6.5mm Shootout: .260 Remington vs. 6.5x47 Lapua vs. 6.5 Creedmoor

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Left to right: .308, .260 Remington, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5x47 Lapua

It's been a good year for 6.5 mm. The .260 Remington has hit full stride after a ramp-up of several years, with top competitors at most field-style long-range matches shooting it. Lapua's 6.5x47 saw the first wave of custom LR rifles built around it in 2007 and proved to be just as good as people hoped. Finally, Hornady is announcing its new 6.5 Creedmoor cartridge at SHOT 2008. How do these three mid-size 6.5 mm cartridges stack up against one another? I spent much of 2007 figuring out the answer to that question.

Why 6.5 mm ?

Shooters who compete in "practical" rifle matches have been migrating to 6.5 mm calibers for several years. While "tactical" shooters can be a dogmatic bunch, often sticking to conventional choices like .308 and .300 Winchester Magnum, practical competitors are in it to win, and the advantages of the lightweight but high-BC 6.5 mm bullets didn't escape their notice. The long-range practical matches I've shot and administered in the last five years have common themes of physical exertion, shooting from weird positions under time stress, and difficult UKD targets.

To match the BC of the 6.5 mm 139-gr Lapua Scenar (#2 from left, 0.615), the .30 has to step up the 210-gr Berger VLD (#3 from left, 0.631). Also shown: .30 175-grain SMK (left, 0.496) and the .338 250-grain Lapua Scenar (right, 0.675).

This new class of medium-sized 6.5 mm cartridges will fit properly in short actions (308 size) and feed from the detachable box magazine (DBM) systems becoming ubiquitous on tactical bolt rifles. They have less recoil than 308 but provide better trajectory performance for both wind and drop than the standard 190gr SMK load in .300 Winchester Magnum, and have barrel life over 4000 rounds, or about twice what you can expect from Tubb's 6XC, 6.5-284 Norma, or 7mm Remington Magnum. Launching the high-BC 130-142-grain bullets at a moderate velocity is a good recipe for a good long-range performance without the costs of the barrel-burners. Once you're using the same high-BC bullet, adding 150 fps to get 2970 fps instead of a more sedate 2820 fps only gains about four inches of wind drift per 10 mph cross!

But 6.5 mm is not just a range toy. The 6.5x55 mm Swede has a long history in hunting in Europe, and it sufficient to take moose if shots are chosen carefully. These new 6.5's can duplicate the classic 6.5x55 loads, so with the right bullet selection, they can get the job done on game.

This article isn't intended to sell 6.5 mm or to give a thorough account of each of the three calibers. I aim to explain how the three cartridges were tested and the summary of the results I was able to achieve with each one. I recommend reading the full articles for more background.

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