Thinking of getting into a 6.5 Creedmoor...advice?

It has taken me a long time to come around to the 6.5CM but it is certainly a viable cartridge and obviously extremely popular too. I haven't made the switch in my match rifle yet, but I do have a hunting rifle in the Creedmoor and it is an accurate shooter. My shooting partner had a 6.5CM built last year by the boys at Insite Arms and they did a wonderful job on it, I have had the pleasure of shooting it several times and we have found it very easy to load for with several bullet/powder combos working very well with very little effort. His wears a 24" Benchmark barrel in a Sendero contour, Heathen brake, on a Tikka CTR action in a German Gun Stock hand laid stock, with a Vortex Razor AMG for glass on it. Recoil is practically non existent and balance is near perfect too.
 
Max Owner said:
Creedmoor has had sooooo much hype since SHOT last year. Most manufacturers jumped on the band wagon.

My best opinion as why Creedmoor is superior to the 260.
Click to expand...

The Creedmoore is a slightly more efficient case over the 260. The shorter case allows you to seat the bullet out further and still mag feed. This also allows for very good case capacity and a fuller powder column before pressuring out.
I have been able to get equal or greater speeds out of my creed then my old 260AI.

Both are great calibers but the creedmoore has taken over the mark because once again Remington dose not push there "new" calibers like they should.
 
Holy 2005 Batman! Here in the US, you never hear anyone mentioning 260. Its rare to see one at a PRS match. It's dying, everyone knows its dying, no one pushes it here. Any why would they? There are new rifles, ammo and brass coming out for the Creed like mad and you can find rifles chambered in it at any gun shop down here. Pretty much every store has match 6.5 Creed ammo and quite a few even have match 6mm Creed factory ammo on the shelf. And its CHEAP! What do they have in 260? Maybe one type of hunting ammo and the occasional used rifle.

Who cares if the performance is similar? All of the industry support is behind the Creed. It makes ZERO sense to go 260 unless you already have tons of brass for it or an endless supply of free 308 to convert.
 
kthomas said:
No real downsides per say to the .260, I just think the 6.5x47L and 6.5 Creedmoor are better. At the end of the day, if you pick .260, it will be a fine cartridge.

I believe that the small primers are superior for primer pocket durability, which both cartridges have in certain brass brands. 6.5 Creedmoor hands down wins in factory support, and much easier to get quality factory ammo for. Big plus for those that don't reload or want the ability to purchase quality ammo off the shelf from time to time. The 6.5x47L is considered the most inherently accurate 6.5mm cartridge out of the three, and is somewhat of a favorite among benchresters in the 6.5mm flavour. One of the easiest 6.5mm cartridge to develop a load for that is accurate and with very low velocity spreads.

The .260 doesn't do anything better than the other two cartridges, IMO. It goes marginally faster, but with the small rifle primers on the other cartridges, you can push the other two to .260 speeds if you wanted to. However, I'm not one to advocate for a couple of extra fps. I'm more about finding a velocity node and getting ES's down. It's not a race after all.

The .260 is not a bad cartridge, I just think that the 6.5x47L and 6.5 Creedmoor can do anything the .260 can do, while doing it better.

The .260 seems to be losing popularity every year, so I must not be the only one that sees advantages in the other two cartridges.
Click to expand...

This sums it up nicely.
 
kombayotch said:
Holy 2005 Batman! Here in the US, you never hear anyone mentioning 260. Its rare to see one at a PRS match. It's dying, everyone knows its dying, no one pushes it here. Any why would they? There are new rifles, ammo and brass coming out for the Creed like mad and you can find rifles chambered in it at any gun shop down here. Pretty much every store has match 6.5 Creed ammo and quite a few even have match 6mm Creed factory ammo on the shelf. And its CHEAP! What do they have in 260? Maybe one type of hunting ammo and the occasional used rifle.

Who cares if the performance is similar? All of the industry support is behind the Creed. It makes ZERO sense to go 260 unless you already have tons of brass for it or an endless supply of free 308 to convert.
Click to expand...

There is a Sportsman's Warehouse 15 mins from my house in the Phoenix area. I was in there yesterday and picked up a couple of reloading tools(for half of what I would pay in Canada mind you) and they had lots of 6.5 CM factory ammo from various manufacturers and also as kombayotch mentioned, 6mm Creedmoor factory ammo. 260... pretty much nil. Also the factory rifles on the shelf in 6.5 CM in that one store was surprising as well.
 
I started into the 6.5 Creedmoor game with my Modern Hunter and was very impressed, Earlier this week I went out and bought a new Rem 700 barreled action to throw into my AICS chassis and can't wait to start load development.
I've been loading for my Modern Hunter with Varget and Hybrid 100V with 130gr projectiles but since buying the bolt action I've bought some 140gr SMK's to try.
The only downside to the cartridge is that H4350 seems to be the go to powder and it's sold out everywhere.

Honestly though, I doubt there is enough advantage to the 6.5 over a .308 until your distances exceed 800 yards. Before that the .308 will do everything the 6.5 will do with an extra couple clicks of the turret.
I bought the 6.5CM to replace my 300 win mag that I put together for 1000 yard shots simply because the 6.5 has a very similar trajectory to the 300win but uses almost half the powder per charge making it more appealing with powder prices continually rising.

All the 6.5's are good and do a similar job. You really can't go wrong with any of them.

If you really want to go 6.5 and reach way out try out the 6.5-284. I used to own a Savage LRH 111 in 6.5-284 and it was a laser beam way out there and very little recoil. A little hard on barrels but barrels aren't overly expensive, if you're in the precision game you should be used to things costing what they do and write it off as the cost of playing the game.
 
kombayotch said:
Holy 2005 Batman! Here in the US, you never hear anyone mentioning 260. Its rare to see one at a PRS match. It's dying, everyone knows its dying, no one pushes it here. Any why would they?
Click to expand...

I got a laugh out of the 2005 comment. I got interested in the .260 when the Savage model 12 LRP was on the cover of "Rifle Shooter" back in 2008 or so. They tested it is the 6.5 cm and I think it was the first time I had heard of the Creedmoor. I knew I could buy Lapua brass in .260 and not creedmoor back then so I went with the .260 That said life got in the way and I had to put most of my long distance shooting on the back burner. Now things have settled down a bit and here I see the Creedmoor is a fan favorite and the roles have reversed. Honestly when I look at the Creedmoor I think "Man that round sure has a cool name, but why did they invent it?" From what I can tell it is almost exactly the .260 rem but with a name out of a Jason bourne movie. blackbriar, treadstone.......... Creedmoor? Just rolls off the tongue better than A-Square or Remington.
 
spenom said:
I got a laugh out of the 2005 comment. I got interested in the .260 when the Savage model 12 LRP was on the cover of "Rifle Shooter" back in 2008 or so. They tested it is the 6.5 cm and I think it was the first time I had heard of the Creedmoor. I knew I could buy Lapua brass in .260 and not creedmoor back then so I went with the .260 That said life got in the way and I had to put most of my long distance shooting on the back burner. Now things have settled down a bit and here I see the Creedmoor is a fan favorite and the roles have reversed. Honestly when I look at the Creedmoor I think "Man that round sure has a cool name, but why did they invent it?" From what I can tell it is almost exactly the .260 rem but with a name out of a Jason bourne movie. blackbriar, treadstone.......... Creedmoor? Just rolls off the tongue better than A-Square or Remington.
Click to expand...

Here's a story about how the Creedmoor got its name

https://www.outdoorlife.com/evolution-65-creedmoor
 
So if a guy owns a .260 rem and feels like he should have gone 6.5 creed and then AI's his chamber because deep down he knew .260 rem was the better way to go......... good idea? bad idea?
 
spenom said:
So if a guy owns a .260 rem and feels like he should have gone 6.5 creed and then AI's his chamber because deep down he knew .260 rem was the better way to go......... good idea? bad idea?
Click to expand...

In this case I don't really think there is a "better way to go", I think it's just a different way to go.
If you already have 260 brass and a load developed that is working well for you then why go and change things? Just to have something different?
Is there enough of a performance increase that it's worth the cost and the time starting over with a "new" cartridge just to end up in the same place?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom