6.5 Creedmoor! LIGHTS OUT!
Warbirds
Member Posts: 16,943 ✭✭✭✭
I am not much of a rifle shooter but I can hold my own.
Mostly I am just not as interested in rifles as I am competitive pistol shooting, or even trap shooting. As a result, maybe 5% or less of my range time goes toward rifles past 100 yards. I would actually be surprised if rifles got a full 5% of my range time.
Being a lefty is its own set of problems with rifles.
Today I shot what I think is the best I have ever in my life with a rifle.
The rifle was a Savage 110(10?) in 6.5 Creedmoor with a nice Leupold 4-12scope and non-descript rings off a bench with sandbags. @300 yards I held just over 1/2MOA for 3 different groups of 3 shots.
I have shot lots of 1MOA groups at 100 yards, and I have made shots (hit a gong) out to 958 yards. I have never held 3 groups at about 1/2MOA @300 yards in my life until today.
I know this isn’t much for some of you, but for me, I will certainly be buying a 6.5 Creedmoor rifle.
This entire rifle as set up was less than $1,100.
Like dummies we put new targets over old targets so I don’t have a good souvenir, but I believe I could repeat that performance with that rifle. It was mid-day, overcast and had rained in the AM, the ammo escapes me but was off the shelf.
Comments
It's a decent round for deer sized game at moderate yardages,
Not trying to start an argument, but my son took this cow at 710 yards. Two steps and a 70 yard slide down.
BTW---I dropped 3 whitetails, 2 DRT, 1 made about 20 yards and died, with it last season.
Name another POPULAR short action 6.5 with the same capabilities
I splurged and put a Nightforce on mine. Great money spent.
Been shooting a 6.5 X 55, M96 with a 29" barrel since the 90's. Love it.
Most important: They are made in the USA.
+1 on Savage, great bang for the buck and USA made. I have an old one in 22-250 that’s a tack driver.
@nononsense
I hear you about Hornady Black. My bolt action 6.5CM loves that stuff.
The others mentioned ammo. There are so many great bullets loaded in factory ammo available in 6.5 CM.
I met a guy with a new RPR in 6.5CM at the 1000 yard range. He scoped that rifle and dialed in at 100, and with the help of an experienced spotter made hits to 1000 in minutes, with 22$ a box Hornady ammo
When I built my AR 10 I looked real hard at the 6.5 Creedmoor most of my shooting is 150 yds or less for my type of hunting I thought the 308 filled my needs a little better plus I had a bunch ammo on hand
https://www.chuckhawks.com/elk_cartridges.htm
https://cpw.state.co.us/learn/Pages/EHU-CH2-L10.aspx#:~:text=A%20commonly%20accepted%20threshold%20for,243%20Win.
and the energy at 700 yards from the 143 eldx (if that's what you were shooting)
https://unclezo.com/2019/07/19/hornady-precision-hunter-143-grain-6-5mm-creedmoor-eld-x/
There's not much room for error. Guessing that your son's shot was right thru the heart, and that was the ticket. But if there was any shooter error, wind drift or something else to make the bullet miss the mark, just a bit, and you would probably have a wounded animal. Like you, not trying to start anything, just wouldn't be my choice at that distance for an elk. Ringing steel or breaking rocks at 1000+ yards is a whole other story....
Hornady, reinvented the wheel in 2007. 6.5 Swede, had been around for 113 years.
IMHO, the only questionable improvement, Hornady made. Was they based it on the necked down, slightly shorter, (.120). .308 Brass.
Most shooters and hunters I would agree. I normally don't look at what they say you need energy wise on any certain game, but I also won't take severely undersized weapons on a hunt. He shoots a Berger 140 VLD Hunt out of that 6.5. Berger says that bullet needs around 1700 FPS to expand reliably, and he's at 1700 at 700 yards. The bullet performed awesome, absolutely decimating the vitals.
I will say I'm a 6.5 fanboy, all the way back to 6.5 Swede, but I also shot an elk that day. 690 yards in a 300 mag.
It is variously paraphrased by statements like "the simplest solution is most likely the right one". This philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions, and that this is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions.