6.5 Creedmoor
- Thread starter Tony41388
- Start date
Anything in the 130-150 range for bullet weight. 142 Smk, 140 Eld-m, or some of the Berger offerings if you don’t shy away from pricier bullets.
finally bought my first one a week or so ago, and it loves h-4350 and imr-4350 pushing the 143 grain eld-x from hornady. started at 40.5 grains and worked up, it's making ragged three shot holes at 100. you might want to start a little lower on the powder every rifle is different
I see you're new to this neck of the woods. The search function is your friend.
Hornady brass
CCI-BR2 primers
H4350 41.5 +/- a bit
Depending on your rifle
140 ELD-Ms
OAL 2.825
Std. Disclaimer
Start lower and work up.
Same as anything else - depends on what you are trying to get out of it and what your barrel will allow. Likely going to find 3 good nodes that are close to equally accurate. The last one is only needed if you are shooting distances that warrant or need to cut through some serious wind.
With the right brass and barrel, H4350 can go a long way. Some say they load 43.0. I am currently running 42.7 (140 Hybrids), 26" Bartlein), but I also run 41.5 with 140 SMK's to save on barrel and brass life when shooting 800 an in.
Start with book data and figure out what your barrel like. Only go higher if you need it and can do so safely.
With the right brass and barrel, H4350 can go a long way. Some say they load 43.0. I am currently running 42.7 (140 Hybrids), 26" Bartlein), but I also run 41.5 with 140 SMK's to save on barrel and brass life when shooting 800 an in.
Start with book data and figure out what your barrel like. Only go higher if you need it and can do so safely.
A buddy of mine has like four or five Creedmoors and 42.5 gr of H-4350 behind Hornady’s 143 gr ELDX is lights out crazy accurate. I just bought my first, it’s a Ruger Hawkeye and it loves both Hodgdon and IMR4350 pushing the ELDX. Several one hole three shot groups in the first 25 rounds. I started at 40 grains not sure where you should start, always use caution.
Probably start at 40 grains of H4350 with any bullet of your flavor (140 ELDM, 147 ELDM, 140 Hybrid, 142 SMK, etc.) and work up in .3 increments.
Start at mag length or 20 thousands off the lands.
Do some seating depth tweaking once you find a good node to see if you can squeeze more accuracy out.
Start at mag length or 20 thousands off the lands.
Do some seating depth tweaking once you find a good node to see if you can squeeze more accuracy out.
I'm jumping 100 thou in my Tikka. But that sucker has a long throat. The bullet did very well with jumping from 30 to 120 thou. Anything in there should be money.
My current OAL is still 2.815-2.82 with the same jump depending on the lot.
So far the Hawkeye is consistent throughout powder charges with velocity climbing at a stable rate with increasing powder charges and absolutely no signs of pressure. I started out at .010” under lands and see no reason to change. I’m getting 2700 out of 42.5 gr of imr4350 from the 22” barrel and very good accuracy. Haven’t measured anything yet but there’s nothing over an inch and most three shot groups are under 1/2”.
Not sure if this post is a good place for this question, but here we go anyway.
So I picked up 2 boxes of factory Fed Premium 6.5 CM 135gn TA. I shot both boxes through my Bergara, which grouped like crap and, well, felt a little different. Didn't think much of it as an experiment for the new rifle, I wanted to see how the weight shot and wanted the brass for some tinkering. A few weeks later I get around to brass prep and inspection, grab a random out of the middle and notice extractor marks... Two actually on the same round. I start checking all of them and about 75% have the same pressure sign. I start scratching my head for a minute and recalled some info I was reading; the info said that some are use small rifle primers... Primarily a European thing making its way here. Something about lower SDs with the smaller primer.
Anyway, I thought I was just having vision problems looking at these primers. I started getting measurements of the primer, indeed they were small rifle primers.
I didn't see anything on the box say anything out of the norm. Is this a normal occurrence with 6.5 CM? There is the possibility, that could have turned out more crappy than it was.
Another question would be, why would that create that big of a pressure swing?
So I picked up 2 boxes of factory Fed Premium 6.5 CM 135gn TA. I shot both boxes through my Bergara, which grouped like crap and, well, felt a little different. Didn't think much of it as an experiment for the new rifle, I wanted to see how the weight shot and wanted the brass for some tinkering. A few weeks later I get around to brass prep and inspection, grab a random out of the middle and notice extractor marks... Two actually on the same round. I start checking all of them and about 75% have the same pressure sign. I start scratching my head for a minute and recalled some info I was reading; the info said that some are use small rifle primers... Primarily a European thing making its way here. Something about lower SDs with the smaller primer.
Anyway, I thought I was just having vision problems looking at these primers. I started getting measurements of the primer, indeed they were small rifle primers.
I didn't see anything on the box say anything out of the norm. Is this a normal occurrence with 6.5 CM? There is the possibility, that could have turned out more crappy than it was.
Another question would be, why would that create that big of a pressure swing?
Small primer brass alone shouldnt be what’s causing your pressure issue, especially if it’s factory loaded. As to what is causing your pressure signs, could be you have a shorter throated rifle (probably not since it’s factory) or the manufacturer is trying to get all it can out of the loading. Some brass is more prone to case head swipes too. I’m guessing it’s federal brass?
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Actually it is Federal brass, kind of crazy you used the term 'head swipe'. That's exactly what it looks like, a swipe from the ejector. Thats pretty deep swipe, come to think about it, it took a good amount of force to close the bolt. I had not encountered it before and didn't see anything about it in my data books. I was a bit concerned.
So, if it's not a pressure sign, it should happen just with normal cycle. Makes more sense than the nightmare I had cooked up in my head. Thank you
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Sure thing. While everything should be safe it’s still good to watch for other pressure signs such as super flat primers without rounded edges and primers cratering around where the firing pin hits. Even with those signs you can still be okay but if you constantly have heavy bolt lift or pop a primer or something I would definitely switch ammo type.
