6.5x55 - 160 grain loads

Pathfinder

Pathfinder

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Im thinking about working up a load for my swede with some 160 hornady's I have sitting around. Any suggestions for powder ? I dont' have the biggest selection available this minute, Im considering imr-4831 or rl-22 . Seems some people have been getting good results with about 43 grains or imr-4831.
 
Try 42 gr of IMR 4350 or the same amt.of N-204 with either the 156gr or 160gr bullet.Killed lots of moose and deer with those loads and never found a bullet yet....................Harold
 
Both are good. I would start with the RL22.

Because of a real bad experience with this bullet in a Swede, I would start real low, about 40 grains, and work up if that works. For the first range test, I would load 40 to 47 grains, in 1 grain increments, with maybe a couple of half grain increments at the high end.

My brother in law shot a moose with this bullet in a sporterised Swede. Bullet was well expanded and found under hide on far side. When I developed the load, it grouped 1.1" Not bad for a milsurp and hunting bullets.
 
The Swedish 38,94+96 have a 1-71/2" or 1-71/4" twist and work well with the 160 gr bullet .But my Win FWT has a 1-8 and shoots the 156 fine and lousy with the 160gr.Re22 is temp sensitive and you will be losing velocity in real cold weather.It works well with the 140gr bullet as does H-4831...Harold
 
wow I am surprised a 1/2 turn in twist makes such a difference! I have had a lot of swedes they all shot 129-160 grain bullets well. Wonder why Winchester would insist on using a twist rate that wont stabilize the most useful bullets wieght. LOL.
 
Quote: "What happen? This bullet should be the most forgiving as it is only full diameter for a portion of it's length."

M96 Mauser. Start load. Could not get bolt open on range. Had to pound it open in shop. Rear of case blown out.

Start load in new virgin Norma brass.

Several other rounds fired from same box in my Winchester M70. Worked fine.
 
Because of a real bad experience with this bullet in a Swede
Click to expand...

Several other rounds fired from same box in my Winchester M70. Worked fine
Click to expand...

What kind of a guy takes a box of rounds that caused a head seperation and locked up a rifle and feeds the same round to another rifle? Darwin award?

What a joke. it was the 160 hornady that gave you trouble LOL. I have pushed that same bullet in norma brass through at least a half dozen m96 and m38s at 2650 FPS.

Once when the chrony read 2850 the bolt on a m96 needed persuassion.

Hate to be jerk but these" I blew it up and then kept shooting" posts make gun nutz look like a bunch of idiots who are a danger to themselves and those around them.
 
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Ganderite,

This happens (and it happened to me, even if I reload for and use the M94/96/38 and 6.5X55 since over 20 years) only with low charge of slow burning powder (the ratio of "less than" 85% of the case capacity is advanced by many specialists). This is called Secondary Explosion Effect.
It is quite common with this caliber (Norma of Sweden reproduces the phenomena at will, and the results can be seen in the No. 1 Reloading Manual from Norma, in the "Safety" chapter.
It was also very documented by the Swedish Army.

To avoid this very dangerous situation, always make sure the brass is filled with a minimum of 90% of it's capacity with slow burning powder.
The bullet is not in case here, it could also happen with any other bullet.

A good reference about SEE can be found in RifleShooter of April 1998, on page 70. You can also look on the web for SEE or Secondary Explosion Effect.
 
We were concerend that maybe the wrong powder was in the case, so in the shop we pulled some rounds and checked. The powder was correct. he only owned 3 different powders, so it was possible to check the powder visually.

My rifle was known to work well at hotter loads, so we were not taking much of a chance shooting it.

The blown case ocurred on the range where we chony each shot. The velocity was higher than we expected.

We have subsequently verified that this rifle has higher velocities/pressures than other 6.5x55s.

I am familiar with the risk of a reduced load of slow powder. That is not what happened. Such an event would have had a lower than expected velocity, not a higher one.

As I said, with a 6.5 bullet, things can get out of hand very quickly. Also, there is no standardization of bore - groove dimensions and land-groove widths. This is a caliber that you want to approach carefully.

The Max in the book is not the place to start.

I don't recall what the load was. I will email him and ask. Hopefully he has notes.
 
Not all that true;

This happened with a starting load of IMR 4831 and a Partiton 140 gr. bullet.
The bullet was chronied at a high velocity - 2850 fps (SEE always produce high velocities because the pressure peak happens when the bullet is engaged into the rifling, and almost stopped).

parts1.jpg


I had this rifle for over 15 years when it happened and I got the chance to deeply discuss about the SEE with one of Norma's lab. technician. I can even tell you that if I did not have been using brand new Winchester virgin brass, it would have not happened (the failure would not, the SEE would). The Winchester brass had a base diameter of 0.469" while my rifle, like most of these rifles, have a base dia of 0.477" (swedish military rifles have quite consistent chambering standards) making it prone to failure under pressure peaks.
If I had use my normal brass, Lapua, the failure should have been much less than that - limited to the brass.
The bore of this barrel was (and is still) just perfect, same for the headspace.
The rifle have shot thousand of round without any signs of problems and it was a mint, all matching HVA M38. I had the receiver checked for hardness and material and it checked "normal". the rifle itself was not in cause.

failure1a.jpg
 
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