Short Action Long Range Hunting Calibers

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saltbait

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Chester, Nova Scotia
Having a lot of different ideas coming to mind when thinking about a new rifle build. I'm looking for some pointers and advice for which direction to go caliber wise for the build.

The drive behind the build is the fact that I am moving to Australia within the next year or so. I've talked to a few hunters and shooters down in the NSW region and they seem to think a long action caliber would be more of a novelty item rather than a must have for Australian hunting. They all seem to come to the consensus that short action calibers are the way to go for Australian hunting.

Now before talking to these guys, I was sold on either a 7mm Rem Mag or 300 win mag, but now with this information I am siding with a short action build. I currently own a 6.5 Creedmoor which I have nothing but praises for. Great velocity, great stopping power. The only complaint is barrel life which I've read to be 2000-2500 rounds. My other rifle being a 308 has a much better barrel life which is what I'd ideally want in this short action build. Ideally what I would like is a rifle similar to the 6.5 creedmoor ballistically, but for it to have another 1000 or so rounds for barrel life.

The rifle will be used for hunting here in Canada to begin with and then continuing once I move to Australia. Here in Nova Scotia, I hunt whitetails mostly. Two days ago I filled my tag with the 6.5 creedmoor at 250 yards. I use 140gr VLDs with 43.5gr AA4350 which produces great results both with target shooting and hunting whitetails. With the short action build I would like to push my hunting ranges as much as possible.

Anyone have a short action caliber that has good barrel life and that they can hunt with at ranges of 500+?
 
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Why is barrel life important? 2000 rounds is a lot of hunting and velocity contributes to consistency at longer ranges. In my opinion barrels are a disposable item, use them up and throw them out then buy a better one.

Maybe look at a 338 federal, slow and big. Put in your time and 500 yards is achievable with most calibers.
 
6.5 SAUM? If you're running a R700 it would just require a new barrel, bolt and mags (if you run a dbm). I've been reading a lot about this caliber in the hopes of putting together a competent elr rig on a short action switch barrel rig. You can push 140s at 3100+.
 
As far as searching online most components are available, but a few seem to be hard to find (some Hodgdon powders), but I'm sure I could figure something out.
I do quite a bit of load testing on both of my rifles I find I can never satisfy on one load...kind of an addiction to always try out new projectiles that come out hoping that I can gain that extra hundredths or thousands of an inch. I guess for me the extra barrel life would be more of a "mind at ease" thing for me, especially if I were to use a Canadian made barrel and gunsmith which would be unobtainable to repeat once I send said rifle to Australia.
 
For here I hunt whitetail and coyotes mostly. A lot of my buddies down there hunt hogs and kangaroos, but what I will be hunting there is mostly to be determined. Going to stick with game similar in size to white tails though if possible.
 
Stick with the 6.5CM, what you read on the Net is just bloody hearsay, I know a number of guys that have fired ####loads more than 2000 rounds in their 6.5CM with no drop off in accuracy yet. And Aussie has ADI powders, same as most of your others, just a different name, projectiles are easy to get. 43.5gns ADI 2209 behind a 143 ELDX for just on 2700 fps, easy peasy. And the 6.5CM is so easy to reload for.
 
Tell me more about the 7mm-08.
I am still considering another 308...my current 308 is too heavy to stalk with....it does work for hunting over bait piles, but even then the trek out to the blind takes some effort.
I'm also still considering a long action as well as there is a pierce long action with magnum bolt face for sale on the ee. Have kind of lost interest in the 300 win mag and am now aiming more towards a 7mm rem mag if I were to go the long action route.
Maybe I'll just build another 6.5 creedmoor.....or a 6.5x47 lapua.....or a 260 rem......
Great advice and info here! Keep the ideas and info coming!
 
7mm08 would be the other one I'd consider after the .308.

.308 is always high on my list due to availability and long barrel life.
 
You should have no powder problems. Aussie ADI AR2208 is Varget. Varget (and others) are manufactured in Australia by ADI and distributed to NA by Hogdon.

For new barrels, Hardy Engineering is close by in NZ.
 
saltbait said:
Seems to be a lot of people supporting the 7mm-08. How does it compare to the 6.5CM?
Click to expand...

I’ve run them through ballistics programs. The 6.5’s (.260, 6.5 creed, 6.5X47) outperform the 7mm-08 from a target shooting perspective.

For hunting I run a 7 RM. If loaded for target shooting it will beat almost anything but barrel life is short (1200-1500 rds).
 
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