6.5 Creedmoor

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 2/11/2019 | M Collins

[w1n1]

Between the hunting woods, long-range target competitions and even the U.S. military, the Creedmoor round is making inroads among shooters.
6.5 Creedmoor is one of the new calibers that’s quickly received a pretty intense following, and it's easy to see why. It offers better ballistics than most rounds in its class, has taken numerous precision rifle match medals, and is even being adopted by the U.S. military for some of their sniper weapons. I personally have used the 6.5 Creedmoor for a few years now, and I have two rifles chambered in the caliber. I've taken several large deer with it, and placed well with it in local and state competitions.

I've brought home ribbons, and any shortcomings in my shooting were squarely my fault, and not the fault of the round. Yes, indeed, the 6.5 Creedmoor has taken the rifle shooting world by storm, and people have certainly had success with it, but does the round live up to the hype? Is it worth investing in instead of something like a .308? Is it worth the extra cost over similar rounds? In a word: yes. Let’s talk about why.

CARTRIDGE DEVELOPMENT
The 6.5 Creedmoor, or 6.5 CM, is a distant relative of the .308 Winchester cartridge, developed by Hornady in 2006, and first released in 2007. It was born in the bowels of Hornady's research and development department, and was brought into the world chiefly by Dave Emary and Dennis DeMille, then Hornady’s senior ballistic scientist and the VP of product development, respectively.
They set out to develop a round that would excel in a competition environment, out shooting similar .308 loads, and with less recoil to boot.

They decided to start with a 6.5mm projectile, which is tough to beat for a low-drag, high-velocity cartridge. From there, they settled on the then-new .30 TC cartridge as a parent case (itself a derivative of the .308), which gave them the ability to have the longer 6.5mm bullets load reliably in a short-action rifle such as the AR-10. The .30 TC case was also great for overall barrel life, even in a competition scenario where a competitor may fire hundreds of rounds in relatively short periods of time. Read the rest of 6.5 Creedmoor.

[Yo-Yo]

Creedmoor, NY? Historically between British and U.S. teams?

[762X51]

Shhhh. Don’t tell all these millennials that the 6.5 Swede was doing 125 years ago what their beloved Creedmoor is doing now. The kids’ Creed also duplicates the performance of the but 20 something year old .260 Remington. There really is nothing new under the sun and certainly not in firearms cartridges. I suspect that had the .260 Remington been given a sexier name like, 6.5 Doombringer or 6.5 Brainsplatterer or even just 6.5/08 it would have been more popular. I don’t think I’ll ever own a 6.5 Creedmoor.

[Magnum44]

Yeah, from an accuracy point of view, the .224 seems to fly supersonic and fairly flat out to 1200 yards but that’s with a 40gr bullet.

[Badboo]

For the big boys you now gotta go with the 6.5PRC. Essentially a 6.5 Creedmoor magnum. Long range hunters feel it is a good alternative to the 300 win mag.

It is the newest “bomb”. Full comparison here

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DFrnhu_DV9M

[Kommodor]

Now available at your local retailer - the new 6.66 “Cartridge of the Beast”. Buy now before it’s too late.

[PreciousLiberty]

"Whether or not the 6.5 Creedmoor will "outperform" the 30 cals is a matter of specifics. You can definitely shoot some of the newer .308 bullets out there that will give you better performance. There are many factors to consider, one being that 6.5 Creedmoor barrel life isn't nearly what a .308 Winchester is."

Well...others would differ.

According to Owens’ presentation, in testing in 2017, special operators shooting rifles modified to fire 6.5mm Creedmoor were twice as likely to hit their targets compared those using control guns in the existing 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. Special Operations Command also evaluated .260 Remington and collected data on the performance of all three types of ammunition in the FN Mk 20 Mod 0 Sniper Support Rifle, the Knight’s Armament Company M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System (SASS), and Heckler and Koch M110A1 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System (CSASS).

The testing also showed that the 6.5mm versions of the weapons have 40 percent greater range and less recoil than their 7.62mm counterparts. The round was 30 percent less susceptible to wind drift, as well, making it more precise at those distances.

From Special Operators Getting A New Round For Their Precision Rifles And An 'Assault' Machine Gun

You do have a point about barrel life if the Creedmoor is loaded hot.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

I recently bought a new rifle and had to choose between .308 and 6.5 Creedmore. I choose the .308 because there is no advantage to the Creedmore until you get past 500-600 yards and I don’t shoot that far. Also .308 cartridges cost about half that of the 6.5 Creedmore.

[Manly Warrior]

Dennis DeMille is a retired Marine Gunner who is a former national high power champion. At the time of the cartridge development, Dennis was GM of Creedmoor Sports, a high-power supply company. It was in CA, but since has moved to Huntsville AL. They make the famous Creedmoor shooting coat, a near must for high-power across the course shooting.

[castlebrew]

Nice entrance sign.

[eastexsteve]

What barrel life numbers are you thinking with respect to 308 and 6.5 Creedmoor barrels?

This is comparing apples to oranges. But, just a ballpark figure, some bench shooters are seeing degradation in as few as 2,000 rounds in the Creedmoor.

[griffin]

The CM has great inherent precision and easily get to spinal tap 10.

6.5PRC is a pretty decent cartridge as well, with the capability to go to 11! :)

[eastexsteve]

Well...others would differ.

And, I would argue there are a helluvalot more factors to consider in "precise" shooting than just velocity and wind drift when considering off-the-shelf rifles. The Creedmoor is not new. Though, it is a great cartridge to consider, new bullet designs are happening all the time in the 30 caliber class. Newer .308 diameter bullets with ballistic coefficient (BC) of .800 or better and sectional densities of .376 are on the market now. The best Sierra Match King bullet BC I could find in a 6.5 was .713. (In a nutshell, the higher the BC, the better it flies at a given velocity.) However, I suspect that a big selling point for the 6.5 Creedmoor to the military is that the bullets are smaller, allowing one to carry more ammo at a time, and less recoil. I have rifles in both 6.5 Creedmoor and .308 Win. At distance, my .308 is the more consistent shooter of the two. And, I suspect that is due to a variety of reasons. But, if I had a choice for a super long-range sniper rifle, it would be a .338.

[Magnum44]

2000 rounds is a lot for a long range rifle, but not very long in barrel life compared to what I would expect on other rifles. I wonder why the short life. When I compare reloading data, the max pressures for the Creedmoor are not that much more than max pressures for 308Win. Like 60,000 PSI vs 59,000 PSI. For the same weight bullet the muzzle velocities are also pretty comparable. I wonder what the life issue is?

[griffin]

Maybe related to burn rate, high temperature corrosion around lands area, tighter twist rates and bullet initial sliding over first part of rifling....

[Lurker]

When you can buy 6.5 Creedmore in bulk, and I mean by the thousand lot, at less than .70 per round, maybe I’ll consder it. Until then I’ll stack 5.56 and .308 as deep as I can and spend the dollar delta at the range turning it into skills.

Save the brass. Reload the 5.56 with soft point social work ammo. The .308 with Sierra “reach out and just say hi” loads.

Everything is is firearm masturbation.

Just my opinion.

L

[AlbertWang]

I built a long distance operator in 6.5 Grendel.

Ammo is tough to find. Everyone, even WalMart, has boxes of 6.5 Creed. Even The Bass Pro in Springfield didn’t have the Grendel in stock. Academy has an empty spot on the shelf. None of the local gun shops have it.

And it is a shame because the Grendel is a joy to shoot.

[griffin]

Interesting your 308 is more consistent than your CM. I’m used to the CM being pretty solid.

I’ve shot one PRS match with the Ruger RPR in 6.5CM and it was pretty nice. The 6.5PRC is tempting me though....if you can put up with the slightly higher recoil and not let target re-aquisition time suffer too much the PRC is pretty consistent (comparable to the CM) plus another 200fps or so with slightly heavier rounds. I’m used to shooting the Horn ELD-X. The PRC can also be used a little further out for game.

But what I’m really thinking about is the 300PRC vs. a 338 Lapua for ELR shooting. That’s getting kind of exciting....

...But then some jerk shows up at the range with his black powder muzzle loader and with open sights hits out to 880 yards. Puts it all in perspective. LOL!

[griffin]

The 308 for mid-to-long range tactical is a great tool. Economical too!

But for the long range and extreme long range stuff, i’d personally be leery of buying inexpensive non-match grade stuff. Sometimes you can get lucky and find good loads and consistent bullets, but for anything past 600 or 900 yards, I think I’d go loony trying to ask my rifle to be repeatable with inexpensive ammo.

In some rifles the bullet style and weight can be a HUGE influence on accuracy. I was going nuts testing a brush gun in 44Mag with what I thought was good Horn Leverevolution 225 gr. Could NOT get 5 round grp under 5” at 50 yards. Then tried a lighter 180 gr Black hills (I think) and WOW. All of a sudden I’ve got .75 inch 5 round groups. For a second I thought I was really loosing my shooting skills.

[griffin]

Sounds like a RCBS Rockchucker should be on someone’s Christmas list.

[Lurker]

I have my own philosophy on this. Would I love to have a custom built 1,500 yard rig in the latest bad ass caliber? Sure thing. But our resources are not unlimited.

So we decided to standardize on what’s standard. For the price of one of these custom rigs we can buy 2 5.56 AR rifles with decent optics, a couple thousand rounds of ammunition, a big ass pile of magazines, and multiple days at the range. Maybe even some professional instruction.

While we may not be able to hit a 3 inch target at 1,500 yards it’s also highly probable that we will never ever need to. So it made sense to us to put our resources into the more likely scenarios. That, for us, meant a couple of well built, reliable AR rifles and spare parts.

Not ripping anyone else’s choices. Just passing along how we did things.

Best,

L