6.5x55 Pics added

[Lazy Ike]

Poor Noel huh? I don't know what it is but this cartridge has always teased me.
I believe this is the very first high powered rifle I ever shot, in a '96 Swede. We thought it kicked like crazy but hey, it did for an 11 year old!
Of the stupid things a couple kids can do while their parent are away getting a load of hay....

Ike, I haven't got dies for this caliber yet. Might not hurt to pick some up when you snag your 9.3 dies. If you grab some bullets we will be off to the races! Look forward to getting your call, it is about time we got out to shoot again too!

Do these old girls throw light varmint style bullets well?

Noel

I just picked up 6.5x 55 dies of a fellow gn who shares your last name incidentally, no 9.3's yet but there's hope.

I'm curious to see how the lighter bullets perform.

Let me know when you have time to ventilate some paper .

 

[Steiner]

Thanks for the leads on the commercial rifles - I went through some catalogs last night, and yeah, a few rifles (not many though) can be had in 6.5x55. I'll ponder alittle which one to go with.

 

[kombi1976]

Thanks for the leads on the commercial rifles - I went through some catalogs last night, and yeah, a few rifles (not many though) can be had in 6.5x55. I'll ponder alittle which one to go with.

This is a tendency in the gun trade a lot.
The older rounds which work just fine are discarded for a new one that is ballistically the same but is either a long action or a short action cartridge.
A lot of modern manufacturers, mainly those in the US aren't interested in cartridges that fall into the shady middle ground between 51mm(.308 Win) and 63mm(30-06).
Whereas cartridges based on one of those cases that are ballistic equals of older rounds, like the 260 Rem, 7mm-08 Rem and 243 Win for instance, fit nicely into their respecitive action lengths and can be made to feed easily.
The 7x57 and it's offspring(257 Roberts, 6mm Remington), the 6.5x55 and the 8x57 all are intermediate length cartridges so there is little point, at least in the view of the US firearms industry, in chambering these "square pegs" when you can take a good wildcat(again the 7mm-08), legitimise it under your own name and sell it as a new round with the same characteristics.
There also isn't all the hassles with a new cartridge like SAAMI restrictions, whereas the old cartridges are limited because they were chambered in weaker rifles originally.
This means alot because most people use factory ammo.
The Europeans on the other hand don't seem to believe in reinventing the wheel and they also don't presume that the shooting public are boneheads.
As such they load their factory ammo to decent power and continue to chamber older effective cartridges.
Hornady seem to be the only major US firm to try and change this with their Light Magnum loads.
Don't get me wrong, the new cartridges are good, but they're extraneous.
They do nothing that couldn't have been achieved with the original and often involve high chamber pressures to duplicate the performance.
But vote with your $$$s and buy a new 6.5x55.
Every new one bought makes companies keep it in the catalog.

 

[Steiner]

.
Don't get me wrong, the new cartridges are good, but they're extraneous.
They do nothing that couldn't have been achieved with the original and often involve high chamber pressures to duplicate the performance.
QUOTE]

Yes, I totally agree with you. There is alot of 're-inventing the wheel' when there is in fact something that already would suffice and do the job. It's big business to offer a new, better, or specialized wheel, eh?