When I was 18 years old, I ordered a Swedish Mauser through the mail (yes we really could do that at one time) I also ordered some 160 grain fmj round nose military ammo.
Those bullets were extremely long. I had to pick up the gun and ammo at Railway Express because the post office would not deliver ammmo even back then.
I took the gun down to some land owned by my Uncle Buck and tried it out. I literally could not find a tree thick enough to stop one of those solids. Some of those trees probably had a diameter of four or five feet and those little 6.5"s would zip right through them.
I believe that is why Bell used the 6.5MS and 7MM Mauser to kill over 5000 elephants. He said what was needed was penetration. It obviously worked for him. The problem with all modern ammo is that none of it has those long, parallel sided bullets which penetrate like crazy but with the round nose are not ballistically efficient.
Indeed. Many American hunters are not aware of this but the Europeans have been wise to this for ages. The 6.5 will easily out penetrate most of the monster "Big Game" cartridges. The magic of the 6.5mm is that it has very high sectional density in standard loads, but the bullet is small enough that it can be driven to varmint cartridge velocities in cartridges that normal people can shoot. Extreme velocity plus really sick sectional density equals unparalleled penetration.
While it wouldn't be my first choice in all cases, there isn't an critter that I wouldn't feel uncomfortable shooting with a modern 6.5mm, because at the end of the day it is penetration that delivers on heavy game. The Europeans still use it for everything up to and including moose. The .33 caliber cartridges also tend to share unusual propensity for high sectional densities coupled with high velocities in standard loads. But yeah, I'm a huge fan of 6.5mm; very effective hunting cartridge and one of the most versatile around. I use it for just about everything in the Americas these days.