6.5-08 or .284 for moose/deer/bear

"...the 6.5-08..." There's absolutely no way you'd find that in Upperrubberboot, MB or anywhere else in Canada, should you get into the bush only to find you left your ammo on the kitchen table. You might find .284 though.
 
sunray said:
"...the 6.5-08..." There's absolutely no way you'd find that in Upperrubberboot, MB or anywhere else in Canada, should you get into the bush only to find you left your ammo on the kitchen table. You might find .284 though.
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I would say that there is a better chance of finding .260 ammo than .284... But is unlikely that you would find either at the local hardware store...

I am kinda tired of the old "ammo availability" argument for choosing a caliber... Can we not be trusted to pack the proper ammo, or enough ammo, or any ammo at all??? And should we suffer a brain fart on the trip of a lifetime and forget the ammo... I'm walking into the aforementioned hardware store and walking out with a .308 or .30/06 bolt with a couple boxes of shells... Sight the gun in, shoot my deer or bear or moose or sheep or "whatever" and selling the gun when I get home to my neatly piled .260/.284 handloads... There has gotta be better reasons to choose a caliber other than "I am too stupid to pack ammo."

Just sayin'...
 
Either one will work just fine for what your need it to do...
Lol, if anyone knows that they're really forgetful, just put a buttstock cartridge holder
on their stock and keep it full of cartridges...anytime you have the gun, you have ammo.
 
Ammo availability argument based on budget, yes most certainly.
But as a just in case one forgets, no that's just silly.

Mind you that would make a nice excuse to buy another rifle. :D
 
-Savage- said:
But as I said, I am interested. And I bet I'm not alone in wanting to know .. what real advantages do these cartridges provide ??
(over and above say the typical combination of a .243 and a .270)
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For myself the advantage was the fact that I currently owned the reamer for this particular chambering, I had several hundred fireformed Lapua brass in the cupboard, I had already spent oodles of money on accurizing the action and paying for the barrel and chambering when it was being used as one of my F-Class guns and I already have several sets of dies in the drawer for this cartridge.

Other than having all the components needed I don't think it is really an advantage over my current hunting rig (Savage 111 FXC??? package) in .270 aside from being a custom build with a match quality barrel on it. (Which I guess in itself is a huge advantage over a factory offering)

As for "having" to load, I do it for my factory .270 anyway and it's not so hard to load up 20 rounds a year if need be considering I usually load somewhere in the 2000 round range for competitive shooting.

The cost of getting my Kreiger #17 contour barrel turned down to .700 and having it rechambered and recrowned is a pittance compared to what the initial build was to begin with, but since all the important work had already been done I figured "Why Not?"


The whole "you cant buy that at the local hardware store" is a load of crap....who goes hunting with only 1 gun? ;)
 
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I would say that if your aim is to hunt moose/deer/bear with it, I would go with a 7mm. The .284 has more versatility for reloading bullets, 120 - 175 grain. The heavier 7mm bullets will be good for moose. The 260 Rem you could build is okay but I think you will have some long tracking sessions if the 6.5 does not do the job. But you still need to place the bullet well for either round. To be honest, I've taken an elk with my .260 130 grain TSX one shot DRT. I'd want real good shot presentation with the 6.5 though on a moose and would keep ranges under 200 yds.
 
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