Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer,A Question on 6.5x55 Bullet

On reading GGII and II, your writing on smaller caliber rifles and lighter bullets or LR bullets tweaked my curiosity . One of my 6.5s is a 6.5x55(Scan), a gain twist barrel and a Zastava action on a Remington 798 stock. A parts gun. I checked tonight, I had mounted a Bushnell 3500 DOA scope 3x9. I was wondering what bullets you would suggest . And at what velocity ? I'll likely use VV N-560. It will be for mule deer, hopefully, the fires have burned out a couple of our honey holes. The big clearcuts that I used the 264WM on are Christmas trees now.

According to my hunting notes I've taken a variety of "deer-sized animals" with the 6.5x55 and "moderate" 6.5 cartridges with similar velocities, including the .260 Remington, 6.5 Creedmoor and 6.5x57R Mauser. Many of the animals were actually deer, including whitetails, mule, fallow and axis, but there have been some pronghorns as well.

The bullets have ranged from 120 to 143 grains, and the makes include Barnes X-Bullets from the original to the LRX, Hornady Spire Point and ELD-X, Nosler ABLRs/Ballistic Tips/Partitions, and Sierra ProHunters. Muzzle velocities ranged from around 2700 to 2900, and there were only a couple of longish shots in the 300+ yard range. They all worked fine, whether the original Barnes X (a 120 that killed a pronghorn buck at 371 yards), or or a 143-grain Hornady ELD-X that broke both shoulders and the spine of a 300-pound mule deer buck at just about exactly 100 yards.

That's one of the great virtues of such rounds: Their moderate muzzle velocities result in consistent performance with just about any bullet. Recently, however, I've grown particularly fond of the 127-grain Barnes LRX, not so much for the "high" BC (which isn't all that high compared to 140+ grain bullets) but because it opens reliably and penetrates deeply, killing well but not ruining as much meat as lead-cores.

Thanks ,John. For my hunting , that sounds about perfect.

Long before the 6.5 hype, I fell in love with a unfired 264WM FN " Musketeer" on consignment for estate. That was my start with various 6.5s.