6.5 Creedmoor.......can we talk?

[Geezerbiker]

Thanks for the clarification. However a .250 Savage is way higher on my want list than a 6.5mm CM. It's likely neither of them will ever bubble to the top.

Tony

[Don Fischer]

Originally Posted by Famas

What about the argument regarding barrel wear? I've heard that a 6.5 Creedmore will wear out a barrel a little quicker that a .308....is this true?

Looking at a Savage 110 Long Range Hunter and being unable to come to a decision of caliber (6.5 vs. .308) has delayed my purchase by months!

Somehow barrel wear always come's up. I have never known a hunter that has worn out a barrel! If a hunter had what a competition shooter called a worn out barrel, he wouldn't likely know it! So say it goes 3000 rounds before wearing out. Shoot 40 rds a year sighting in and hunting and the barrel should last 75 yrs. Up the count to 100 rds a year and it still takes 30 yrs to wear out the barrel. 30 years to wear out a barrel so it no longer shoots 1/2" groups but opens to 3/4" groups doesn't seem to me to be much of a problem. Worn out barrel for a hunter is not a problem!

[MarkCO]

^Yep.

I have worn out a lot of barrels on match rifles, never a single one on a hunting rifle.

[bobn]

i replaced my 243 with a 6 creedmoor. one range setting was enough for me. the muzzle blast and the pitch of it was unreal on my ears. my 308 or my 3006 is an entirely different noise.
...ultimately the ruger predator in 6.5 grendel replaced it. just saying,,,,,

[Nathan]

Barrel wear is throat burn. It is caused by 3 things....velocity, leading edge burnoff(powder burning on the throat) and your ability to accept lower accuracy.

Velocity - This is pretty simple. The faster the round, the greater the abrasion on the throat.

Leading Edge Burnoff - This is basically the amount of super hot burning powder your round is pushing over the leading edge of the throat. Think 6.5 creed vs 264 win mag at same velocity and pressure. 264 still has way more hot powder blowing over the throat....like blowing on a glowing fire ember instead of letting it cool and go out.

Accuracy Degradation Acceptance- After about 50-100 rounds, every round is less accurate than the one before. Even benchrest shooters accept out to around 1000 rounds which probably equates to 50-75% increase in group size. Hunters probably could accept 1 moa shooting from a 0.25 moa rifle, but some won’t.

Knowing those 3 things and assuming you will be fine with 100% increase in group size, I’m guessing 6000 rounds minimum for 6.5 creed.....many will probably say a 6.5 creed is shot out shooting 1moa groups....and a factory rifle will likely start around 1moa.....well, that will greatly limit barrel life.

[603Country]

My 220 Swift wore out a barrel. Took 20 years.

[Bart B.]

Go to the links in post #7 of this thread:

https://thefiringline.com/forums/sho...ht=barrel+life

[raimius]

I think 6.5 Creedmoor is a good compromise round, that has found commercial acceptance. Categorize rounds by use and category. For plinking .22LR and .223 are most popular. For defense .223, 7.62x39, and .300blk are most popular (talking rifles here). For hunting larger game, none of those previous rounds put out as much energy at distance. So, now you have to step up to the .308, 6.5CM, 7mm, etc. Within that class, 6.5CM has very nice ballistics and "good enough" bullet size/weight for most game in North America. For target shooters, those ballistics, lower recoil, and "good enough" barrel life make it a good choice. Now, it's not going to compete with .338 lapua or .416 at extreme ranges, but how many people really want to maximize shooting past 1200-1300m?

[Bart B.]

Originally Posted by Nathan

After about 50-100 rounds, every round is less accurate than the one before.

I've never seen this happen. Never heard of this. If true, I would have.

[kilotanker22]

Originally Posted by Bart B.

I've never seen this happen. Never heard of this. If true, I would have.

Many of my rifles have never really settled down and started to shoot really good groups until I was 100 or so rounds down the tube.

[Carl the Floor Walker]

I would be interested in comparing it to the 350 Legend. I have been thinking of both for my next rifles.

[Nathan]

@Bart B.: my statement was nearly trying to capture that there is a point where accuracy and speed are increasing with a new barrel. At some point, there is a peak....I would argue it is pretty early in barrel life, but that basically to the shooter a barrel delivers good accuracy for a long time....from break in through ??? Round count.

[Bart B.]

Never seen that happen. And never broke in a barrel.

[Shane Tuttle]

Originally Posted by Carl the Floor Walker

I would be interested in comparing it to the 350 Legend. I have been thinking of both for my next rifles.

The 350 Legend is not even in the ballpark of comparison for the 6.5Creedmoor. It's a good cartridge for what it's designed. But these two are apples to oranges.

Originally Posted by raimius

Now, it's not going to compete with .338 lapua or .416 at extreme ranges, but how many people really want to maximize shooting past 1200-1300m?

Me. That's why I had my Creedmoor punched out to a Norma.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by Nathan

my statement was nearly trying to capture that there is a point where accuracy and speed are increasing with a new barrel. At some point, there is a peak....I would argue it is pretty early in barrel life, but that basically to the shooter a barrel delivers good accuracy for a long time....from break in through ??? Round count.

From a purely physics perspective, the part about wearing out is inarguable, I would think.

We don't notice because there is a limit to the resolution of our observation. Just like we don't see that "desks" are made of "molecules" that are made of "atoms" that are made of "quarks".... those quarks were always there, whether we knew it or not.

Every shot fired "damages" every barrel in some miniscule, microscopic, possibly individual molecule kind of way....

That "damage" may, at first, make the barrel shoot better but eventually by the very laws of the universe, it will start making it worse. Where that "worse" starts is a matter of the opinion formed based on the limits of the resolution of our observations.

I.E. - If your average group size has opened up by the width of a Hydrogen atom over the last 10 rounds.... do you know it? No. Does it matter? No, not directly.... until there are enough of those "widths of hydrogen atoms" compounded so they are large enough for a man to notice and measure with his calipers.

A barrel doesn't just "suddenly" go from shooting 1/4 to 1/2... no more than an engine goes from burning no oil in 3,000 miles to burning 1/2 quart. Every single stroke of that piston damages the engine and causes it to burn more oil that it did before (or get closer to burning oil than it was before) and the same is true of gun barrels.

[Bart B.]

My 1000 yard prone match rifle in 264 Win Mag shooting Norma 139 gr. nickle plated match bullets was shooting within a quarter MOA of call for 7 record shots about 640 rounds of barrel life. All struck in the 1 MOA X ring.

Across the next 13 shots they were called inside a half MOA centered area but hit inside the 3 MOA 9 ring.

[HiBC]

From what I have read (No,its not my experience. I don't even have a bore scope.Thats my "grain of salt" warning)
Stainless bbls wear out a different way than CM bbls.

While CM bbls might be a more progressive erosion/blast wear, stainless tends to check,like a dried out lake bed.

All can go pretty well,with gradual degradation in a stainless bbl. But then one day between the checking,a plate will flake off,then another.

The barrel then goes south quickly.

I have no idea what happened with Bart's barrel. It might be possible he shed a flake. I remember those Norma nickel bullets. Might they have contributed?

[Don Fischer]

Originally Posted by Bart B.

Never seen that happen. And never broke in a barrel.

I broke in a barrel once. Well, I think I did. Went through all the motions and the bullet's made holes in the paper! If you don't have a clue what your looking at, how do you know you need to break in a barrel? Actually I'm not clueless, I recognize the hole's in a target as being made by a bullet! For me a rifle either shoot's or it doesn't. Breaking in a barrel isn't gonna guarantee a 1/4" rifle! To get a 1/4" rifle you need one of two things. A 1/4" shooter's or blind luck!

[Bart B.]

I doubt those Norma bullets were the problem. They were the favorite of biathlon competitors when shooting was done at 300 meters testing near half MOA.

Sierra gave me a box of their first lot of 26 caliber 140 grain HPMK's to test. Two 20-shot groups at 1000 yards were around 20 inches extreme spread. Same problem with their 7mm 168 grain HPMK's; good quality copper jacket metal was hard to get to make high quality longer jackets.

[Brian Pfleuger]

The fact that someone can point to a single exception, which sticks in memory directly because it is a deviation from the normal outcome is *literally* the definition of "The exception that proves the rule".

It is also undeniably true that a circumstance which may be prevalent, significant and undeniably important in an extreme circumstance.... i.e, a world-class shooter, shooting a world-class rifle under world-class competition conditions and distances.... is completely and utterly irrelevant to "ordinary" circumstances and folks.

No matter what they do in NHRA, I will never rebuild my engines every 1/4 mile.

Though I will still bet that a barrel that changes "suddenly" from one shot to the next is the exception and indicates a unique failure of some kind.

[Bart B.]

Brian's comments are valid and reasonable.

I've seen Sierra Bullets' accuracy data on their 30 caliber test barrels using reference lots of bullets at 100 yards. They show 10 shot groups starting around two-tenths MOA. When they're about 3/8ths, the barrel's replaced. About 3300 rounds for 308 Win barrels testing weights up to 180 grains, 1100 rounds for 300 Win Mag barrels testing heavier bullets

[old roper]

New Sierra.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/...ullet-testing/

[Bart B.]

When I last toured Sierra's plant, they still used unprepped cases resized in Redding full length bushing dies to test all their bullets. At their California plant, regular full length sizing dies without expander balls but necks honed out to a couple thousandths less than loaded round neck diameter.

[HiBC]

I don't have a 6.5 CM. I have long enjoyed the general class of cartridges such as 7x57,257 AI, 7-08,and 260 rem. and 308. I own or have owned all of those.

All of them are easy on the shooter. That translates to better shot placement.

Bullets (hunting)are designed to perform on game above a minimum velocty,generally something just under 2000 fps. These cartridges deliver bullets over 2000 fps to a reasonable maximum huntng range for most hunters.

Most hunters aren't real concerned about 600 yd plus performance.

Target shootng ranges can be considerably longer.Paper targets don't require bullet expansion.

I was told by good authority that one of the reasons (aside from being a NATO round) the 7.62 NATO is used as the primary US military sniper round is barrel life. Those guys shoot a lot.

Component availability matters. There is no reason why the 277 or 257 bullet diameters could not have been chosen as the "darling" long range bullets.

If the manufacturers focused on high BC accurate bullets.

Part of why 7mm ,6.5 mm have been chosen is the typical rifling twists the rifle makers provide. And,of course,in the USA you can get about anything in 30 cal.

The 2.8 magazine length and feeding through 308 magazines with long bullets ,the available case capacity of the 308 parent case vs attainable velocities...

All of these parameters,and more, come together ...

Along with repeatable ,accurate optics,sighting,rangefinding,ballistic software

Delivering a projectile to a target has evolved a bit from the days of necking 375 H+H down to 6mm.

I'm not a 6.5 CM historian,but enter someone like David Tubbs who considers all these parameters and chooses a cartridge that delivers what he needs.

And he's a winner.

Some folks don't need to re-invent the wheel. They start with what the winners use.

The 6.5 CM isn't about magic. Its just a cartridge based on a lot of well thought out give and take. A sweet spot that seems to deliver

[doofus47]

If I didn't already have a 260 Rem, I would probably get a 6.5 Creedmore as my deer/antelope stopper.