Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why the Infatuation with the 6.5 Creedmoor?

In a Mauser-length action my choice is the 6.5x55. The case capacity is actually very similar to the .256 Newton's, and you can buy Lapua brass.

I have 6.5x55 (x10), but like the "cool factor" of the 256 Newton. From a practical POV, the 6.5x55 is an easier choice in every way, but the Newton is just so classic! It is too bad that some writers, Terry Wieland, have put incorrect information about the Newton into print that, because it is in print, becomes generally accepted "fact".

I'm getting 3,000 fps with the 129 grain Hornady and 130 grain AB from my 25" Husqvarana in 256 Newton, about midway between the 2,900 fps from the 6.5x55 and the 3,100 from the 270 and 130 grain bullet combination.

This may sound strange but I love the 250ai round a very efficient design. When I saw the case on the creedmoor it's very similar , then all the positive reviews, especially the one Mule deer wrote on the Ruger M77 I thought why not. What a mild little cartridge that does a nice job. Plus it's one My wife can shoot. She has a .243, but the creedmoor has a bit more bullet wt. for big game.

My take is it is a marketing success more than the ideal cartidge, a concept us rifle snobs usually overlook.

The 6.5 Creedmoor has a good case design for shooting the heavier 6.5 bullets at short action magazine lengths, that is obvious. Brass quality is good enough. Supply seems to be good too. Where they really went right was marketing it as a long range cartridge, which meant affordable factory ammo with high ballistic coefficient bullets. They marketed it as a long range target cartridge from the start, and as a hunting cartridge after it became popular. Most others in its class happened the other way around.

I recently rebarreled a .260....to .260! But I thought long and hard about the Creedmoor, as it has some advantages, as Mule Deer has pointed out in this thread and explained to me at the time. But the final deciding factor was a fair amount of new .260 brass, and the fact that I already had dies for the .260.

There is a law of ecology that if two species occupy the exact same niche, one will win in the end, unless they learn to fill that niche somewhat differently. Think hawks and owls...same prey, but they hunt at different times. I think the two calibers are close enough that one will crowd the other out eventually. And since the Creedmoor is just as good (as near as I can tell) at shooting deer with plain bullets, but the Creedmoor can handle the VLDs better....I think it may be the ultimate winner.

For handloaders, does the 6.5x57 offer any practical advantages over the 6.5x55?

I've always wondered how a 6.5x57AI would perform?

The 6.5-284 is both 55mm long and an improvement, in terms of case capacity, of the smaller diameter 6.5x55 and 6.5x57, so that might be a place to start any performance comparison.

The 6.5 Creedmoor has had a much better initial launch than the 260 did. If you look back at the 260's initial launch in 1997, you have to wonder how Remington could have done such a poor job of it. I have always wondered if somebody at Remington purposely allowed, or even facilitated, the errors/missteps associated with the 260's launch. Among those missteps were:

Remington only offered one "standard" factory load, a slow 140 grain PCL. The 120 grain BT and 125 grain Partition were "premium" factory loads sold at a higher price. Where were the 100 and 120 grain factory loads?

Remington cut their early 260s with too slow a ROT for optimal accuracy with heavier bullets.

Remington never cataloged the 260 in either of its two most popular rifles styles, the 700 ADL and BDL.

I think that Remington's launch of the 260 would make for a great Harvard Business Review Case Study on how not to launch a new product.

LOL, good point! Call it the Dupont factor............
Dont get me wrong, I like it, I just also like my 260's. Probably like several others, I have a pile of brass, and I am not into shooting 140's in either, so I do actually prefer the 260, but the creedmoor, is very good and very accurate.

Throating a 260 to fit the box with 140's shouldn't be a problem if you're building. Then there is finding the brass...

I've probably loaded 6k 260 cartridges, better than 90% in necked up Norma and Winchester/Olin 243 brass.

Pete,

The 6.5x57 has just about the same powder capacity as the 6.5x55, but the 6.5x55 has several advantages. Some are slight (a little sharper shoulder and longer neck) but one is big: Easily available Lapua 6.5x55 brass, which also tends to be reasonably priced, at least for Lapua.

The big problem with the 6.5x55 these days is so many shooters are convinced that no "long-action" cartridge can be accurate. Which is why there are so many 6.5 cartridges designed to be crammed into a short-action magazine.

260Remguy,

I had my first .260 built in the late 1990's, and used necked-up Lapua .243 brass.

There were some positive sides to the .260 marketing. They had Jim Carmichel pushing the round, which counted for a lot back then. But the biggest problem was probably already-existing rounds--as it is for any general hunting round these days.

Why was the average hunter going to buy a cartridge halfway between the .243 and 7mm-08? Minor ballistic advantages? The quest for one all-around rifle?

The smaller 6.5's are fairly popular today because of laser rangefinders, which appeared in the 1990's but didn't start to change the way many hunters looked at downrange performance until a decade ago. Only then did high-BC 6.5 bullets, combined with modest recoil and fast twists, become the ideal for enough wannabe long-range hunters to create enough market for a commercial 6.5 specifically designed for the purpose.

Which is a big part of the reason the 6.5 Creedmoor became a niche success and the .260 didn't: In 2007 the market was ripe for something like the Creedmoor, and in 1997 it wasn't for the .260.

Another reason the .260 never really went anywhere is so many of its fans kept emphasizing how it was such a great all-around cartridge. They claimed that with a .260 you don't need a .243 or 7mm-08--or even a .25-06 or a .270.

This may be true to a certain extent, but so what? The concept of owning one all-around rifle went out with the Great Depression, and even then wasn't much among loonies who could afford more than one rifle. I've also noticed that most .260 fans own more than one.

In 1997 most hunters just didn't see any reason for the .260. If they were average hunters who didn't handload, the .243 Winchester, .25-06 Remington, .270 Winchester and 7mm-08 Remington already provided more options than they really needed anyway, and factory ammo in many useful variations was already widely available.

At the other extreme, rifle loonies who handloaded have always been notoriously fickle, running from one In-Cartridge to the next like women after this spring's fashions. Some probably did buy a .260, but without laser rangefinders, smart-phone ballistic apps, and dozens of high-BC bullets there really WASN'T any advantage in a small 6.5. Plus, even most rifle loonies didn't believe in shooting big game with "target" bullets back then. So no, the .260 didn't "fail" just because of marketing.

Most commercial centerfire cartridges that make it do so because there was ALREADY a market niche for them. This is exactly why the Weatherby cartridges became such successes, and the .22-250, .243, .25-06, 7mm Remington Magnum and both the .300 Winchester Magnum and .300 WSM became world-wide rounds. There was ALREADY plenty of demand for them, so they filled an existing desire and perceived need.

New commercial cartridges that "fail" (to whatever degree) usually don't fill an already existing demand. There wasn't any real demand for the .260 when it appeared, but there was for the 6.5 Creedmoor by the time it arrived.

I think big green should have marketed it as the 6.5-08 Remington and shown how it was already a well loved target round capable of crossing over into hunting.

Then slammed it in all of their offerings.

Mike

I never really thought of the 6.5x55mm as needing a long action..Most of the older European rifles I've seen I am sure I would class as intermediate length?

A few years back I had a Sako .380win re done as a .260Rem and I’ve been very pleased with it. It seems to offer a balanced all round performance that I find well suited for deer stalking over here..

In hindsight a Credmoor might have been a better choice (at least on paper), but I suspect the brass would be very difficult to get hold of here in the UK..

That's the exact reason I went 260. Course with a handle like "16 Bore" you'd probably expect it. I can afford more rifles, but damn if I can find the time to monkey with them. In my book it covers anything Id want up to about what a 270 offers. Then the 7mag takes over. 223,260,and 7Mag will do 10X more than I'll live long enough to do and enough of a spread to make things spicey.


Easy peasy.....

"260Remguy,

I had my first .260 built in the late 1990's, and used necked-up Lapua .243 brass.

There were some positive sides to the .260 marketing. They had Jim Carmichel pushing the round, which counted for a lot back then. But the biggest problem was probably already-existing rounds--as it is for any general hunting round these days.

Why was the average hunter going to buy a cartridge halfway between the .243 and 7mm-08? Minor ballistic advantages? The quest for one all-around rifle?"

John,

I believe that I may own your first 260, or at least I own one of your former 260s.

What you say is true, my point being that Remington didn't do enough to help the 260 succeed, regardless of the environment that it was being released into. The way that Remington handled the introduction of the 260 virtually guaranteed its failure before the first rifles hit dealers' shelves. When I ordered my first 260 in 10/97, none of the wholesalers that I buy from had any ammo or brass.

Remington's failure to provide a multi-purpose selection of "standard" priced factory ammo sure didn't help. If there had been faster 100 and 120 grain factory loads in lieu of, or in addition to, the 140 grain PCL, the round itself might have been more attractive. Also, Remington's failure to chamber the 260 in either of their most popular, highest sales volume, Model 700 styles, the ADL and BDL, could only hurt sales of the 260. AFAIK, except for some limited runs that they made for Grice and Custom Shop guns, Remington cataloged the 260 in the following 7 and 700 configurations:

Model Seven in a variety of barrel lengths and stock materials
700 BDL-SS-DM with a 24" barrel
700 LSS-MR (my favorite)
700 DM-MR
700 VLS
XP-100

That said, its not like Remington's marketing team has had more than its share of other fails. Dropping the Marlin X guns in favor of the 783 seems like a more recent fail. I still think that the 260's launch would make a great HBR case study for little MBAs to learn how not to launch a new product.

My initial interest in the 260 was sparked because I was looking for a stainless/synthetic 6.5mm rifle to replace the Winchester 70 FWTs in 6.5x55 and 6.5-284 that I was using to hunt deer. The Remington Seven stainless/synthetic met that want better than the longer and heavier 700 BDL/SS/DM.

Pete,

In America, for some reason, most shooters call any action longer than really "short," with a 2.8" magazine, a long action. I even suspect most shooters would be confused by the term "intermediate" action!

16bore,

Unfortunately for Remington and the .260, you're not typical!

260Remguy,

I could provide a long list of examples of marketing failures not just by Remington but by other rifle companies--along with many from other companies. "New Coke" comes to mind.

If you read many older gun magazines, you'll find many examples of writers complaining about how one of their favorites that didn't sell well was neglected, and didn't succeed because the company didn't provide the right ammo, or the right rifle. EVERY rifle loony has a favorite cartridge they think has been downtrodden by marketers.

But some new cartridges have succeeded even when the company made mistakes. The first 175-grain grain factory load for the 7mm Remington Magnum was a ROUND-NOSE Core-Lokt! And 7mm Magnum ammo of any kind was scarce in many areas for a while. Yet it went on to become perhaps the biggest success of ANY big game cartridge introduced since WWII.

Many of today's rifle loonies don't realize it, but the 7mm RM was the hottest seller of not just the 1960's but the 1970's (next to the .30-06, of course, and I am sure that in the 1960's more 7mm RM's were sold than .30-06's, at least in America). It made the .300 WSM's splash of a decade ago look tiny. But the demand was already there, despite Remington's mistakes in marketing and supply, thanks to a long-perceived need for a commercial 7mm magnum in an "affordable" factory rifle, not a Weatherby.

If you can explain exactly where the perceived need for the .260 was before 1997, I'd appreciate it. I am a real rifle loony, and had been doing quite a bit of gun writing since about 1990, and never really heard any rumblings of demand for a moderate 6.5 before Remington announced the .260. Jim Carmichel did publish a column on the new round, explaining it's sterling virtues, but as I recall only after the fact.

Sometimes I suspect many firearms companies rely too much on "help" from gun writers, and that may have been one of the problems with Remington, the .260 and Jim Carmichel. Certainly back in the day when there were relatively few writers and magazines, the approval of one or two writers was an enormous help. But by the late 1990's the power of any individual gun writer had been diluted by dozens of other hunting and shooting magazines.