6.5x47 Lapua Tactical Rifle Project

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Sharing .308's case diameter and taper, the 6.5x47 Lapua feeds smoothly from the Accuracy International double-stack double-feed magazines.

With a pile of new Lapua brass and high-BC bullets from Lapua and Berger, I commenced load development. The 6.5x47 Lapua case is only a few water-grains smaller than the .260 Remington case, so most .260 powders can be used. I focused on the 123-grain Lapua Scenar (BC 0.547), 139-grain Lapua Scenar (BC 0.615), and Berger 130-grain VLD (BC 0.595). When pushed with equivalent pressure, these bullets will provide almost identical wind performance to 1000 yards. Powders such as RL15, H4350, VV-N550, and Varget are a good match for the 6.5x47 Lapua; however, the best overall performance was achieved with RL15. With almost the volume of a full-size case, a magnum small-rifle primer ought to offer best ignition. I tried CCI #41, CCI 450, and CCI BR4 primers, and ended up settling on the BR4s. Accuracy with most combinations was excellent, with sub-quarter MOA groups yielding from all three bullets using RL15 or N550. Likewise, single-digit velocity standard deviation (SD) was common. My accuracy testing and load development was all done with unprepped new brass. That's the beauty of Lapua components.

Reloading dies for 6.5x47 Lapua are readily available from Redding, Forster, and RCBS.

The 6.5x47 Lapua case is very strong and the brass is excellent. None of my loads were limited by pressure signs on the case head, and even with nuclear loads, the bolt was easy to open. I was able to meet and beat velocities achieved in my .260 with the 6.5x47 Lapua; however, pressure was prematurely limited by primer cratering and an occasional pierced primer. Remember that the AI-AW is designed to reliably ignite 7.62 NATO ammunition in field conditions. Its firing pin protrusion and firing pin hole are not optimized for a high pressure small rifle primer. Normally, the way to solve this is to bush the firing pin hole, use a smaller-diameter firing pin, and control the firing pin protrusion, and this is easy to do on a Remington-style bolt head. A new bolt head assembly on the AI runs about $850, and it wasn't something I wanted to have modified. Even with this limitation, my final load was the 123-grain Lapua Scenar at 2930 fps using RL15 and BR4 primers, about 110 fps faster than Lapua's factory load. At similar pressure, the 130-grain Berger VLD would be going about 2850 fps, and the 139-grain Lapua Scenar a little over 2700 fps.

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