Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Will the 6.5 Creedmoor survive?

I thought his post had more to do about writers, than the cartridge.

Nothing at all to do with writers.
Just a comment on the coverage of a new cartridge.
Not intended to denigrate anything or anyone.
My apologies to anyone offended.

Will the 6.5 Creedmoor survive?
Just look at how long this thread has survived.

Jim

Yeah, in YOUR world it does. Your posts show that.

PH - sorta like this:

http://www.reloadbench.com/cgi-bin/...mber=34&DaysPrune=1000&SUBMIT=Go

John B. - No doubt, the 55 is here to stay, and the other mid sized 6.5's are made to capitalize on where the Swede left off bringing more awareness to the 6.5s in the USA w/thousands of imported Mausers, IMO. Being nigh ballistic twins of the 55mm, the other short action 6.5s are very capable.

I just dug up a recap of a hunter who went to Africa using a 'DOWNLOADED' 260 and 120 TSX:

"As a first-timer I must ask in advance for forgiveness for digging up this old thread but I couldn't help myself after chuckling myself right out of my chair and onto the floor, reading about the last 2 folks joking about the impression of the general public that deer are getting harder to kill now that they have learned to wear kevlar and such! It compelled me to pass along some fun data from a trip we made a couple of years back to South Africa... It involves two 6.5mm/.264 -bored rifles.

The first rifle was my eldest daughters .260 Remington mountain rifle. I had downloaded it to send a 120-grain Barnes TSX at a mere 2580 feet per second for mild recoil for her (age 14) and my youngest daughter (age 11 at the time) so they wouldn't find the recoil too sharp.

The second rifle (since according to the lore I was confident that the downloaded .260 Remington wouldn't be "enough rifle" for at least the larger species of those tough, threatening, thick-skinned African plains game) was a wildcat of my own design based on a shortened .300 WSM case and that pooped out the same 120-grained Barnes TSX at more than 3300 feet per second.

Well to make a long story short, Mr. Smarty Wildcatter (that was, ahem, me...) forgot to file the proper customs form for the 2nd (wildcat) rifle as I was hastily trying to find the magic recipe that would womp those big ol' African beasties down with authority, far too close to the time for our upcoming trip. As one might predict, that led to my "big" rifle staying safely back at the airport customs office an Johannesburg while we continued on afield for our 11-day safari with only the mild old 2580-fps .260 Remington. With the admitted exception of 1 impala that I repeatedly (lol) in haste shot underneath the head of because it was too close, the .260 amazed both us and our PH. Ahem, now that I've gotten that embarrassing impala incident out of the way, let's for the sake of this thread get on to the actual terminal data, which includes animals shot on that trip by both of my daughters and I. Again, I should point out that this rifle was launching a 120-grain bullet at nearly the same velocities of a 6.5 Grendel (only 60 fps more in fact...)

Impala #1: from about a hundred yards; 1 shot
Impala #2: from about a eighty yards; 1 shot
Impala #3: from about a hundred yards; 2 shots after the first shot was a bit too far back by 1 of my daughters. Second shot was a mercy shot (it was going nowhere)
Blesbok #1: 75 yards; 1 shot
Blesbok #2: about 200 yards; 2 shots after the first shot was a bit too far back. Second shot was a mercy shot (it too was going nowhere)
Gemsbok (over 36 inches of horn): about 45 yards; 1 shot, instant kill
Zebra #1: about 70 yards; 1 shot
Zebra #2 (lead herd mare): about 80 yards: 1 shot
Zebra #3: about 110 yards; 1 shot
Black wildebeest (very tough shot at 340 yards with a gusting 20 to 25 mph crosswind, but we were pinned down after about 20 minutes of stalking by the herd sentinels): 1st shot piled it up within about 75 yards, but about 2 minutes later as we made our way two it the animal went from all 4 feet straight up in the air to rolling back slowly onto it's belly but couldn't get up. A second shot at 289 yards finished it for good this time. Note: the PH was amazed as he said he'd had a client about a week earlier hit a similar sized black wildebeest twice with a .375 H and H and they followed it for 10 1/2 hours...
2 outstanding Bushbucks: 1 took one shot at under 75 yards. The second took two shots - one at a full charge at us after we followed it into the brush after my daughter hit it slightly far back. I'll never forget that thing charging us with the guides' Jack Russel hanging about a foot off the ground, determinedly hanging onto it's rear trying to bring it to a halt. After the second shot at about 6 feet it slid to a stop of course.
1 very large Waterbuck: 50 yards; 1 shot

In any case in retrospect with that 120-grained TSX, downloaded to not far from the lowest velocity in the load books, we took animals from about a 70-pound Impala to probably 4 t0 6 hundred pound zebra, waterbuck and gemsbok, most with a single shot, at ranges from 6 feet to 340 yards. Would a larger round have taken them better? Considering the zebra, waterbuck and gemsbok ran from zero to a maximum of probably 55 yards, I doubt it.

Then again, maybe those African plains game haven't managed to get the proper customs paperwork to be issued their kevlar hides yet.

-ScottL

That story really doesn't surprise me all that much. My experience is that African game succumbs to good shot placement with an adequately penetating bullet just like American game of a similar size, despite all the BS about how tough those animals are.

I haven't used a 6.5 on African game but have used the 7x57 on plenty, including wildebeest and kudu, and it worked fine. The .270 does too!

Rumor on Long Range Hunting is that ruger is killing it off. You know how rumors are.

It probably is--among a certain minority of hunters.

One advantage the Creedmoor has had from the beginning is very accurate factory rifles and ammunition. The list of good rounds that failed is a long one, and aside from timing a lot of the failures can be attributed to the rifle rather than the round, such as the .244 Remington in the 1-12 twist 722 and the 6.5 Remington in the Model 600.

Then there are cartridges that were pretty darn good and reasonably popular at first, such as the .264 Winchester, that couldn't compete with later rounds (7mm Remington Magnum). There are also rounds that weren't very popular at first, such as the .338 Winchester Magnum, that became far more popular later.

Then there's the .30-06!

Have a Ruger1A 6.5 creedmoor I'm happy with so far. So if Rugers killing it off at least I got mine.

I know the Creedmoor will survive in my house.
I bought the Ruger target rifle first; liked it so much I bought a Hawkeye stainless and dropped it into a Factory laminate compact stock with a bedding job with plans to cut the barrel down to 18". This rifle shoots as well as the target rifle, so the barrel will remain at 26" for the foreseeable future.

MuleDeer.... Is it a simple one pass conversion from 22-250/250 Savage brass, or are you fire-forming?... While I have a large supply of Creedmoor brass on hand I would like to try this in my target rifle as it sees a lot of range time and it would be nice to have the option.

Thanks,
johnny

I used the Cream of Wheat fire-forming method. The "load" I ended up using was 18 grains Unique, topped by enough dry Cream of Wheat to fill a Winchester .22-250 case up to the base of the neck, with a cotton cleaning patch wadded up and stuffed into the neck to keep everything inside. The case formed perfectly to a 6.5 Creedmoor. It has since worked in other rifles as well.

Thank you very much Sir...much appreciated.

johnny

no, not for the "everyday hunter". it has a following with bench shooters, but that is a very small niche when compared to hunters (also known as the buying public). eventually the 6.5 will be relegated to handloaders, with very limited factory chamberings, much like the direction in which the 260 finds itself today. not a criticism, just an observation from what i read.

Yep, I don't believe everything I read either.

I thought that some might find this thread from six years ago interesting in light of where things stand currently.

Except for those Spring Hares?

In 2011, the OP's question seems valid.

In 2017 not so much.

The consumers have spoken and it appears they DID want a 6.5 Swede that fit into true short action with twist rates suitable for 140g slugs...

The fact that superbly accurate factory ammo that is reasonably priced and readily available has not hurt the 6.5 Creedmoor , either.

considering the number of CMs sold in the last 3 years and factory ammo sitting on nearly every shelf I think the question was answered a good time ago. why did this round get so popular so quick? great factory ammo and great marketing. is the 260 a lesser round? nope! but big green fell on it's face out of the gate with it's factory ammo and crappy brass, Hornady didn't make that mistake.

A local podunk hardware store I went by had Creed hunting ammo sitting on their shelf in stock.

and cheap accurate rifles (expensive accurate ones too)