Published in Shotgun News, 31 Mar 2008 Long-range shooters gravitate towards calibers which provide great ballistics and accuracy along with relatively low recoil. Because these loads are highly specialized, it's almost impossible to find factory ammunition that provides match-winning long-range performance. It's just a fact of life that to get match-winning performance, you need to reload. This presents a barrier for entry into the sport for would-be new shooters.

The 6.5 Creedmoor was developed for the express purpose to provide a cartridge with the accuracy and ballistics to be competitive at the top level of High-Power Long-Range competition using factory ammunition, while also being easy on the novice reloader. During the 2006 High-Power Championships at Camp Perry, Hornady's Chief Ballistician Dave Emary was chatting with Service Rifle and National High Power Champion Dennis DeMille. Dave asked Dennis what his ideal competitive round would look like. His answer was that it would shoot high-BC bullets with great accuracy for winning long-range performance; it would have low recoil and have comparatively long barrel life; factory long-range match loads would be available and no more expensive than .308 Winchester; and it would be very "reloader-friendly." The components used in the factory ammunition would all be available to the

reloader in plentiful supply, and the factory loads would use readily-available commercial components. The recipe to exactly duplicate the factory loads would be printed on every box of ammunition from Hornady. The powder used in the factory loads is H4350 and the primer is the Federal 210M Match.

Emary and the Hornady engineers went to work and by early 2007 had come up with a cartridge roughly based on the .308 body size, shooting a 6.5 mm bullet. The case has a 30-degree shoulder and a 0.370-inch neck. The case head is identical to .308 Winchester which makes it a shoe-in to any .308 action, and the body is tapered 0.004-inch per side for extraction reliability. While reloaders will indubitably try to hotrod the cartridge, factory ammunition is limited to 58,000 psi and shoots the 140-gr A-MAX (BC 0.585) at 2810 fps from a 26-inch barrel. Compared to some long-range ammunition which runs at a maximum pressure over 60,000 psi, being able to achieve a respectable 2800 fps with the high-BC 6.5 mm bullets will increase safety, aid reliability, and provide long brass life. For reduced recoil or short-course matches, the factory 120-gr A-MAX (BC 0.465) loads run at 2980 fps.

Intended first as a High-Power Match Rifle cartridge, McMillan will be offering Tubb 2000 rifle barrels chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. DPMS will also be offering a model of their long-action AR pattern rifle, the LR-308, chambered in the 6.5 Creedmoor. Pacific Tool and Die is making a 6.5 Creedmoor chamber reamer which enables any gunsmith to build a rifle for this new cartridge.

Although it has a strong history in Europe due to the 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser, the 6.5 mm bore size has not seen much interest in the U.S. until the last 10 years. Long-range shooters have come to realize that 0.264-inch diameter bullets can provide high BC values without overpowering recoil. The 6.5-284 Norma is a popular cartridge for F-class and other long-range matches, while the 6.5 Grendel works from the AR-15 platform. Lots of .308 Winchester shooters have been rebarrelling their rifles in .260 Remington and 6.5x47 Lapua as a low-cost ballistic upgrade.

Why 6.5 mm instead of .30 caliber? Put simply, they sling the long, slim, high-BC 6.5 mm bullets at respectable velocity. It duplicates or beats the .300 Winchester Magnum's trajectory with less recoil than .308. Compared to the 175 Sierra MatchKing fired from a .308, the 6.5 mm will have 27% less wind drift and about 10 moa less drop at 1000 yards. Despite a 35-grain deficit in bullet mass, the 6.5 mm Creedmoor will retain 18% more energy and hit the target 260 fps faster. Comparing the 6.5 mm to the big .300 Winchester Magnum shooting its most popular long-range load, the 190 gr Sierra MatchKing at about 2950 fps, the 6.5 mm has about six percent less wind drift at 1000 yards, while burning half the powder and hitting with half the recoil. With a Lapua or Berger bullet instead of the A-MAX, the numbers look even better.

To test the 6.5 Creedmoor, I borrowed a Tubb 2000 rifle from a friend. The 28-inch barrel from McMillan screwed directly on to the Tubb rifle with head-space set at the factory. For accuracy and long-range testing, I mounted a US Optics 3.8-22x44mm SN-3 scope on USO 35 mm rings directly onto the Tubb rifle's picatinny rail. The Tubb 2000 was designed specifically to be the ideal NRA High Power "Match Rifle," and it has dominated the podium since its introduction. It can safely be said that the Tubb 2000 is the 6.5 Creedmoor's "native" platform.

While the 6.5 Creedmoor was designed to be an optimum cartridge for NRA High-Power Long-Range competition, it's really a general purpose cartridge with a wide range of applications. The 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser has been used extensively to hunt big game including moose in Europe for almost a hundred years. Hornady's new 6.5 mm exceeds factory 6.5x55 muzzle velocity by a couple hundred feet per second, so it's safe to say the 6.5 Creedmoor will be an effective big-game cartridge. A lightweight sporter chambered in the Creedmoor will give performance along the likes of .257 Roberts +P up to .308 Winchester on white-tail deer, with recoil more akin to the former than the latter.

The 6.5 Creedmoor is also a natural fit to any of the other practical, hunting, or tactical long-range matches such as International Tactical Rifleman Championships (WY), Practical Rifle Team Challenge (NM), the NRA Whittington Center's Sporting Rifle Match (NM), the Blue Steel Ranch Steel Safari (NM), and various "Sniper Challenge" matches around the country, most of which have roots to Dr. David Kahn's Keneyathlon ("hunters test") format. A short-action cartridge which offers great

wind resistance, reasonably flat trajectory, long barrel life, and is easy to reload is perfect for these applications. For .308 shooters, once you shoot a 6.5 mm, it's hard to go back.

Testing at 100 yards, the factory A-MAX ammunition from Hornady yielded groups just under 0.4 moa. The Oehler 35P chronograph clocked the 120-gr load at 2980 fps, and the 140-grain loads at 2770 fps, or just under the spec velocity using the pre-production ammunition.

One of the selling points of the 6.5 Creedmoor cartridge is that Hornady prints the recipe for its factory-loaded competition ammunition in the box, so reloaders can easily duplicate the same load with commercially-available components. With this in mind and a set of Hornady dies in my Rock Chucker press, I did so. The recipe for the 140-grain A-MAX load is 41.7 grains of H4350 with a Federal 210 Match primer loaded to 2.820 inches; my reloads shot to within 10 fps of the factory-loaded ammunition, which is identical for practical purposes. The load for the 120-grain A-MAX is 43.5 grains of H4350 with the same primer, but loaded to 2.720 inches. My reloads shot to within about 10 fps of the factory ammo. It's certainly an advantage to be able to avoid spending days and possibly hundreds of rounds zeroing in on a good long-range load. Hornady has done the work for us, and I think it'll pay off for the competitive shooter who would rather be practicing than messing around with loads.

Long-range shooters seem to have almost religious preferences when it comes to bullet brands; some swear by Sierra for consistency, others Berger or Lapua for the high BC values, and still other use specialized custom bullets from small bullet-makers. I think long-range shooters will be pleased with the results with the 120 and 140-grain A-MAX bullets; however, I couldn't resist trying some other 6.5 mm bullets in the Creedmoor case. Sticking with Federal 210M primers and H4350, I loaded and shot the 139-grain Lapua Scenar and the 130-grain Berger VLD. Both bullets shot excellent groups like the factory ammunition. The Scenars shot at just about the same velocity as the 140-grain A-MAX when loaded with the same charge. The 130-gr Berger VLD split the velocity of the two factory loads at about 2900 fps. For the reloader willing to push pressure a little bit, I think this cartridge has some headroom.

I've fired about four thousand 6.5 mm bullets from accurate barrels out to 1350 yards in the last 12

months. There is no question that these 6.5 mm BC bullets fired at 2700 up to 3000 fps perform at moderate and long range. Heading over to the unknown-distance (UKD) range, the 6.5 Creedmoor had great long-range performance. Without even building a known-distance (KD) data card, I took the calculated dope from the computer, dialed it for the first target at 880 yards, and made a first-round hit on a steel IPSC target. I then repeated the same process for the 997-yard target and made another first-round hit. Passing the rifle around the several shooters, it was boringly accurate, able to drop hits into sub-MOA groups at thousand-yard distances.

This is the third article I've written about mid-sized 6.5 mm cartridges in the last year. The first was .260 Remington, a .308 necked down to 6.5 mm (0.264-inch). The second was the 6.5x47 Lapua, which was designed by Lapua for 300-meter CISM competition and is about 0.3-inch shorter than the .260. Now the 6.5 Creedmoor joins the mix. Changing from the ubiquitous .308 to one of these 6.5 mm calibers is a big improvement, but how much difference is there between these three 6.5 mm calibers?

Put in order of ballistic performance, the 6.5 Creedmoor and the .260 Remington are almost neck-and-neck, pushing the same weight bullets at about the same velocities from almost identical case capacities. The 6.5x47 Lapua in factory form lags by 100 to 200 fps due to less powder capacity; however, it has already gained a reputation for having a strong case that puts up with the high pressures some reloaders push in their custom rifles. The .260 Remington's main problem for the reloader is lack of high-quality and affordable brass and to date there has only been one factory load produced which was appropriate for serious long-range competition for the non-reloader. The 6.5x47 was designed for intermediate-range competition and very accurate ammunition is available from Lapua; however, these factory loads are at a ballistic disadvantage at long range compared to the .260 Remington and the 6.5 Creedmoor.

There will always be those who bash new cartridges, claiming that they don't do anything better than their favorite cartridge. By this logic, we'd all be shooting .30-06. Put simply, the 6.5 Creedmoor is what the .260 Remington should have been. It looks like Hornady has the right mind-set to make its new cartridge a success in the competitive and practical market, unlike Remington who basically let the .260 languish in a few hunting rifles. The 6.5 Creedmoor enjoys additional case capacity over the 6.5x47 Lapua, which allows better ballistics at a lower peak chamber pressure.

With the 6.5 Creedmoor, Hornady is offering a complete long-range solution, from a better case design through components to providing factory-duplicate load data. It provides ballistics conventionally limited to the big magnums in a low-recoil short-action cartridge. While it was designed specifically for NRA High-Power Long Range matches, it's an ideal cartridge for practical long-range shooting or general-purpose North-American hunting.

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