6.5 Creedmoor for moose?

remington jim said:
Is there ? WHY are they better ? and you did say Caliber NOT cartridge ! SO there's much better out there then a 6.5 x 300 Weatherby Mag with a 140 gr Partition bullet at 3300 fps shot thru the Lungs ? Just askin ? ;) RJ

Remember BULLET placement is #1 and a 140 gr from a 6.5 caliber thru the Lungs of a moose does the same thing as a 30 caliber 180 gr thru the lungs does ! :)


Ok FLAME away ! LOL
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Would you use a 6.5 creedmoor on a 400 yard moose? I just want to know.
 
AlbertaJohn said:
I'm saying just because a 6.5 works does not make it the best. There is much better calibers out there.
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It's really about finding a balance between shot placement, a cartridge that's comfortable to shoot, and external ballistics.

It's not just about how big of a bullet you are shooting. And the larger the caliber, the more demanding and unforgiving it is to shoot, and the higher potential of developing poor fundamentals that leads to poor shot placement.

There's more to an optimal hunting cartridge than just external ballistics. For some people, a 6.5 Creedmoor may be the optimal moose hunting cartridge. Dead is dead.
 
I wouldn't use a 6.5 CM on a moose at 400 meters, mainly because I don't think I'd shoot at a moose at 400 meters. And haven't seen a reason to yet.

If that isn't someone else's hunting area/style than in that specific circumstance, I guess there are better cartridges for them.

I don't think a 140gr Accubond Long Range or 143gr ELD-X at 2180 FPS and 1480 ft lbs is a terrible idea though. Wouldn't tell anyone NOT to.
 
AlbertaJohn said:
Bella Twin shot a record breaking griz with a .22 Does this make a .22 a great griz round? Heck no.

Same with the 6.5 , it will work on moose but that does not make it a great moose round. There are much better moose calibers out there.
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Sure, if one wants a round just for moose or larger animals and is not particularly recoil-conscious so that this bigger round can be shot with accuracy. However, the OP was asking about whether the 6.5CM was adequate since his wife is recoil-sensitive. The consensus in 8 pages now is that it is adequate. The hundreds of thousands of moose killed with the 6.5x55 over the past 128 years with inferior bullets to what we now have (partitions, accubonds, Swift A-frames, etc.) and less-effective powders than the newer high-energy powders (like Alliant Re26) that give the 6.5s greater velocity than was previously possible make this conclusion even more convincing.
 
BigUglyMan said:
He's kinda like Gatehouse, but the water runs out the sink the wrong way. He's our token Bogan!
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I can dig that haha


Here's a good testimonial on the 6.5 CM applied to big game:

https ://bigwatersafaris.com/blog/2019/01/21/hornady-gmx-6-5mm/

For the past year, I have been using the 120gr Hornady GMX bullet in my Howa 6.5 Creedmoor. I load the bullet to just under 2800 fps and consistently get 1/2 moa groups.

Between me and clients using my rifle, this bullet has accounted for 73 game animals, including Black and blue wildebeest, blesbuck, eland, red hartebeest, springbok and warthog. These bullets penetrate well, even on the larger antelope and expand reliably out to more than 400 meters.


On animals, even the larger ones, the GMX normally exits, leaving a good blood trail on animals that do not drop in their tracks. This is one of my favorite hunting bullets in the 6.5mm cartridges.
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If its doing that well on those animals, I wouldn't worry too much about moose.
 
AlbertaJohn said:
Would you use a 6.5 creedmoor on a 400 yard moose? I just want to know.
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Honestly Prob NOT ! Unless its all that i had and and it was a picture perfect broadside shot and i had a rest then YES ! Now i would be using a different cartridge on a Dedicated moose hunt - BUT in sayin that ! a 6.5 Creedmoor with a Good 140 gr Bonded or Partition bullet would do the job FINE if its hit properly thru the LUNGS ! Prob be using my 338 Federal BUT i use that on Deer too ! LOL

I had a Buddy shoot a BIG Bull this year with a 338 Federal with 160 gr TTSX bullets at 390 yards going str away from him - Fired twice and Hit him twice DRT ! and recovered the bullets 4 ft into the moose perfectly expanded ! I would NOT have taken that shot myself ! Not good enough anymore . RJ

and John 'im not argueing with you just chatting it ! Cheers :d
 
remington jim said:
Honestly Prob NOT ! Unless its all that i had and and it was a picture perfect broadside shot and i had a rest then YES ! Now i would be using a different cartridge on a Dedicated moose hunt - BUT in sayin that ! a 6.5 Creedmoor with a Good 140 gr Bonded or Partition bullet would do the job FINE if its hit properly thru the LUNGS ! Prob be using my 338 Federal BUT i use that on Deer too ! LOL

I had a Buddy shoot a BIG Bull this year with a 338 Federal with 160 gr TTSX bullets at 390 yards going str away from him - Fired twice and Hit him twice DRT ! and recovered the bullets 4 ft into the moose perfectly expanded ! I would NOT have taken that shot myself ! Not good enough anymore . RJ

and John 'im not argueing with you just chatting it ! Cheers :d
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It's all good man, no worries but here in my neck of the woods the hardest thing about moose hunting is getting drawn for a tag and if you mess up it could take you five years or more to get another.

So my way of thinking and I could be wrong is that my 6.5 creedmoor (yes I have one) would be good for a nice clean broadside shot at say no more than 200 yards. Sure you will have some guys say they dropped a moose at 400 - 500 yards but I wouldn't recommend shots at that range with a 6.5 and I hope you wouldn't either.
 
nowarningshot said:
where owe where would you get that idea. 6.5x55 is used in Scandinavia, but it's far from universal, the 30-06 is almost as.common. Moose there are also smaller even than the Canadian moose. My guess would be either 30-06 or 30/30 due their longevity.
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I think it's safe to say that far more 6.5x55s than 30-06s have been used to kill moose in Scandinavia. It had a 12-year head start on the '06 and was chambered in the Swedish and Norwegian service rifles--the Swedish Mauser m/1896 rifle and the Norwegian Krag–Jørgensen M/1894 rifle. This military-rifle usage guarantees a cartridge's widespread civilian usage.

Although the claim that more moose have been killed with the 6.5x55 than all other cartridges combined may be something of an overstatement (although, who knows, it may be true), I believe it's almost certain that more moose have been killed with the 6.5x55 than any other single cartridge. We don't have actual numbers, of course, but, from what we do know, I think that this is likely.

As I noted earlier in this thread, the Scandinavian moose subspecies, although generally smaller than some of the North American variety (particularly in northern Canada and Alaska), are not that much smaller--averaging around 800-900 lbs. for mature males, so slightly smaller than the Western Moose subspecies found in BC. The European Moose subspecies, found in Scandinavia, Finland, Latvia, and Russia, is a mid-sized variety. They tend to be a little larger than the Eastern Moose subspecies (found in Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces) and larger than the northwestern US Shiras subspecies. If interested, scroll down in the following link for more detail about the various moose subspecies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose
 
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kthomas said:
If hunters spent as much time practicing their marksmanship skills as they did arguing about caliber and cartridge selection, these conversations wouldn't even matter...
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Agreed

I’ve never seen more (and to para-quote a previous 6.5CM thread) ”ballistic masturbation” when it comes to the 6.5CM and NA big game hunting.
 
AlbertaJohn said:
Would you use a 6.5 creedmoor on a 400 yard moose? I just want to know.
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At the risk of engaging in "ballistic masturbation" (a put-down of the serious ballistic discussions and information exchange that forums like this make possible), let's consider that 400-yard moose. First, I doubt that I'll ever shoot at a moose at 400 yds. I have never done so in the past (all of mine have been well short of 300 yards) and can't imagine ever seeing it as necessary to do so. However...

Let's consider an optimal 6.5x55 load for long-range high-probability kills. If we pair up the 142-gr. Nosler Accubond Long Range bullet (with its BC of .625) with Alliant Re26 powder, QuickLoad tells me that a top load (but still safe pressure-wise) is capable of a MV of 2900 fps from my 24-in. barrel. But lets use 2850 instead just to be extra safe. If I zero my rifle to impact +3.0" at 100 yards (my usual hunting setup when long-range shots may be needed), that Nosler ABLR will impact at 400 yards travelling at 2287 fps (plenty of velocity to ensure full expansion) and with 1650 ft.-lbs. of kinetic energy--i.e., in excess of the 1500 ft.-lbs. often cited in many hunting books and articles as necessary for moose- and elk-sized game. In addition, the shot will impact at 400 yards down only 14.27". All of this is better (far better trajectory-wise) than you'd get with just about any .308 Win. load in terms of both trajectory and punch and likely better than you'd get with most factory 30-06 loads.

I'm not saying I'd take that shot; I'm probably not a good enough shot to be sure of a clean kill, just pointing out that, in the hands of a good game shot, it would be quite feasible and likely successful particularly if a near broadside shot was presented.
 
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It seems silly to debate if the 6.5’s are adequate for moose, considering the staggering amount of them that have fallen to the old 30-30 with those good old flat nose cup and core bullets of decades ago.
 
AlbertaJohn said:
It's all good man, no worries but here in my neck of the woods the hardest thing about moose hunting is getting drawn for a tag and if you mess up it could take you five years or more to get another.

So my way of thinking and I could be wrong is that my 6.5 creedmoor (yes I have one) would be good for a nice clean broadside shot at say no more than 200 yards. Sure you will have some guys say they dropped a moose at 400 - 500 yards but I wouldn't recommend shots at that range with a 6.5 and I hope you wouldn't either.
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Oh man, thats a hard tag to get!

is it common to shoot moose at more than 200 yards out there?
 
ShrtRnd said:
Agreed

I’ve never seen more (and to para-quote a previous 6.5CM thread) ”ballistic masturbation” when it comes to the 6.5CM and NA big game hunting.
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I dunno if ballistic masturbating is fair LOL but I get the point.
I think the 6.5CM makes a fine open country deer cartridge or pronghorn even...... that is where I would have zero qualms about hunting with that cartridge. One can't deny the data availlable based off the 6.5x55's success. For my personal tastes I like a bit more gun when I am in BC moose and elk country and is why in the end I chose the 7mm rem mag. I didn't need to go any further up the caliber ladder when it came to the purchase of a dedicated moose and elk rifle. I kept a .308 around to fill the deer hunting role but realized the 7mag covered all those bases as well...... except for the ambush and tree stand hunting for the medium sized blacktail deer. I chose a heavy bullet and caliber combo that would dump them and expel the bullets energy in the target. A cut down .303 brit with 180gr pills fills that niche..... but I have taken a couple moose cleanly with that cut down enfield as well.

At the end of the day there is nothing at all wrong with having several hunting rifles, each fitting its own role depending on the hunt but "to each his own" is very applicable when conversations such as these devolve into what some perceive as "ballistic masturbation" ...... a term I found immediately hilarious and will be using at my earliest convenience when this topic arises amongst my hunting friends LOL
 
AlbertaJohn said:
Yes and in the prairie zones 200yards is short shot.
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I see what you mean then and how it cuts down on your chances of success with a relatively rare hunt.

While there are clear cuts that give you that kind of range here, never got to take advantage of it. Farthest I've ever shot one is probably 130.
 
Joel said:
I see what you mean then and how it cuts down on your chances of success with a relatively rare hunt.

While there are clear cuts that give you that kind of range here, never got to take advantage of it. Farthest I've ever shot one is probably 130.
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This isn't my pic but it shows you that you can't always sneak closer and long shots are the norm for some parts of the country.

View attachment 578392
 
6.5mm bullets don't bounce off moose

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