6.5x55 out of the short barrel?

I've had full wood military Swedes with the 29" & 24" barrels.

And a Rem 700 Classic, a Ruger 77 mkII and now a Win 70 featherweight factory sporters with 22" pipes.

For me I think 22" is the shortest barrel length I'd want to go with this ctg.

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NAA.
 
MY father picked up a Sportized M96 cut down to 18"........ STUPID... who ever did it.. Compared to my 24" barrel there was 3" of different at 100 yards and a lost 8" difference at 200... Accuracy was still good but velocity was lacking. That was with 140gr Remington Core-Lokt. Like NAA said.. 22" is good.. but for hunting 24" is the shortest I personally would like to go.

Cheers!
Josh
 
IIRC the Swedish M94 Mauser carbines have a an 18" barrel.
One notable effect is apperently they are louder then the M38/96.

24" sounds to me like a good min length barrel for this cartridge.
 
I have one with an 18 inch barrel (cut down).

I've never put it over a chrono but it works just fine for it's intended purpose. My CZ full stock is also short (approx. 20 inches I believe) and surprise, surprise it also works just fine. My third swede sports a 24 inch barrel and doesn't kill deer any more efficiently as far as either me or the deer can determine.
 
MY father picked up a Sportized M96 cut down to 18"........ STUPID... who ever did it.. Compared to my 24" barrel there was 3" of different at 100 yards and a lost 8" difference at 200... Accuracy was still good but velocity was lacking. That was with 140gr Remington Core-Lokt. Like NAA said.. 22" is good.. but for hunting 24" is the shortest I personally would like to go.

Cheers!
Josh

Huh?? That's ridiculous.

How can you even figure that out? There is no way an 18" barrel will have so little velocity compared to a 24" barrel that it will impact 8" lower at 200 yards. Unless you measure the velocity with a chronograph, you don't know what the velocity was.

There is no reason at all that you can't use an 18 to 20 inch barrel for a 6.5x55 with complete success. Velocity will be somewhat less than from a longer barrel, but the velocity loss will be little more than the velocity variation between shots of a longer barrel (maybe 20-30fps per inch of length lost). Accuracy may improve, or may be worse. No way of predicting. It likely will seem louder to the shooter, but short barrels in any caliber are always louder.

If you want, cut the barrel.
 
MY father picked up a Sportized M96 cut down to 18"........ STUPID... who ever did it.. Compared to my 24" barrel there was 3" of different at 100 yards and a lost 8" difference at 200... Accuracy was still good but velocity was lacking. That was with 140gr Remington Core-Lokt. Like NAA said.. 22" is good.. but for hunting 24" is the shortest I personally would like to go.

Cheers!


Josh

Your first mistake was using factory ammonia , slowest garbage I've ever seen .

My 18 inch barrel on a 96 was able to hit 2850 fps with a 140 but I was starting to blow primers .

Biggest prob w that caliber is the ammo that factory's turn out otherwise she can stand up and perform
 
I have many shorties... I worked up loads and tested them before and after bobbing... with a couple, I bobbed from 26" to 18" in 2" increments and tested at each length... what I found was, that my best load at 24" was still my best load at 18"... I gave up 100-150 fps for a 4" bob with identical loads... there was zero loss of accuracy and a few were more accurate after the bob, perhaps due to a better crown... some of the velocity loss can be made up with a stiffer load, however in my attempts the max loads often did not perform as well in the accuracy department and I worked back down to find a consistently accurate load. None of the rifles that I bobbed were chambered in 6.5X55, but I have done .260, 7-08 & 7X57... so I believe my findings would hold true for you also...

My subjective take is that for a hunting gun, the bob rendered a much nicer carry gun, far more wieldy and balanced... I did not regret any of the bobs with one exception... a .308 went completely "to pot" and I ended up scrapping it and starting over.
 
I have two 260 remingtons a good comparison to the 6.5 Swede one is a 22 inch barrel one is a lightweight hunter with the 20 inch tube. As one would expect in a medium sized non overbore cartridge I don't experience much velocity drop between the two comparing the same loads where I can. Yes there's fast barrels and slow barrels but averaged out it works out quite evenly to about 35 feet per second per inch. Example 120 ttsx load is 2900 in the long tube 2830 out of the 20 inch bbl.
 
Ruger RSI International's, chambered in 6.5x55mm, shoot just fine with their 18.5 inch barrels.QUOTE]

I would love to find one of those or a 250-3000.

I agree... the last No.1 for my set (yeah, right...) will be an RSI in .243 or a 1-A in .250 Savage... with two 7X57's, I don't have an immediate hankering for a 6.5X55, as sweet as that would be...
 
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