Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB's Creed article

Was reading my Oct. '22 Handloader mag and really liked JB's article, "The 6.5 Creedmoor Again". I know that subject has been beat to death, but JB does a great job, as usual.

A couple of his loads caught my eye. The 140 VLD Hunting over 46 gr. RL-26 at 2,835 fps, posting .54" at a hundred. Now, that one has promise, gonna load some of those. Another was the 127 LRX over 44 gr. StaBALL, shot a .99" group. He was shooting a Vanguard First Lite, which seemed to perform very well. There were a number of great loads, those two tweaked my interest.

Thanks John, for your attention to detail and excellent articles.

DF

JB, how about an article on the 260Rem. Surely there is still some love for this little gem.

IIRC, John still has a 1-8” Tikka .260. As to whether or not someone will pay him to write about it, who can say?

Maybe in one of his books?

I love Creedmore articles…. It’s fun watching the new kid on the block struggling to keep up with my 6.5x55.

Yeah, I can stretch my Swede to out run my Creed by a little They’re pretty close with select loads they like. The Creed shoots more loads MOA or better than the Swede. I like them both.

Nonetheless, like the Creed or not, it was a very well done article, which was my point.

DF

Velocity wasn't the point of the Creedmoor.

Your 6.5x55 would have trouble keeping up with my 264 Winchester magnum, as would the Creedmoor. Again, not the point of the Creedmoor.

Very true.

And your .264 may not keep up with my 26 Nosler.

But Creed isn’t a speed demon nor was that its mission.

DF

Not surprised on the RL-26 load. I swap in the 143 ELD-X there and it's been accurate in a couple of rifles while making good velocity in 18-21" barrels. Wish I'd picked up some StaBall before the latest component shortage.

I enjoy watching all the folks that see everything new as some kind of threat to what they already have, not just the Creedmoors and PRCs, and not just rifles either.

There’s seldom a good reason to abandon something that works for you just to keep up with the trend, but there’s also generally no reason to buy into the old stuff when newer stuff has an advantage, and more options available. I made certain my newest .223 had a fast twist, and I’ll probably never buy a new .243, because newer 6s are better designed, and give me more choices for bullet selection. That reasoning applies to optics, clothing, and electronics, and doubtless other stuff that eludes me for the moment.

Exactly.

When people write things like "If I get some Lapua brass and develop a handload for my 6.5x55 that's built with a carefully specified chamber cut in its Shilen/Hart/Krieger/Brux/Bartlein/whatever barrel ..." they're making part of the case for the Creedmoor. See the John Barsness quote just below..

Actually, the part about enjoying it was a lie. It’s a good illustration of human nature, (like I needed any more!), but it’s kind of tiresome. I need to let that go, I guess.

Nah, can’t let it go. Might lose your Loony card.

Ha!

DF

I was fortunate enough to snag a big jug of RL-26 back when I could, have two bottles of StaBALL.

RL-26 works so well in the 7RM with 160’s, it’s good to see it performing in the CM. I just never tried it in that round.

DF

I have a custom 6.5x55, Brux barrel, 26" that I use on Power and Gas lines. Also, shooting the 127-130g bullets at 3150 with R#26 with cci 250 primers, Lapua brass. My Creed, 6.5x55, 6.5/06 are on Rem long actions, the 6.5x47 Lapua is on a Rem short action.

Thanks, glad you liked the article!

That's actually the third article I published in Handloader on the 6.5 Creedmoor. The first appeared in 2010, the second several years later, after a number of new powders and 6.5mm bullets had appeared. After that time the editor of HL said he wasn't going to run any more articles on it, because he was tired of looking at 'em--but had to change his mind after a bunch of subscribers kept demanding more info. Which is why he assigned me this latest one. As I pointed out, even a few powders have been introduced with the 6.5 Creedmoor in mind. But I don't plan on doing yet another "update" down the road.

I also found it interesting that some Campfire members still have to comment on any 6.5 Creedmoor article by stating their 6.5x55 or .260 will do the "same things," even do 'em better. I have owned several 6.5x55s and .260s, and have one of each now, a custom 6.5x55 on an FN Mauser commercial action rebarreled with a 1-8 Lilja by Charlie Sisk, and a Tikka T3 .260 with a 1-8 twist, part of a special run ordered by Whittaker Guns. They both shoot very well, in fact about as well as the average 6.5 Creedmoor factory rifle--though I had to lengthen the magazine on the Tikka to match typical Creedmoor accuracy. And neither the 6.5x55 or .260 will do so with factory ammo--IF you can find any.

John

JB.... the last sentence was the kicker that got me to buy a 6.5 Cr. (for my wife, of course, ahem... cough-cough) in 2019. Having messed around at the benches, both reload and range, I had found some good loads for my 6.5x55, as you have done as well. But for our Africa trip that year my wife needed a rifle that we could get factory ammo for instead of relying on my sporadic reloading bench output. So the Howa 6.5 Creedmoor Mountain Rifle became hers.

Since then, I acquired a Ruger Precision Rifle in the same chambering. This happened at the insistence of a good friend who runs a range in Wisco and teaches precision riflery, and who had ten of the RPR's on hand for his classes. He told me I really needed to buy one of his "old" RPR's, as he was getting in some new ones. I demurred, telling him I had more than enough rifles already, including a custom job that could reach out and touch a critter waaaay far out there.

We were at his range at the time. My friend invited me to "just shoot it once", and since he was supplying the rifle, ammo, and targets, who was I to refuse? So I settled behind the rifle and aimed at the 1000 yard gong, a 36" steel plate, squeezed the trigger, and was shortly rewarded with a sharp ringing tone. This was in the spring last year, mind you, and I had not fired a rifle for any purpose for several months at that time, so I naturally concluded it was just a fluke, and I told him so.

"Shoot again, and see," he replied. So I did, knowing it couldn't happen again. Except it did. And so did the 3rd shot. I missed the fourth shot, and hit again on the 5th.

I turned to my friend and said, "Shut up and take my money."

I took the rifle with me to Wyoming this past September on my my trophy pronghorn hunt (I burned all 13 of my hard-earned Preference Points to get drawn in an area where the bucks are big and the outfitter has a high success rate), and it served me well, allowing me to collect a 87-1/8 (green score) buck at 536 yards.

As a longstanding confirmed 6.5 Creedmoor hater, this is a problem.

Good account there, Doc.

And, like you, I do agree with JB’s last statement regarding factory ammo. I’ve long contended that the ammo/rifle package made the CM what it is. For reloaders, maybe not as critical, but for those who don’t reload, those looking for low cost, high performance rifles and ammo off the shelf, the CM is in a pretty unique position.

The numbers speak for themselves. People do vote with their dollars.

DF

Dirtfarmer, FWIW I have played with a lot of different handload recipes for the 6.5 Creedmoor, and nothing I have put together so far is as accurate as Hornady's factory ammo with the 143 gr ELD-X. This is not something I've come across before... I have found that I can typically produce ammo that meets or exceeds factory ammo performance in most of the cartridges I reload. Not so with the 6.5 Cr... but in all fairness, I haven't tried ELD-X bullets in my roll-your-owns yet. Maybe it's just that much better a bullet than the others I've tried so far. I hope to do the Hornady component test this winter.

We hear that regularly about factory CM ammo. And it’s not over priced, seems to be available. What’s not to like.

Ya reckon haters are just jealous?

DF

Doc, have you tried the 139gr Scenar with H4350? That and the 143 ELD X factory load are very accurate in my rifle.