoor and all three PRC rounds.

One of the interesting things about the success of the 6mm/.284 is that eventually many shooters who wanted a plain old .284 Winchester often ended up buying 6mm/.284 brass and necking it up--when the origin of the 6mm/.284 was necking down .284 cases. This is because there isn't as much high-quality .284 brass available as there is high-quality 6mm/.284 brass.

About two years ago I decided my life would not be complete without a decent bolt action in .308. After months of searching, I could not find one that spoke to me. I did find a Cooper Raptor in 6.5 Creedmoor that did. I was not enamored with the cartridge, but thought if it wasn't all that and a bag of chips I'd send it down the road. Cooper used to give a target with the handload that made it. I was able to duplicate the results quite easily. The rifle due to its weight was a joy to shoot. But I thought the round was too light for elk. So I went ahead and went for the Creedmoor magnum, the 6.5 PRC. Also in a Cooper. This one a Open Country. Again even a caveman could replicate the handload. I used it for a large cow elk last December. I don't know that I'd use the Creedmoor or the PRC for a big black bear, but I sure like it for just about anything else in the lower 48 save the really big stuff like bison and moose. It's the pure accuracy I'm getting from these rounds that really make me sit up and take notice. And the lack of serious recoil. I just wish introduction of these cartridges and rifles (submoa capable) hadn't come so late in my hunting career.

I cannot dispute the efficiency of the shorter cases, nor can I dispute the 30-degree shoulder, although I doubt there is a huge difference between 25, 30, or 35. I well remember testing my first 6ppc, which I built in 1978, and it was amazing! I was shooting a 6x47 at the time. The 6x47 is probably best described as a scaled down 30/06 and, although my 6x47 shot very well and had won a bunch of stuff for me, the 6 PPC was markedly better. My very first test group was under .2". So this cartridge definitely worked. So did the 6 BR. Nonetheless, I am resistant to the idea that there is any magic in the shape. I got bored with just shooting a PPC, like everyone else, so I competed with 308's, 223's, and even built a semi-serious 30/40 Krag. If the build was good and the case capacity reasonable, any cartridge was capable of shooting to the 3/8 moa level or better. Big cartridges, like the 308 and the 30/40, were just harder to shoot well; at least for me! A good 223 seemed to shoot right along with the rest.
Nonetheless, I can't argue with the findings of the ballistic lab guys. I don't have their equipment, nor do I have their data base. I shoot a Creedmoor and like it fine. I don't think there is any magic in the design and I'm almost certain I could accomplish the same thing with a 6.5 Jap. I'm not trying to rain on any parades at all, I'm just not on the bandwagon. To me, a hunting rifle cartridge just has to push a bullet at the desired velocity. The rifle is the important thing, the cartridge is just a part.
I'm going to shut up now because I think I'm sounding a bit curmudgeonly! GD

I think you both missed it a little. Reamer does matter. What I see with the 6.5 CM and 6.5 PRC is consistency reamer to reamer. Over the decades there have been a lot of variations of the .264 reamer .. throat length, angle, etc .. so y' have to fine-tune ammo to match the throat. So far, the dimensions among 6.5 CM reamers and among 6.5 PRC reamers appear to be a lot more consistent meaning that it is possible to come up with a load which shoots well across a higher percentage of rifles in either of the newer chamberings than the older one. (Honestly, that's true for most cartridges.)

So far as 6.5 PRC vs .264 win mag ..

One "hidden" plus to the consistency of the 6.5 PRC throats .. or lack of gun maker / gunsmith deviation in custom reamers for them .. is that the ammo companies don't have to throttle back on factory loads as much out of concern that someone's custom short-throat reamer will create a pressure problem with a long-seated bullet. In other words, consistency is not just accuracy, it is safety as well.

If you were to take all the advantages of throating devised for the 6.5 CM and 6.5 PRC and put those in front of a .264 case, it'd shoot. Fast and accurate.

Another thing .. the 6.5 PRC brass is consistent .. there isn't sloppy 6.5 PRC brass. There is some pretty [bleep] .264 win mag brass out there. If you did the work and sorting to get .264 brass as consistent in weight and dimensions as the Lapua 6.5 PRC brass .. it's going to help accuracy.

Though I'm currently shooting a 6.5 PRC, I'd be just as happy with a .264, maybe more so, if I had comparable components and rifle. .. makes me wonder about a 6.5x.300 weatherby but that's a different question.