6.5x55

[howa243]

I dont have a great deal of experience but the deer I have shot have been with a .243 and .308. My experience for what its worth is that there has been no difference in lethality, the ones that needed more than one shot were due to my inability to put the first one in the right place and that meat destruction is more down to bullet choice.

 

[Thar]

You are entitled to you opinion but when you voice it on a open forum you best be able to justify it. You can take offence from my posts or you can read and be educated.

How you take it (on cheek or nose) it totally upto you
.

So long as you can take kick in the bollocks back it’s all the same to me.

Dont for one tik think the 243 is a light round, as you know, it can do serious damage, but i would not put it on pigs or out to 150yds+ on anything, unless a dedicated rifle. .. Tor my uses 6.5 or 8mm. Thank you
.

The P*** taking to one side for a minute, the above really gives me doubt as to how much stalking you have done? 243 is light for anything over 150 yards
I have hunted pigs with a 243, not my first choice but then neither would a swede be. BASC recommend a 270 as minimum for wild boar in the UK.

The facts:-
6.5 X55 with a 160gn bullet, MV 2300 fps will have 1096 lbs of energy at 200 yards.

243 with a 100gn bullet, MV 3000fps will have 1301 lbs of energy at 200 yards.

Hummm which is the most powerful at over 150 yards. Don’t take my word for it read and get a proper understanding of ballistics.

If there is one rifle calibre that should not be over looked its the 6.5x55, for ranges to 1000yds +. It is fantastic FULL STOP.
.

For shooting at a 1000 yrds, IE F class then 7 mm calibres be it 284 or 7mm WSM are the calibre of choice for winners now days. Nobody would seriously have a rifle built in 6.5X55 for competition.

IMo 243 is a entry calibre in the Uk, bad traj, over weighted, lacking that punch you may need, ok for fox, as for deer past 100yds..243 is a rooky rifle
.

Well the 243 is flatter shooting than a Swede in most loadings at sensible stalking rangers. So now a 243 it is only any good for shooting deer at 100 yards, last 4 deer I shot with mine, a red stag at 160yrds and then there were 3 roe all between 200 and 300 yards all dead on the spot. They must have been unlucky I guess.

You can reload a 6.5 to pin point accuracy with the correctly maintained rifle.

The undisputed calibre of pinpoint shooting (Bench rest) is in that useless 243/6mm calibre:- the 6mm PPC or 6mm BR if the range is a bit longer.

Best rgds

Tahr

 

[Dan Newcombe]

I shot some pretty big pigs when i was working on a cattle place in Australia and that was out to about 200 yards with no problems with bog standard soft point rounds in a .22-250

A mate of mine was a professional kangaroo and pig shooter / hunter and he shot everything with a .222. If it didnt work he would not have used it because he got paid for the weight that was in the chiller at the end of the night.

Try shooting a 20l drum full of water with the lid screwed on with a .243 and then tell me it is a low power round. Its a real eye opener.

Each to their own but the .243 will do the job in the right place with the right head.

Dan

 

[Dawnraider]

I love shooting coke cans full of water with my .17hmr,i'll have to try the 20l drum one with my .243,thats if i can hit ok with its bad traj problem
Oh and its lack of power,perhaps it will be ok if i shoot with the wind.

 

[MrYou]

Shoot what you enjoy, wether 222 or 243, 308....the choice is yours, I enjoy 3-4 days a week out for a walk & a freezer full of what meat i choose on the day..& a few rounds of 6.5 with 85-160gr rounds in my pocket.

as for txt books I have better to do..

 

[zaitsev]

Guys: Don't feed em, it only encourages em back.

Presumably they are normally fully occupied with large, gruff, male goats.

Regards

G

 

[finnbear270]

Looks like another visit to the swings kids!

 

[Dalua]

You can take offence from my posts or you can read and be educated.

Pardon me for butting in, but there might be another option:
I think that I can read your post without taking offence but also without being educated.

Indeed, I can also perceive that you're being a very naughty man:

The facts:-
6.5 X55 with a 160gn bullet, MV 2300 fps will have 1096 lbs of energy at 200 yards.

243 with a 100gn bullet, MV 3000fps will have 1301 lbs of energy at 200 yards.

What you call here 'the facts' are actually only 'some facts', which you have carefully selected to demonstrate your point in typically melodramatic fashion.

What if we gave the 6.5mm a 120gr boat-tailed pointed pill rather than a 160gr round-nose torpedo, and a more respectable 2800fps rather than a 6.5x54M-S-like 2300fps?

I think then the figures would bear out what I, and probably what most other 6.5x55 users believe: namely that it is more powerful than .243, and less powerful than pretty much everything else, but entirely capable at normal ranges and a delight to use.

It is good to note, however, that you can take comfort from the assumption that people who hold beliefs non-coincident with your own probably haven't done much stalking.

Don’t take my word for it

Splendid advice to all your readers!

 

[Thar]

Shoot what you enjoy, wether 222 or 243, 308....the choice is yours, I enjoy 3-4 days a week out for a walk & a freezer full of what meat i choose on the day..& a few rounds of 6.5 with 85-160gr rounds in my pocket.

as for txt books I have better to do..

I will take your word for how much shooting you do, but if you really do as much as you say then you should know that a 243 is flat shooting and perfectly capable of taking UK deer beyond 100/150 yards. Any responsible stalker should know the ballistics of their chosen caliber.

Not sure why you mention having such a large range of bullet weights in your pocket, other than to try and impress us with the range of bullets available for the 6.5X55, shame 270 uses are limited to only 90gn to 160gn bullets, going up to 180gn if you use custom bullets, the 7mm rifle uses only have 100 to 175gn bullets, 190gn going the custom route. The daddy of them all the 308/30 caliber you malign, well that has 85 to 250gn bullets available.

No need to read any text books, just do what you are doing and surf the net, plenty of ballistic calculators on the net.

You can take offence from my posts or you can read and be educated.

Hi Dalua, hope you are well, you should know me by now, my “be educated comment” was for one poster as this subject, as it has been done to death before as we know.

Indeed, I can also perceive that you're being a very naughty man:

The facts:-
6.5 X55 with a 160gn bullet, MV 2300 fps will have 1096 lbs of energy at 200 yards.

243 with a 100gn bullet, MV 3000fps will have 1301 lbs of energy at 200 yards.

What you call here 'the facts' are actually only 'some facts', which you have carefully selected to demonstrate your point in typically melodramatic fashion. :

I have taken the two heaviest weight bullets widely available for the 2 calibers mentioned, both the velocities are the maximum velocities that these bullets can be loaded for from the same reloading manual. I choose 200 yards only because Mryou mentioned that a 243 was not up to shooting deer beyond 100/150 yards. I don’t see how I could be more fair????? Never the less even I was surprised, I expected the 6.5 to come out on top by a small amount, not the 243 ace it my so much.

What if we gave the 6.5mm a 120gr boat-tailed pointed pill rather than a 160gr round-nose torpedo, and a more respectable 2800fps rather than a 6.5x54M-S-like 2300fps?

As I mention that is the maxim velocity recorded in my reloading manual, you may have read in shooting times magazine the respected rifle man Bruce Potts when reloading with 160gn bullets could not achieve deer legal velocities for Scotland (2450fps), hence why Muir bought this post back to the top, and at that point everybody was getting along fine. 8)

I think then the figures would bear out what I, and probably what most other 6.5x55 users believe: namely that it is more powerful than .243, and less powerful than pretty much everything else, but entirely capable at normal ranges and a delight to use.

I agree with all the above, if you read any of my other posts I always say that the caliber works best with lighter 120-130gn bullets.

It is good to note, however, that you can take comfort from the assumption that people who hold beliefs non-coincident with your own probably haven't done much stalking.

Well as to me doubting the poster experience if somebody tells you that the 243 has poor trajectory, and is not up to shooting UK deer above 100/150 yards and the 308 destroys meat, and has a lot of recoil, you have to wonder.

Don’t take my word for it

Splendid advice to all your readers!

Now who is being naughty, twisting words?

As for Troll, well Mryou might be, but me………………….. well you lads know my favorite subject.

ATB

Tahr

 

[Moonraker68]

Wouldn't a .243 be more affected by wind than a larger calibre? I've just got back from hind stalking with a 7mm-08 using 150 gn soft points, and encountered significant drift at long range in a strong cross wind. Am I wrong in thinking that a lighter round would suffer even more in these conditions? I know several stalkers who have reservations about client's using .243's on the hill, presumably for this reason rather than velocity, energy etc.

 

[Muir]

Moonraker: What were your shooting conditions?? How far were you shooting? Drift is an often overlooked subject on public forums. Great topic!

I mean this as no offense to you personally, but living in State that experiences significant winds all the time ( > 10mph) I know that being able to shoot through the wind accurately is an ethical consideration when it comes to a persons ability to handle a firearm. There are some days when you just don't attempt a 200 yard shot because of 30 mph gusts. All shooters should be aware of the effects of wind drift but it has been my experience with relative novice shooters, that many are totally uninformed when it comes to the wind and their rifle's pet load.

Sorry (or maybe not?) for the thread hijack.~Muir

 

[Moonraker68]

Muir, no offence taken. It is an interesting subject and it certainly warrants discussion. I was hind stalking in a gusting wind, and took a shot at about 175 yards. I was out with a professional stalker and had previously been told to make an allowance for drift, and the shot resulted in a clean kill. It was a very useful lesson to learn, as most of my stalking is lowland roe in more settled conditions.

 

[Muir]

Experience speaks! I hope you took mental note of the shot details!

There are many things that some shooters overlook with regard to bullets in flight. Few can imagine that a high velocity bullet can be blown one whit off of their perfectly placed hold! My son and I shoot year round at prairiedogs. We have on many occassions had to bank shots off of a strong cross wind. We manage to keep our skills in line by practice.

I have a friend who was a Marine Corps Shooting Instructor and he e-mailed me a 400M target he shot with his 308 a couple of months ago. It was shot on the desert, prone, in continuious but variable winds. . THe target he mailed was a standard "combatant" target with 5 shots in the center of the face: about a 4.5" group. He is also the guy I watched shooting .22 Sub Sonics into a 10-15mph quartering headwind, off hand and hitting prairiedogs at 80 - 90 yards. He believes that the ability to "read" wind is one of THE most important skills a shooter can have. When someone asked how he learned to shoot like that he simply said,
"Practice."

I guess that says it all. ~Muir

 

[Thar]

Wouldn't a .243 be more affected by wind than a larger calibre? Am I wrong in thinking that a lighter round would suffer even more in these conditions?

The two factors that effected bullets ability to "buck" the wind are velocity and the ballistic coefficient of the bullet, if we use the two bullets and calibres I mentioned earlier for a example and use as Dalua has suggested a round nose bullet for the 6.5X55 and a boat-tail bullet for the 243 the 6.5 will drift twice the amount of the 243 not the other way.

The reason the weight of the bullet is an issue is generally the heavier the bullet for any given calibre the better the B.C.

A good friend of mine is a ex-international shooter, TR and F class (shoots up to 1200 yards) when we talk about shooting, his interest is almost all on reading the wind and how less experience shooter try and beat the wind with bigger faster cartridges instead of trying to learn how to read the wind correctly.

Best rgds

Tahr

 

[finnbear270]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mirage can tell you lots.

 

[Thar]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mirage can tell you lots.

I had to smile at the irony of your comment, looking out of the rain lashed window, onto flooded fields and evacuated cottages. Not much chance of having to read much mirage while stalking on my ground.

ATB

Tahr

 

[Moonraker68]

Hope you've got a bottle of decent malt in the house!

 

[Highlander]

Wind drift is a key factor, up on the high ground, vertical distance estimation (other than angle factors) has become less problematic with the availability of RF's. Something that can only come with experience, and as range increases you have to take into account air current variances due to topography.

I cannot be bothered typing figures and charts, as the children will probably cherry pick certain figures to try and prove their "knowledge" and chosen calibre superiority. I will simply refer people to the federal and norma ballistic web sites. If you chose comparable bullets ie type and within reason weight, you will see that under 300yds ( a v long shot for most of us when shooting deer) calibre choice makes very little difference (assuming a chest shot selection, I would suggest that a head/neck shot in winds at 300yds is not advisable).

Velocity arguments at average ranges can be shown to be not as significant, as people would think, compare 6.5x55 120BST vs 6.5x284 120BST less than 2" difference in drift at 300yrds in 20mph 90degree cross wind, see Norma site.

However, the point of wind drift is a major one as this can catch anyone out on high exposed places. So never underestimate it, I had it drummed into me 2 years ago on a weeks hind cull on very high and exposed ground in FOUL weather. (Laid up for 55 mins, waiting for a particular hind to come into a shootable position, and got buried under 1.5 inches of snow!)

 

[finnbear270]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mirage can tell you lots.

I had to smile at the irony of your comment, looking out of the rain lashed window, onto flooded fields and evacuated cottages. Not much chance of having to read much mirage while stalking on my ground.

ATB

Tahr

I used to be able to see the pub from ere'

 

[Muir]

Ok. I'm not trying to resurect the grateful dead but I did promise a report on my hunt this weekend with my son's Model 70 Featherweight in 6.5x55. As it happened, I ended up using this rifle as well in the second day.

THe results were two 120 pound white-tail does with two shots. One was at 75 yards and was taken through the lungs with a 129 grn Hornady Interlock. It traveled 20 yards and laid down to die. The second was shot at 200 yards usiung the same load. It was also taken through the lungs and traveled 25 yards before collapsing and sliding down a small embankment.

In both cases the lungs were trashed. ~Muir