Was reading today about the intrduction of a factory 6.5-300 Wea.

This prompted me to check the newest Hogdgon annual manual for the 7mm STW vs 28 Nosler.

Top velocity goes back and forth between the STW and the 28 Nosler by a very small margin. Charge weights are nearly identical. The obvious conclusion would be they have nearly the same capacity. And we already know the STW is nearly identical to the 300 Wea in capacity.

Layne Simpson introduced us to the 6.5 STW well over 20 years ago. Nosler brought us identical ballistics with the 26 Nosler a while back.

And now Weatherby thinks we need to turn the identicle twins into a set of triplets?

Yawn!

Check out Kenny Jarrett's 284 Jarrett and compare to the 28 Nosler introduced 20 or so years later. Pretty dang similar

Aaa....they're late to the 6.5 party.

They were ALL late to the 7mm Mashburn Super party. And the 7mm Weatherby too for that matter

Generations come and go; old cartridges and performance levels get forgotten,fall off the radar,get recycled and introduced to newer shooters.Rather than major improvements we get refinements. Slightly shorter/fatter cases to fit certain actions,no belts for those who don't like them.newer bullets and powders and brass, slight tweaks in capacity, etc etc.

When Simpson necked down the 8 Rem Mag to 7mm he was taking advantage of a new source of brass,even though you could always make the case from 300 H&H brass;by then shooters did not know he was simply duplicating the 7mm Mashburn Super in terms of performance. The 6.5 version was not as likely to be popular because 6.5's in general did not have the traction they do today.I think Nosler and Weatherby are following the trend to more modern, updated 6.5's.

Due to the popularity of LR shooting, everyone wants a 6.5.

Layne has done a lot that folks here seem to not recognize or even talk about. He competed where about nil writers here have.

I would have been much more interested in a 6.5 on the same case as the 257/270/7mm case but wish Weatherby well on their new cartridge. One thing is for certain, it's going to shoot flat..........

That would make Much more sense, for sure. On a 300 Wby case it would just burn a helluva lot more powder to get to the same place as with the 257/270/7mm case.

Isn't that called the .264 Win Mag?

Now that I think of it,the 6.5/300 Weatherby was a wildcat that had some notoriety back in the 70's(?),named then the 6.5 Wright-Hoyer or something like that. I remember an article in Rifle or Handloader about it back then. It was used for 1000 yard work as I recall.

Got to meet Layne at Kenny Jarrett's place when I was placing my order for one of his rifles. Layne spent two and one half hours with me (yep, 2.5 hours) going over options, choices, etc. I came away very impressed with both his technical and practical knowledge, and his willingness to share it with some peon from Georgia. He was another one of those I like to call down-to-earth type folks we all can relate too very easily. Ended up with a 280 Ackley that was very beloved to me.

If memory serves me correctly, the 6.5 x 300 was done by Alex Hoyer from Lewistown, Pa. back in the 1960's. He would shoot mountain to mountain across the Juniata River

I'll bet when the next generation of powder woofin bore burning 6.5 wiz bangs come along in 20 or 30 years the 6.5 X 55 will still be chugging along, making dinosaurs like me happy.

Pretty much but it looks cooler

Seriously though I would prefer the longer neck and the freebore would probably add a bit of speed like the 7mm Wby does with the 7mm RM. You know standard rifle looney stuff here

Calling the same old thing "something new" is the opiat of the masses of the gun world. The two most powerful words in selling are "new" and "free". In this case "new" is being sold in disguise of previous endeavors.

Another great new cartridge is the 22-204...

Good one.

Bob, I was just going to mention Hoyer and the 6.5-300.. It was popular in the 60's and 70's.. In Pa. it was used in the 1000 yard benchrest matches and for shooting deer at long range.. They were killing deer at 1200 yards plus back then.

WCH: Yes you and Bugs jogged my memory. Cant remember whether it was Earl Etter or Jim Carmichael who interviewed some guy who was using the cartridge for LR target work and did an article for Rifle magazine (Handloader?).

Actually the cartridge is likely a better bet now than back then,what with so much better bullets and powders today.

Bob, I was just going to mention Hoyer.. They had the6.5-300 back in the 60's & 70's.. It was used in the 1000 yard bench rest matches in Paa. and they also used it for long range deer shooting.. They were killing deer at 1200 yards back they..

The 6.5-06 is still my favorite and then the 264 Win Mag

Good stuff, guys. I always like Bob's analysis of a topic. He's dead on this time, as well.

The 6.5/300 Weatherby Wright Hoyer (WWH) was indeed an early wildcat, so Wby didn't introduce a "new" round, they just repackaged an old round. And, they had loads of data already worked up by those early pioneers.

And, as Bob pointed out, these new powders really turn large capacity rounds like the 6.5/300 WWH into better, more efficient rounds.

I guess Nosler, rolling out their 26, stirred something at Wby. And, of course, Wby had to beat Nosler by a few fps.

Seems to me, we hit a wall trying to squeeze a few more fps from an already big, overbore round, burning a lot more powder for only a modest gain in velocity.

I personally like the Nosler version. It's a 3.4" round and my 700 has a 3.6" box, so I can load long, heavy bullets out where I want without restraint. The new Wby round is full mag, 3.6". We'll see how it sells.

DF

I think it was the 6.5 Weathrby-Wright-Hoyer. Here is a quote from Sierra's second reloading manual, pg. 171.

"This cartridge was reportedly designed by Lt. Colonel Paul Wright(ret) of Silver City, New Mexico. It is sometimes called the 6.5X 300 Weatherby-Wright-Hoyer. "Hoyer" is a reference to Alex Hoyer, a Pennsylvania gunsmith, who built the first 6.5 X 300 for Colonel Wright and many of the rifles in this caliber used in the Pennsylvania 1000 yard bench rest matches. The design of this cartridge is simply the .300 Weatherby necked down to 6.5MM.the rifles chambered for it have a standard throat with no freebore."

They go on to list some UNTESTED, I repeat, UNTESTED loads of "Frank Weber who used the cartridge to set the 1000 yard record for ten shots at that time of 8.468 and perfect score of 50." No velocities recorded:

With H870, Fed 215, Sierra MK...82-84 grs. (Up to 86 grs for hunting)
With H570, Fed 215, Sierra MK...79-81 grs. (Up yo 83 grs for hunting)

Idaho Shooter,

I haven't talked to anybody at Weatherby about the new round, but Weatherby's tradition, going back to when (and how) Roy started the business, has been to create commercial big game cartridges providing the most velocity for any particular caliber. That's exactly what the .240, .257, .270, 7mm, .300, .340, .375, .378, .416 and .460 did when they appeared.

Accordingly, the 6.5-300 will be the fastest commercial 6.5 cartridge. The claimed ballistics beat the 26 Nosler by about 100 fps with the same bullet weights, even though powder capacity's got to be pretty similar, probably because the 6.5-300 will have the typical Weatherby "freebore" throat.

It remains to be seen how many they sell, but Weatherby rifles have been quite accurate for a while now, and there's got to be some market for the fastest 6.5 cartridge. And regardless of whether they sell a bunch, it's going to remind a lot of shooters of the Weatherby brand.

One observation: It's always interesting on the Campfire (and elsewhere on the Internet) when some company brings out a new rifle cartridge. A bunch of shooters who immediately post, "Bill Jones designed essentially the same cartridge in 1957," or "My sporterized 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser kills deer like the hammer of Thor and I don't see any need for another 6.5," or "Who does Weatherby think will buy this redundant round?"

Well, Bill Jones's cartridge was never chambered commercially, and Weatherby doesn't care who's NOT going to buy a rifle for their new round. Instead, they're following an old Weatherby tradition into the 21st century, offering a really fast cartridge that fits right into the current 6.5 trend. No doubt other people will think it's about time 6.5's got some attention from American shooters, and Weatherby finally filled the 6.5 slot in their line-up.

Those powders are largely gone, replaced by Vulcan take downs such as 872. Hodgdon sells their 869 which IME, has about the same burn rate as 872, at least the lots I have.

I just got some Vv N570, reportedly a good one for those big cases. Dealing with these mega rounds is a different experience than conventional reloading using conventional powders.

These big rounds are getting pretty far into the Loony woods...

DF

Wow! I want one in an Accumark.

Me too.

PA seems to be ahead of the curve on things like this. When I was a young man I remember talking to a guy who belonged to a 1,000 yard hunting club in Tioga co. PA. I asked him what cartridge he used and he said it was a .378 Weatherby case necked down to .30 cal. That was before Weatherby introduced the .30-378.

WORD......

All of these options and choices - IT'S SO CONFUSING!!!

I wish some somebody would step in and eliminate the majority of the cartridge choices we have available and stop any more from being developed, so that picking a chambering would be simple. Hopefully there's a government task force getting lined up to tackle this problem in the near future.

David

Bob, It was Earl Etter who did the 6.5/300.. I never met him but visited on the phone several times and have several letters from him.. He used the 6.5 on a couple antelope I believe, then moved from Pa. to Idaho.. There he became a big bore fan.. But he WAS hunting elk in pretty heavy timber..

moose, you are pretty well on target with your statement about Pa.
In the 50's and 60's those guys were already shooting deer and groundhogs at very long range.. One of my friends there killed a 'chuck at 1200+ yards during that time.. 3 or 4 years ago I was there hunting deer and saw guys with custom .30-378's and .338-378's set up to shoot from mountain to mountain .. They weren't just guess and hoping for a luck shot either..

Agreed Wyo. Those 1,000 yard clubs in PA know what they're doing. Williamsport has a 1,000 yard rifle range that attracts a lot of them too.

Just what is needed - another 6.5 super mag! I can't believe that a ton of these are sold each year to justify 3 or more manufacturers offering them.

I can't imagine it costs Weatherby much to make a reamer and a roll stamp to be in the game.

moose the on you mentioned was the original 1000 yard benchrest club.. I was never to it, but near it several times..

Several years ago we were visiting friends in Pa. in the spring.. Got up to Ridgeway and watched the guys and gals shoot steel targets of crows, bobcats, and coyotes.. There was one more may a 'chuck. Anyway the coyote was 1000 yards.. the others closer.. some awesome rigs there..

moose the on you mentioned was the original 1000 yard benchrest club.. I was never to it, but near it several times..

Several years ago we were visiting friends in Pa. in the spring.. Got up to Ridgeway and watched the guys and gals shoot steel targets of crows, bobcats, and coyotes.. There was one more may a 'chuck. Anyway the coyote was 1000 yards.. the others closer.. some awesome rigs there..

What surprised me is they Bear hunt that way too. It's all mountain to mountain shooting with bench rifles and spotting scopes.

Done that with a .300 Wby mag and a 200 gr SMK about 20 or so years ago. Except the targets were chickens,pigs,turkeys and rams. They were set at 600,700,850 (?) and 1000 yds. The .300 made the chickens fly and it knocked the rams over with authority.

I am sure it would.. Up at Raton???

No,the Butterfield range west of Las Cruces. IIRC the total number of shooters was 5-6 people. Think I shot the match 2-3 times and then it went ka-put as there was not enough shooters.

Moose and others,

I met a couple of those guys shooting across a reservoir in Warren County back around '99. Came to where I was working and asked could they access the "back 40" ( A hillside on the Allegheny NF). I asked why, they said they had a deer down back there. I asked did they shoot it from up top and it went downhill, as I hadn't seen anyone accessing from this side. They told me nope, we shot it from across the lake, with a .30-378 and it didn't go anywhere. That's where I first heard of the 1000yd club.

Set up benches and stuff in an overlook and spotted deer across the lake. At the time I thought it was "interesting".

The new 6.5 might just work well for it too.

Geno

What a colossal waste of time when there is 1000 yard 243 already on the campfire, proving the lack of need of all this wasted discussion...

Seem's to me it's a " me to round " . 6.5 is the flavor of the month, the Creedmore and Nosler , creating a little buzz. Generate some excitement Sell some rifles . I'll look at it and shake my head and in 6 months I'll probably be thinking of buying one ( a 6.5 of some kind). Soon as I saw the Nosler 28 ooooooohhhhhh got to have one of those! Way better than the 280 Rem , 280 AI , 284 Win. 7mm rem , RUM , SAUM , WBY , STW , MSM , Dakota . Lazzeroni ,LRM, 7x61 sharp and what ever other 7mm I forgot. Fun days to be a rifle loony.

I feel yo pain, KHH...

Looks like all this 6.5 hype is taking its toll on ya...

It takes a Loony to spot a Loony...

DF

DF: I know you like those big 6.5's...

Gonna get a Weatherby?

Fireball2,

Your tongue may be firmly in your cheek, but introducing a new commercial cartridge costs a lot more than a reamer and a roll stamp. First, there's extensive pressure-testing on an indoor piezo-electronic lab (no, a Pressure Trace doesn't cut it), which costs considerable money, since several pressure barrels are usually involved, often with different chamber variations.

Then there's the wining and dining of other SAAMI members so they'll play nice and approve the new round during the annual meeting--which takes place during the SHOT Show and can get expensive. (Or at least that's what I've heard.)

Then there's the forming dies and production line for factory brass and ammo, which cost a considerable sum.

The 6.5-06 A Frame is the logical one to build in my mind. In fact, a 6.5-06 AI would be pretty cool. I know, not a short action cartridge, as a hunting rig, who cares.

I heard about that. I also read on that thread that the .300 Weatherby isn't a long range cartridge.

Just seems that the 260 Winchester [6.5-06] wasn't introduced long ago as a standard cartridge.

Thought it was the 6.5-06 A square?

Yep, I get Weatherby doing it to follow their tradition, but they should probably make it available with their Vanguard action. I wouldn't want a target rifle designed on a Mark V action with the stock screw going into bottom of recoil lug.

Their competition could probably make more money selling rifles and ammo with a commercial 6.5 WSM or SAUM.

I know there is a niche market for ultra performance at any cost, whether it be automotive, computer hardware, or ballistics. But most of us mortals have to settle a bit in the performance department as performance increases at a rate inversely proportional to cost.

Ultra-capacity cartridges are of little interest for ranges inside 600 or 700 yards. Extended ranges typically mean heavy for caliber bullets with high ballistic coefficeints.

Mule Deer has shown us years ago how to acheive that elusive 3200 fps with a 140 in the 264 at sane pressure.

But such loads are still very scarce in the load manuals. While the 6.5 Nosler exceeds 3200 fps by slim margins.

There is a significant performance gain in the 7 mm magnums when increasing capacity from that of the 7 rem/wea mag to capacity of 7MM STW/3OO Wea.

That performance gain is much diminished when bore diameter is reduced to 264.

Couple hundred bucks and grease a few gunwriters wheels...

Yeah, most gun writers are on welfare or retired, so it doesn't take much!

I KNEW, I KNEW IT!!! JB just confirmed we all thought all along

Don't tell anyone around here but,




they're in a, gasp, UNION too!

Geno

First New Years Day Funny

Naw...

The 26 is big enough, burns enough powder, makes enough noise...

I have only one Wby, a Mk V and it wears a Brux 7RM tube in a Wby Express McWoody. That's enough Wby for me...

Jorge and Fotis are real Wby fans...

DF

.....and burn out throats!!

Was waiting for someone to mention that I would imagine it might be a bit tough on the throat.

And Pac-Nor,Shilen,Douglas,Lilja,Benchmark etc.. will make more barrels on Monday.

True, and most of those who buy such a hot rod will realize that is part of the price of buying a round like that. But you know there are going to be those who will complain

True.

As far as the complainers go.....

Yikes

Simple 260 or 6.5-06 in a ultralite model would be sweet .. just thinking aloud

That sand up in there has got to itch and burn.



LOL.

No you didn't read that nor did you hear that but I have no doubt you "felt" that.



I didn't really want to like the 26 Nosler but the SAAMI chamber is designed much better than the SAAMI .264 Win Mag, specifically the throat.

The 26 Nosler throat is still not right but won't die nearly as fast as a SAAMI .264 Win Mag throat. 3200fps/ 140gr bullet will come easier (26 Nosler) and at lower pressure, which will also benefit throat life.



All this talk about hot rod 6.5mm is making me think there might be something there. I might just have to give one a go.

Wonder if it will kill an elk?

This is the first time I have heard someone saying the 26 Nosler potentially having longer barrel life than the 264 WM. Care to estimate how many rounds the "average" 264 WM, 26 Nosler and 6.5/300 Wby would last?

500-800?

I have more than that through my 264 WM but recently found out the throat has gotten quite long.

The original barrel on my Win 70 classic lasted 2500 rounds, but 1000 of those were 3000 fps w/ 100 gr 0r 120 gr ballistic tips and IMR 4831 as ground squirrel loads.

About five years, for me.

The only way the barrel on a 26 Nosler or a 6.5-300 Wea will outlast a 264 barrel; is to hold the velocity of the bigger cartridge to 264 levels. As John Burns stated in his post.

The 26 Nosler pushing a 140 to 3200 fps with 869 will run at a lower peak pressure/flame temp than will the 264 pushing the same bullet to 3200 fps with Magnum or Retumbo.

But, how many purchasers of the two larger capacity cartridges will settle for running them at 264 velocities? Most will be striving to hit 3250 at a minimum or 3300 fps.

Interesting. Most would want to hot rod the two bigger rounds but I would be happy with longer barrel life and run them at 264 WM speeds.

I have used mostly Retumbo since building the 264 WM in 2008 but can't complain with how long the barrel has lasted. Still shoots decently but I need a lot more powder now to get the speed I used to.

Like some others have posted here. I would run them max as it is a hunting rifle and I wouldn't run that many rounds through it each year. Probably last my life time, but 223 dog town rifles are a different story.

Yours is not a unique mindset. I do not run my 6-284 or my 22-243AI nearly as hard as I might. But they still exceed the rifles' original chamberings of 243 Win and 22-259 Rem.

Dr Howell promoted a whole series of oversized cartridges, not to maximize velocity, but to reduce chaber pressures.

I've got a 257 Weatherby and a 270 Weatherby. I've been hoping for something to fill that performance gap.

EUREKA !!!!

Another great new cartridge is the 22-204... [/quote]

Yeah, circa 1958 ........

The .264 Win Mag seems to be making a comeback.

The 6.5x68mm is better than the 26 Nosler and better than the 6.5-300 weatherby.

John, how do you feel about below: