I keep seeing all these posts on the 260, 6.5 Creedmor, and 6.5 Grendle. The 6.5 Swede will outshoot them all as far as velocity. Why then don't more people just get the Swede? powdr

Why not all of them Right now I have a 260 Rem and we got my wife a 6.5x55. I like it that way so it is easy to keep loads for each instead of having multiple loads for only one. I am a big fan of both rounds. So far I have found them to be pretty much identical when it comes to speed.

Because the 7x57 exists.

Dont tell people, then the Lapua brass will go up in price and be hard to find, and I won't be able to buy Nosler ammo for 19$ a box either...

The swede may slightly outperform it's modern day iterations if hand loaded well, but it's not exactly a barn burner either.

There's a fair bit to be said in favor of a short action cartridge that's loaded to modern specs and with a true .473 case rim.

The 7x57 is eurotrash.......

Powdr-

The Swede really needs the 'longer' or 30-06 length action whereas the 260 & Cm are comfy in the short actions.

S A doesn't mean ANYthing to me but there are plenty on the fire that prefer the SA

Jerry

Why do you care?

Take your pick and be happy.😊

Side topic... I just bought a ruger swede... where do you buy $19 ammo???? ;-)

Nosler has some on clearance for $19.95/box with accubonds - wishing I had a "need for Swede" at that price!!

PennDog

Well Ed....

have a couple of those... plus the 260 and the Swede...

and my favorite cartridge of all, the 6.5 x 57...

man can't have enough options for his changing moods at times...

by the way, nice rifle and game pic....

There's no performance reason to choose the Swede over the other 6.5s. But for those of us interested in cartridges for reasons that go beyond mere performance, there are a couple of appealing things about the Swede.

1- It has a unique case. It's not based on any other cartridge and no other commercial or military cartridge is based on it. I like unique.

2- It's a 19th century military cartridge with a worldwide history of sporting adventures that few other cartridges can equal. Simply put, its got more soul than any other 6.5. It is appealing in the way a walnut stocked, thumb notched Mauser with iron sights is appealing.

There's no other choice if your grandparents emigrated from Norway, and you grew up on Norwegian jokes.

The swede is a killer. Like was posted prior, it requires a long action. There are two solutions to shooting longer bullets... Either shorten the case (creed), or go with a longer action. I don't mind long actions though.

Did you forget the 30/40 Krag?

SS

I'm happy with mine and don't see the need to go with a short action 6.5.

I do not see the problem with having a good selection of 6.5's.. They all typically shoot very well...

As mentioned the swede needs a longer action, I prefer the short action. Reforming 260 from the 308 family of brass is also an advantage.
For the most part, the original swede wit,h the 160 grain loads was a really good call by the designers at the time. The 6.5 is a really good bullet in many casings.

Why not! TIKKA sells a T3 in Swede, and mine shoots bugholes.

It's the gun version of the man bun.


W

One indisputable advantage that the Creed has over the Swed is universally excellent factory ammo that is loaded at, or close to, the cartridge's full potential.

I have a few 6.5x55s and hunt with one when I am hunting with my Norwegian bachelor farmer friend. He shoots a fair amount of Fiocchi 6.5x55 factory ammo that is loaded with 140 grain SST at around 2,600 fps in his Norwegian Krags and Swedish SR Mausers. I think that is a little hot for a Krag, but he believes in the superiority of all things Norwegian.

Probably the best buy EVER for a 6.5x55 are the Howa 1500s that SAS has been selling for $330. I can't think of another 6.5mm bore rifle/cartridge combination that is as much of a bargain, unless maybe it was the RAR-Predators in 260 that he was selling for $299 at the end of 2015.

Just got back from shooting this 6.5x55 for the first time.... 8lbs 3oz as pictured....



First 130 Accubond load I tried....



Pretty tough to sling a 130 at 2900+ outta a 22" barreled .260/Creed.....

The lefty T 3 we got for my wife is the same, very accurate. It's a perfect match for the T 3 action and fits really nice. At 122 years old it certainly has staying power and must be doing something right

Dogshooter that looks good. If you do any work with 140's hopefully you let us know.

In my wife's Tikka I made up a 120 gr Ballistic Tip and 140 gr Partition load both with H 4350. The 140's were at 2600 fps so I just loaded some up with Magnum and see if we can get a bit more speed.

My CZ550 likes H4350 too.

I have one 6.5 and it's the Swede in a M 70.

The ONLY other 6.5 I might be interested in is 264 WM. I feel the 6.5-06 has merit but IF I needed to sell it, there is NO local market for it. I'd have to sell it to loonys here on the 'fire'.


Jerry

There is no need for a 6.5-06 with the 6.5-284 available. Been there...

No real need for either the 6.5-06 or 6.5-284 with the 100 year old 256 Newton available.

Yes, there is one REAL advantage for the 6.5/06.......
abundant brass.

I had a difficult time last yr finding 100 - 284 brass.

Jerry

Dogshooter;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust this finds you doing acceptably well.

Thanks for posting the photos of your Swede and the resulting target - both appear to be "just about right" in our experience.

As most folks here know about me, our relationship with the Swede round/rifles goes back to the early '80's. Although there was a bit of a learning curve regarding which cup and core bullets would stick together even at sedate speeds out of a 20" 96, we eventually found some good combinations for our local whitetail and mulie bucks.

By the time our eldest daughter inherited that particular rifle the monometal bullets had come on scene and with them she had - if memory serves this morning - 7 one shot kills on varying age/size whitetail and mulie bucks - at varying distances too.

When I became less than enchanted with the performance of my personal walking around rifle's chambering, I'd originally intended to make a 6.5 Creedmoor, but components proved to be proverbial hen's teeth up here across the medicine line at the time.

Anyway, with apologies for those who've seen this photo too many times, here's the latest installment of my walking around rifle - built on a pre war commercial/military Mauser made 98 action, Wildcat Composites stock and near new Swede military barrel that was cut to 21" and sleeved to fit a 98.



It weighs 7lb 2oz as you see it, has a slightly muzzle heavy balance and is for me very easy to do good work with.

The current hunting load is 120gr TTSX at the same velocity you're shooting the 130 Accubonds.

Anyway sir, that's just another means to an end and most certainly not the only one by any stretch. I do think you're going to get along with your Swede quite well however.

All the best to you this weekend sir.

Dwayne

How does that mod 96 safety work with the scope, Dwayne? Nice looking rifle BTW.

I married into a Norwegian family, there is no way I would EVER own a swede!

I'm building a small ring KKALE 250-3000 w/a used barrel of unknown quality. If it doesn't shoot...a 6.5 Swede is going on that baby. powdr

I agree with BC30cal's evaluation of the 6.5x55 it seems to be just right for a lot of things. That's a very nice example of one you have pictured there.

I've wondered too what the reasoning is behind the other 6.5's that do nothing more then duplicate a well proven performer but looking at other calibers there's lots of duplication pretty much everywhere.

I did last year. I got a great deal on a blued/walnut Mauser M12. I saved $930 on the rifle from a gunshow special. I love the cartridge. It has shot every type of bullet that I have put through it, except one, into under an inch. I love my .257 Roberts and my 7x57, and the 6.5x55 slips nicely in between them. I feel I am complete now and in a perfect state of harmony with the world.

IMO the first reason is to use a S A.

The second reason is to have less recoil.

The third reason is to be diff (kool).


Jerry

Few rifles I have enjoyed more than my Swede. Ruger MK II will shoot sub 1" at 100 yards all day every day if I do my part. Plenty of power at anything like sane hunting range, easy to reload and ammo is reasonable if you have to buy off the shelf. Not in every shop but stocking up is easy. Better looking in the XX claro business suit imho but I might be prejudiced since I made the suit.

DS,

I never have loaded 130's in my 6.5CM, but based on what I've been able to do with 127LRX's and 125 Partitions, 2900+ w/ a 130 should be very doable with a 6.5CM and RL17.

Nice Swede and good shooting!

David

Brother Keith;
Good morning to you sir, I hope this finds you and your fine family well and that spring has been arriving in your part of the world too.

The rifle in the photo is actually what we believe to be a fairly rare up here commercial 98 Mauser as it had the Mauser roll mark on the front receiver ring and no Nazi waffenamt marks like most of the rest of them at our place do - barring the VZ28 action I'm trying to make into something for our eldest.... but anyway.

So the safety on mine is a new Timney made version of the grand Buehler design that's been around for so long. They are an absolute breeze to install and get working.

I've installed a good number of the Gun Parts Corp Super Low Scope safeties over the years and while they do work, I wouldn't exactly say it's a quick install most times.

The safety on our daughter's 96 is a Mark II safety that was intended for a 98 action.


To make it work, I milled a groove into the safety shaft, then drilled a hole through the bolt shroud and used a brass pin to retain the safety as it's got more built in lubricity than a steel one would.

Oh, I should add that whatever the Swedes used for steel on the 96 bolt shrouds it's certainly tougher than the material used on the 98 bolt shrouds I've played with. Not sure if that has any bearing on any thing, but anyway that's what I found.

The safeties do clear the scopes okay on both rifles, but are tougher to manipulate with heavy gloves on than say a tang or side safety would be.

We honestly don't use the safety much at all though, so it's a bit of a non issue for us. I always put a functional safety on my builds because it "should" be there however.

Hopefully that was useful for you or someone out there today Brother Keith. All the best to you all today and in the upcoming week.

Dwayne

I'm no expert but if you shoot the same bullet at the same velocity and same weight gun shouldn't the recoil be the same?
But, if the short action rifle weighs less than the long action one wouldn't it recoil more?

When I build on Swedish military Mausers for myself, I always make these three modifications:

1. Replace the military trigger with a Bold or Timney that has an integrated safety.

2. Replace the military bolt shroud with a commercial style that has a larger gas shield.

3. Install a Dayton-Traister cock-on-opening kit.

When I build on Swedish Mausers for my Norwegian bachelor farmer friend, I have always done the first two and have usually ended up doing the third after he has had some trigger time.

The weak link in the pre-1898 SR actions is their gas handling design, so the commercial style bolt shroud is, IMO, the most important safety modification when building on these actions.

Y'all got WAY more skills than I do.

I clean em, mount a scope, sight em in, rarely even adjust the trigger, then take em to the range and tweak the shooting.

Thanks for the reply, Dwayne, and the pic of the very nice rifle.

whackem - # 1 yes the recoil SHOULD be the same from the same weight rifle, but I was thinking about the 6.5 Cm using less powder and less velocity.

#2. yes- IF the SA does indeed weight less. But as you know, all rifles, SA don't weigh the same, some more and some less.

Over the yrs. I've had several 243s and the weights have varied A LOT.

Jerry

It ain't that tough.....Reloder 17 gets you there easy.

Sounds like my mother, she's 100% Norwegian. Me, I'm only 75% so I keep an open mind

But yeah, the 6.5mm was the blend of the best man had to offer and an admixture of the divine. Just ask any Norwegian!

Were I building a 6.5 in the USA it would be the Creed.

That's the first load I tried.... it's probably only 58k/psi, we ain't done yet.... and you gotta reef on a .260/Creed to get 2900+ outta a 130 AB in a 22" barrel.... been there....

Whatever the .260 will do.... the Swede will do 100fps faster.... I've got some RE17 here.... I could load that in the x55 too....

slight derail: I consider the M94s to be the best looking military rifle ever.

Yowser! You need glasses!!

Now, that little Mannlicher is cool. powdr

DS

What was your powder/charge? At best the x55 is good for another 50fps over the 6.5CM at equal pressures and barrel lengths. I'm certain '17 will work well, but you would probably come closer w/ IMR 7828 SSC. More is more, but if I've got to run a long action I would rather step up to a case designed for a long action.

David

Ergo, the reason for the 256 Newton to exist. Like all of baby bear's things, it is always just right. Too bad WW1 got in Charles Newton's way.

Accord to my case capacity chart, the 260 holds 53 grains of H2O, the 6.5x55 holds 57 grains of H2O, and the 256 Newton holds 61 grains of H2O.

The 4 grain increments are around 7% of the case capacity, so any speed increase should be in the 2% range, assuming all other variable factors remain the same for all three cartridges. The biggest catch being that all other variable factors are seldom the same.

I disagree... like 257's, 6.5's belong in cases 57mm and smaller...

Why?

The 25-06 is probably the most popular .257" bore cartridges ever, both as a wildcat and as a commercial cartridge. The 250-3000 is a nice cartridge in the Savage 99, but never sold well in any other rifle. The 257 Roberts is a nice cartridge, but the most popular bolt action rifle made during the Roberts' halcyon years was the Winchester 70 and their price today reflects their relative scarcity.

The shorter 6.5mm bore cartridges haven't sold well in the U.S., with the 6.5x55 probably being the most popular due to the glut of inexpensive mail-order Swedish Mausers post-WW2. But, it was never popular enough for Fed/Rem/Win to load factory ammo for it until Remington made a 1 year run of 700 Classics and Winchester/USRA cataloged it in the 70 on and off since 1985/86.

Barrel life, barrel length, shootability, cosmic balance

A sprinkling of Holy Water will address all 4 issues with a 5 minute visit with you local Catholic Priest.

LOL, last time I met with a catholic pries he tried to rape me and I had to threaten him to within an inch of his life... my Norwegian/Lutheran training won the day

But that's not fiction sadly... I was 16 years old.

MORE people DO just get the swede, that's why it's still around.

1 - SA vs LA is a moot point except for the fact that LA cartridges feed much nicer/smoothly

2 - The swede has less felt recoil with better performance than the other 6.5s

3 - There in a much greater cool factor associated with the 6.5 swede and all of its panache

You need to add "in my opinion". I disagree with all 3 of you assertions.

It's the old long action/ short action thing...blah blah blah.

I've always been kinda like "who cares"?

I notice the first thing the short action advocates always do is find a way to increase OAL with special boxes etc.... so they can load long bullets further out. Kinda like fitting size 10 feet in size 9 boots.

Well...if you want that, what was wrong with a long action in the first place?

Yeah, if shorter is so much better, they should all be shooting .264 WSSMs!

Hey, there's nothing wrong with the 6.5 WSSM as long as you can live with the COAL limits of the magazines.

Current one is a CZ550FS, accurate and a great woods rifle. Try RL-19 best I have found in three rifles. A Sako did like IMR4895 however.

'Cause that would take all the fun out of it.

SAAMI pressure limits are 51Kpsi and 46KCUP. Factory ammo will conform to these specs. Load data generally reflects those pressures and while you can get higher velocities with higher pressure, good luck getting reliable 60-65Kpsi or 52-54KCUP pressure load data.

If you want more velocity in a long action, build a 6.5-06AI like I did. Recently I bought a used Savage Model 11 FXP3 in .243 Win with the idea I would turn it into "something more useful". Top contenders were a 6.5 Creedmoor and .260 Rem. The 6.5x55 cwas dismissed as a candidate almost as quickly as it crossed my mind. In any case, the Savage shot too well and will remain a .243. For now...

In my opinion, my opinion is better than your opinion.

260Remguy,
Don't get me wrong, I love the .260 as well as the Swede. I love all of them 6.5s. Just don't see any reason, in my opinion, to go with any of the others instead of a swede. That is....if you were a 6.5 cal first timer.

Love my Sweed

It's on a very short action and I can load the longies out there till they touch the lands. It's light too. A Pac Nor barreled Ruger #3 in after market wood. 120TTSX at 3000. Pokes holes in paper at about .80. That's the limit of my ability. Pokes holes through whitetail bucks. It may follow me to Newfoundland for Moose medicine.

One very satisfied customer.

Jim

I'm 6.5mm bore fan, currently have 53 of them in 256 Newton (x3), 260 (x25), 6.5 Creedmmor (x5), 6.5x55 (x16), and 6.5-284 (x4). I have also owned them in 6.5x52 Carcano, 6.5x53R, 6.5x54, 6.5 Rem Mag, 6.5-06, and 264 Win Mag.

I think that the 6.5 Creedmoor is currently the best option for American shooters because of the variety of rifle that are being cataloged, some that are actually available, and the excellent factory ammo that Hornady is selling.

None of the other 6.5mm bore cartridges can claim those two attributes in March 2016.

Between the short and long action is the mauser standard action. That is where the 57mm case belongs.

The Swedes drink a lot and that is how they screwed up the cartridge head dimensions.

The 6.5x57 and the 6.5/257 are better designed...:)

The 6.5X55 Swede with the larger cartridge head perfectly disperses pressure over the slightly larger surface area. It is the one cartridge design that borders perfection from a pressure dispersion aspect.




Shod

that sounds like something out of a larger head...:)

I probably just made that up but I was trying to think as a Swede would after 10 beers.


Shod

"10 Beers" is my Indian name.

Lol.....I was taking a sip of coffee as I read that and almost got coffee on the living room carpet.


Shod

My Grandfather's name was "Iron Liver".

But seriously,

I've owned the 6.5 Creedmoor, the 260 Remington and the 6.5x55 and for my purposes, there isn't a gnat's a$$ between them.

The rifle matters more to me than the cartridge it is chambered for to me. (between the three of those)

Agreed....and that's exactly why I bought this 6.5x55. In all honesty though, I'd have bought it had it been a 270 as well.

Oh Elizabeth!....get my nitros!!!

Soo Sweeet!!


Jerry

Sweet and some nice timber as well!

Pic's like this are one of the reasons I love the campfire.
Well done!

You are the very bird that set me up with the 260 that I have now.

I had a Ruger American Predator in the Creedmoor. (Also got that one from you.)

I have a Tikka T3 hunter in the Swede.

And now I have a Tikka T3 superlight in 260.

The truth of the matter is that I like the rifle more than the cartridge.

Also, like you mentioned, when you settle on the 130 grain Nosler Accubond moving at 2800 or so, you realize that a 270 WCF will do the same work and more.

Anyway, I am glad to live in a country where we have the freedom to choose which cartridge and rifle we will hunt with.

Thanks for the kind words all.

I've been shooting the 260 and 6.5 Creedmoor quite a bit over the past few years. I'd never really considered the 6.5x55. I wanted something a little different to play with (although they're all 3 almost one in the same) and brought home a Tikka. I took it to Texas..and it worked!





None of my buddies are shooting the 6.5x55. That makes "me" a little different too. I now really like the cartridge.

BRAGGART ! !




Jerry

This is my Swede, M 70 FTWT










It works too>>grin


Jerry