6.5 or what

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Foxyboy43

Foxyboy43

Well-Known Member
I have a 6.5x55 SKAN/SE - It is extremely accurate, very flat shooting and carries more than sufficient kinetic energy for all UK species (if there any doubters let them check what the Scandinavians use it for!) so it was an excellent choice.
So from that basis I have watched with some interest the almost mystical development of the 6.5 Creedmoor and the claims that came in its wake. Intrigued by these I decided to have a look at just what all the fuss was about, so I consulted the Viht 2020 Reloading Guide to compare performance between the two. Incidentally I also looked at the 6.5 Grendel but despite the excellent reputation it enjoys, the very obvious differences in kinetic energy and resultant meaningless comparisons led me to omit it from my considerations.
So what did I find? In short, assuming similar accuracy and using the same bullets, the Viht data reveals that:-
- the Creedmoor offers some savings in some powder quantities over the SE/SKAN for similar velocities (perhaps of real interest only if you are a high volume target shooter) and
- the Creedmoor offers marginal improvement in velocity and thus kinetic energy (irrelevant when the SE/SKAN delivers more kinetic energy than you will ever need in the UK).
I offer my fairly simple thoughts for consideration but cannot help concluding that a UK deer of any species, if hit in the right place, will die quickly and humanely if shot with either of these excellent rounds - something all responsible stalkers aspire to. The inevitable question for me is just what is all the Creedmoor fuss really about? Answers on a postcard etc.....,
 
Foxyboy43 said:
I have a 6.5x55 SKAN/SE - It is extremely accurate, very flat shooting and carries more than sufficient kinetic energy for all UK species (if there any doubters let them check what the Scandinavians use it for!) so it was an excellent choice.
So from that basis I have watched with some interest the almost mystical development of the 6.5 Creedmoor and the claims that came in its wake. Intrigued by these I decided to have a look at just what all the fuss was about, so I consulted the Viht 2020 Reloading Guide to compare performance between the two. Incidentally I also looked at the 6.5 Grendel but despite the excellent reputation it enjoys, the very obvious differences in kinetic energy and resultant meaningless comparisons led me to omit it from my considerations.
So what did I find? In short, assuming similar accuracy and using the same bullets, the Viht data reveals that:-
- the Creedmoor offers some savings in some powder quantities over the SE/SKAN for similar velocities (perhaps of real interest only if you are a high volume target shooter) and
- the Creedmoor offers marginal improvement in velocity and thus kinetic energy (irrelevant when the SE/SKAN delivers more kinetic energy than you will ever need in the UK).
I offer my fairly simple thoughts for consideration but cannot help concluding that a UK deer of any species, if hit in the right place, will die quickly and humanely if shot with either of these excellent rounds - something all responsible stalkers aspire to. The inevitable question for me is just what is all the Creedmoor fuss really about? Answers on a postcard etc.....,
Click to expand...
I suppose one plus is that it is a short action rather than long. A greater choice of aftermarket stocks are likely to be available although I would think this would be more relevant to a target shooter. No plans to swap my Swede any time soon.
 
Foxyboy43 said:
I have a 6.5x55 SKAN/SE - It is extremely accurate, very flat shooting and carries more than sufficient kinetic energy for all UK species (if there any doubters let them check what the Scandinavians use it for!) so it was an excellent choice.
So from that basis I have watched with some interest the almost mystical development of the 6.5 Creedmoor and the claims that came in its wake. Intrigued by these I decided to have a look at just what all the fuss was about, so I consulted the Viht 2020 Reloading Guide to compare performance between the two. Incidentally I also looked at the 6.5 Grendel but despite the excellent reputation it enjoys, the very obvious differences in kinetic energy and resultant meaningless comparisons led me to omit it from my considerations.
So what did I find? In short, assuming similar accuracy and using the same bullets, the Viht data reveals that:-
- the Creedmoor offers some savings in some powder quantities over the SE/SKAN for similar velocities (perhaps of real interest only if you are a high volume target shooter) and
- the Creedmoor offers marginal improvement in velocity and thus kinetic energy (irrelevant when the SE/SKAN delivers more kinetic energy than you will ever need in the UK).
I offer my fairly simple thoughts for consideration but cannot help concluding that a UK deer of any species, if hit in the right place, will die quickly and humanely if shot with either of these excellent rounds - something all responsible stalkers aspire to. The inevitable question for me is just what is all the Creedmoor fuss really about? Answers on a postcard etc.....,
Click to expand...
Shorter barrels on the 6.5x55 both mine are 20"
Shot out to a 1000 mtrs at WMS hitting the gongs
Skan loads I just use more powder not much slower. It does what it says on the bottle
 
What I cannot understand is the constant posts asking why it's better (or worse) than any other round for deerstalking. It's neither better nor worse than anything in the 6, 6.5, 7 or 7.5mm calibres. Deerstalkers don't need the round to carry any more energy than the majority of those calibres offer. Hit a deer in the right place at stalking distances (and let's be liberal and extend that to 250 yards for the sake of the bedwetters) with a legal bullet for that species and you will kill it.

BUT..... the 6.5 CM wasn't designed as a hunting chambering. It was developed to push the boundaries for recreational and competition shooters, spilling into military usage, but by a remarkable coincidence it was discovered to be supremely accurate. By using a long by narrow projectile it also carries and retains energy very well, making it suitable for hunting. The chambering lends itself to high pressures, so it can chuck hefty rounds at fairly impressive speeds.

So, if you like what any of the 6.5 chamberings offer, then in terms of deerstalking, it matters not one iota. Buy what the hell you want, and if you want to jump on the ridiculous "what's all the fuss about?" bandwagon, then you'd do well to realise that deerstalking isn't the only reason to own any chambering. I have shot deer with my 6.5CM, at ranges between 30 and 175 yards. They were all dead afterwards. They would have been dead with a Swede, or a .243, or a Grendel, or a .308. Or a 30-06. Or a 7mm-08, or a .260, or a .270 or.........

I have shot foxes out to ranges that would make the average deerstalker blush.

But yesterday I went to a range and used the same rifle and the same bullets to shoot at steel targets at 402 yards, 477 yards, 550 yards, 687 yards and 1000 yards. I missed once at 1000 yards. It's a superb target round, still supersonic at 1000 yards, accurate and consistent. It also works as a deer round, but if you don't want a 1000 yard rifle, buy whatever the "Facebook and Forum" cognoscenti recommend, and glow with pride that you've not fallen prey to the hype.
 
Foxyboy43 said:
The inevitable question for me is just what is all the Creedmoor fuss really about?
Click to expand...
It would be far more informative for you to read some of the excellent articles explaining the genesis of the Creedmoor, as well as looking up the history of the Swede as a sporting cartridge and it’s relative lack of take-up in North America, and why.

You’ll be far better off doing that than getting 70+ mostly partisan responses on an internet forum, where objectivity and factual correctness is often in short supply.

Once you’ve done that, ask yourself why many rifle manufacturers are limiting, or even stopping altogether, production of the 6.5x55 SE.

It’s not rocket science. Or magic.
 
Ouch! Jeez guys - it was an entirely honest and perhaps innocent question from an old shooter new to this site - seems like I may have trodden on a few still sensitive CM toes......
 
Still sensitive? Nah. Just bored to tears with the same old shite over and over and over again. It’s been done to death on every forum and in every magazine and every shooting club and down every pub and it’s just... worn out. Who cares anymore?
 
ANY 6.5 can be used for all UK species out to ALL ranges they're commonly shot at, accurately and using the exact same bullets. Just pick one and learn to shoot with it, and forget the internet urban warrior partisan nonsense!

As Dodgyknees says, the CM development was not the same as the 'x55. That has origins in military use, with the lower chamber pressure later being found to be a nice effective round for everything from fox to Elk! 1st generation Swedish (Swede) introduced in 1890's was 55Kpsi chamber pressure with factory rounds often less, specifically aimed for Norway and Swedish army use. Proof test for the military Mauser was a single shot 65KPSI loading but I most definitely would NOT shoot any high pressure load in such an elderly rifle today. The later 6.5 x 55 (sporting) can be loaded to higher chamber pressures (but cannot safely be used in some older service rifles of the same chambering) and is what is commonly used and sold as a sporting chambering today. I should say "chamberings" as there were actually three modern chamberings (SAAMI, European CIP and the modern SKAN chamberings), each with slight variations. Today, the SKAN chambering is the commonly used one as it made changes to satisfy SAAMI and CIP standards so you can use any currently made 6.5 x 55 load in the SKAN chambering.

The 260 Remington was the USA 6.5 competitor in many ways and was formed from a necked down .308 Winchester cartridge. It uses a shorter powder column and has the advantage (some might say) over the SKAN chambering in that it is short action. 6.5 x 45 Lap followed, developed for target use and then came the CM. The 'x45 is an easy chambering to load for and results in exceptional accuracy consistency much favoured by the long range target guys, whilst the 6.5CM is more oft used across the board now from hunting to target to military use.

These are all accurate chamberings. All have some advantages and disadvantages and sales show that the CM introduction has resulted in a drop in 260 Rem and 6.5 x 55 in the USA particularly because it does pretty much the same job more efficiently which is it's chief advantage. It was designed to use long high BC bullets but unlike the Rem the bullet doesn't intrude as much into the powder column. Some of the claimed advantages of the 30 degree shoulder angle of the CM were originally that it was better at self centering more precisely, that the shoulder didn't "grow" as much meaning less trimming needed. Personally I'm not at all sure whether this ever resulted in any real world advantages at all to most of us mere mortals. What did though was although the 260 has a longer case (powder column) the CM can load longer high BC secant ogive bullets closer to the lands without sacrificing powder space, so the target guys loved it. Die hard 'x45 Lapua fans never really took to it though as the Lapua was winning and still does, 600 and 1000 target comps with it' inherently accurate design. It's drawback is that to match the 260 Rem, 6.5 CM or a hot loaded 'x55, it needs to be loaded much hotter.

The real loser in this battle, from what I've seen, has been the 260Rem, and undeservedly so. It is a very versatile and accurate chambering. It was really in some ways introduced a little too early and never really took off in the same way as the Creedmoor. I would guess that in the USA, the SKAN, and the 260 will slowly die a death or at least sales will continue but at a lower level. Some manufacturers have already not offered their latest chamberings in these. 6.5 Lapua sales are also suffering and hardly seen in any factory offering yet remain a strong choice in custom rifle production. CM has cemented itself as the 6.5 chambering that takes some of the advantages of the others and rolls them into a universal 6.5, and a successful one. I think we now can say this with some confidence as it has been adopted widely in sporting circles, for long range target use (although most post 600m classes these days still favour the higher BC 7mm alternatives) and now for military use as the USA's current "medium range soft interdiction" sniper tool, or at least in current trials. There is talk of it being looked at here to plug the gap between the 800yd effective range of the .308 and the 2300yd effective range .338 LM, so effectively a 1200 yd high accuracy sniper tool.

For stalking, ANY of these will do the job although the Lapua really isn't as available in factory sporting chambering yet it is still a good hunting round, as is all relative to distance. Since no one here is talking about ranges much over 400yds, they all will do.

What drives choice, or SHOULD drive choice is the cost and availability of cases for reloaders and availability of factory sporting rounds. Just my (extended) tuppenceworth.

I have no doubt that this will crop up again (and again) so hopefully offering this slightly longer opinion will feature with all the others in the search button results to give much the same response!
 
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Foxyboy43 said:
Ouch! Jeez guys - it was an entirely honest and perhaps innocent question from an old shooter new to this site - seems like I may have trodden on a few still sensitive CM toes......
Click to expand...
Not really, but at Dodgy says, the world has become polarised over so many different issues that it seems everyone has to have an opinion about certain calibres, whether they have experience of them or not.

We all have our reasons for choosing one calibre over another, and I happily shoot foxes at foxing distances with my .243. It's what my mates were using two decades ago, so I went with what I knew. Disappointingly it doesn't handle 100gr rounds very well, and so I used a .308 win for larger deer- but again, that choice was influenced by recommendation, and experience of the calibre. I suspect that if I'd spent my formative shooting years in Scotland I'd have got a .270. My choices were made based on what people around me used.

Fast forward to three or four years ago. There's a new kid on the (UK) block. It seems that you can't open a magazine without seeing glowing recommendations for the American Marvel. It's the "wunderkaliber we're all waiting for", "It shoots flatter, faster and further than anything you care to mention" "It's inherently accurate" "It's a .260 killer" "It recoils much less than a .308" .....yep, the reviewers loved it, and with that love from the influential shooting media came the first of the "Bloke down the pub" opinions, duplicated and amplified of course by social media.

Based solely on what they'd read in the press or online, folk started to rave about it. Just shows the power of printed and digital media. It became the "must-have" magic bullet. The marketing world worked itself into a frenzy of hype, and we all know the sort of person who has to rush down to the shop and buy the latest gizmo. I worked at an RFD at the time and they were flying off the shelves.

In this polarized society there is always a braking effect on this hype. People who had bought a .308, or a 6.5 Swede, or a .270, or a .260 and used them very successfully for shooting deer at stalking ranges were quick to point out that at 30 to 300 yards there was precious little to be gained in terms of performance. They were of course absolutely right. Those calibres weren't suddenly obsolete. But the idiots on both sides of the debate manned the barricades or dug in.

They forgot, or didn't know why the chambering was developed, so it didn't matter to them that they were dealing with a cartridge specifically designed to shoot targets at 1000 yards. What mattered to them was that their opinion was right and so by default everybody else was wrong. The more the fanbois dug in, the more the "opposition" scoffed at the "exaggerated" claims, and the ever popular Creedmoor memes began to surface. To say these are offensive would oversimplify the issue. Many of them were based around "hipster" or "geek" themes, and many of them were outright homophobic. I say oversimplified because they were offensive, but in some ways were an inevitable consequence of people rushing to defend their own ill-informed choice with the burning eyes of a cult-member. They make me bristle, not because I'm offended, but because the people posting them are doing it to troll, or are pushing secondhand opinions which are probably in turn based on unresearched or ill-informed influences.

I spend quite a bit of time on shooting ranges. I love making small neat holes in paper, and I love ringing gongs at silly distances. I also like reducing the fox population, and I like shooting deer. I know a good number of people with the same interests, and when the Creedmoor landed I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I read up on it and concluded that it was what I needed if I wanted to shoot out to 1000 plus yards. I have shooting friends who successfully rang gongs out to 1000 yards with it, so I talked to them about their reasoning and experience.

I got a 6.5 Creedmoor. My son has "permanently borrowed" my .308, and the .243 needs a new barrel pretty soon. So now I can shoot deer at 30-175 yards like any other common calibre, I can shoot foxes at extended foxing ranges, but what really matters to me is that I can also ring gongs at 1000 yards.
 
The 6.5x47 is a stonking round, but like the x55, is out of The Nordics.
6.5 Creedmoor is US developed, with the marketing Bucks of Hornady.
Are any 6.5s better than any other at usual stalking ranges? No. Will the Creedmoor be around forever? Without doubt.
I have a Sako 75 in x55 and have absolutely no impulse to chop it in for any other 6.5 as it does the job so well
 
Much obliged CP - that is precisely the type of informative response I hoped for! I was vaguely aware of the old military Swede and SE/SKAN loading and the possible pressure problems though I think this was muddied by the views (right or wrong) that possible litigation in the US drove manufacturers loading data down more than was possibly necessary. To be honest I thought initially that the CM was yet another reinvented wheel which was designed to drive sales - which it of course has done to effect. If it is a better horse for a different (and other) course then great stuff.
I couldn't agree more with your penultimate paragraph too - thanks again.
 
Thanx SG - "they" make all right-minded and decent folk bristle too. As my dear old mum used to say "it takes as much effort to be nice as it does to be nasty - so why be nasty?". Nuff said!
 
...then there is the proud Order of the Compulsively Obsessive for the obsessively compulsive. not to be confused with the Disorderly Compulsively Obsessives who are only obsessive on the weekends.

and as an edit to my first post, please note that I did of course mean 6.5 x 47 and NOT 'x 45 as I've obsessively written!!!

(thanks to JCS for pointing out my slip of the keyboard...mea culpa :oops:)
 
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