My 6.5/06

[CWLONGSHOT]

Took this from "Whats ya doing today" thread to expound upon findings and clearer place to read comments.

"
Took the Whelen, the 6.5/06 & a 223Wilde to the range.

The 223 just needed zero W/new scope. ONE SHOT, W/bore site!!!

The 6.5 also had a new optic and proved to have issues as small adjustments moved impacts inches.

The Whelen was good but didnt shoot loads I brought to test well. That only has a Burris 1-5 Post reticule. Not super conducive to tiny groups. I should mount a 6-18 to prove accuracy then switch back & practice.

I also was having issue with 6.5 last trip. Hard bolt lift. Its a Mauser 1909 Argentine action, Knowing the loads should not be hot I was worried about bolt set back (somewhat common in Mausers) But most all of these loads did not have this problem. One 147g match load W/4831 exhibited this but with 100% normal Primers and no case head expansion. I have in the past had VERY poor case life cause if split necks. I have been stringently ad hearing to annealing procedures with them (& 7.65 formed cases) and greatly redused the issue BUT I WONDER if soft necks and shoulders could be "sticking" if I have a rough chamber?

I had this ine built in 1995, but truthfully doubt if it has 200 rounds theu it"

Bret, pointed out the pink elephant in the room and told me to polish the chamber.
Yea I mentioned wondering if it may be rough. Wanting to see with my friends bore scope. Yesterday I visited him and he cannot find it. (Not unCommon for him) Considering buying my own but maybe another time.
Last night I looked all brass closer. I had loads from 1996 when I first started shooting this and they did not appear annealed or neck turned. Further I found a box of 147 Match with 4831 powder. (Moderate loading) this load had sticky bolt lift. Was not annealed or turned and was first firing from Winchester Brass. Way back I bought about 1/2 case of Winchester 150g Silvertip 30/06 ammo from a fishin shop who special ordered it for a customer that never came back.
So thats a consideration for issues beyond what I first thought.
I pulled most all I had as it was insufficient to matter and harvesting the components is more valuable today.

I found 5 cracked necks in pulled and one in what I shot Monday.

In all I harvested 127 cases. (Combining all pulled fired and previously fired in the boxes. All has been annealed this AM and is currently wet tumbling. Later I will size, Trim and neck turn these. Lastly begin some ladders. I want to try staBal & re 26 anyhow. Ill start with a 140g bullet.

As for the rifle. I also had a scope issue so I remounted a older (very long) Burris 4-12 AO.




CW

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

All annealed and cleaned. Waiting on mother nature to do her deal!

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

He found the scope!!

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

Well... This scope is a 8"... ONLY a 8" so not long enough to reach the shoulder neck of the chamber.
What I can see is nice and smooth. So unless he caught a burr or something I didnt see any chatter.

CW

 

[fiver]

what kind of speeds you getting from that thing.

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

what kind of speeds you getting from that thing.

Historically 3175 /125g & 3k W a 140g

It wears a 25" barrel as well.

CW

 

[fiver]

that's still beating the new wonder rounds.
i've always wondered why the 6.5-06 has never been a factory offering.
it's not like they couldn't super easily screw a 24" barrel on a long action and sell a half to a million or so.

it's just a bit more than the 25 for weight and close to the 270 for speed.
something like a 135gr Nosler partition would sure make things easy for a guy wanting to hunt 4 legged non threatening type animals.

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

Found a few hundred "DW 1943" marked military cases. They cleaned beautifully. All annealed and neck turned. VERY INCONSISTENT thickness! I thinned to .015 most had material removed form only one side. NONE had material removed from mouth back .010 or so?? About half cut or saw material removed off circumference. I usually toss military cases not LC. But this was good looking Boxer brass. I loaded a small ladder with H4350 & 140g Winchester Power Points.

CW

 

[Bret4207]

The 6.5-06 can be a barrel burner. Anything along those lines where you have a large for the bore case pushing bullets hard tends to go through barrels kinda fast. 25-06 can do the same thing. It's a great cartridge for sure, but they can, not always, be one of those 300 round lifespan barrels. My 6.5-06 started out as a Swift, got shot out, became a 6.5-06 and got shot out. Just saying that might be part of the issue on why they never standardized it. These days it's just not sexy enough. No belt, no Super Duper Short, not a magnum. Seems to be the trend these days.

I have an '09 Agrie. They do tend to be soft. My action got tweaked trying to remove the original barrel. I un-tweaked it, but the damage is done...and that barrel never did come off. I shoulda left well enough alone but back in those days finding a box of 7.65x53 brass was like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Times have changed.

 

[Michael]

Speaking of barrel life, my wife and I were afforded the opportunity to shoot an X-Bolt in 6.8 Western (shorten 270 WSM) about 6 weeks ago. Took me about 2 weeks to get it out it out of my head. Didn't help that my wife shot it first and afterwards snuggled up to me giving me a nice hug while saying "Hi Sweetheart"...

Twist rate showing on the barrel was 7.5", certainly not very good candidate for cast nor barrel life, brass- pot of gold is about right. Factory ammo $3 a shot .

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

Its over bore for sure, but the '06's gentle shoulder.
300 rnds?? I call BS there. Faster then some but not what Id consider a barrel burner.

CW

 

[Bret4207]

Its over bore for sure, but the '06's gentle shoulder.
300 rnds?? I call BS there. Faster then some but not what Id consider a barrel burner.

CW

I didn't say they ARE, I said they can be, as can other overbore cartridges. And I'm oferring that as a possible reason it hasn't been commercialized.

 

[Michael]

Maybe on a hot day out in the sun popping prairie dogs non-stop with 95gr V-Max at 33-3400fps might toast the throat. The best thing is that it doesn't have Creedmoor in the name.

 

[fiver]

the 264 win could be a barrel burner for sure.
but they weren't target rifles or varmint rigs either, 10 maybe 20 shots a year at most and another 11 months of life in the cabinet is pretty much their forte.
my Deer rifle got a new scope on it last Fall, it still didn't hardly see 20 maybe 25 rounds at most after killing 3 deer, sighting in and checking for group/drop at 1-2 &300yds.

 

[RBHarter]

What is going on with all of these stupid fast twist barrels ?

Hands on the 1-10 is the ragged hit and miss for 120s in 25 cal , back off to 115s or 100 gr coppers and it's gold .
I don't think I want to know what the Russo deal was with the 1-9 7.62 it's not like a 250 gr Spitzer was a thing then .
I kind of get the 1-8.5 in the 6.5s but why is it still a thing in production do we have a lot guys shooting 175-180gr subs in the CM ?
I played with with the calculator on Mountain Moulds many times and with a bore ride bullet I just kept stretching the nose out to see how far it would go before it ran out of twist at 8.5 . The 6.5 cruise missile is a joke . I was at like 250 gr with a bullet like 1.75 in long and was only at 1-8.75 or something like that .
The 270 has shot for 70 +- yr just fine up to what like 160s with 1-10 twist .
History repeats I guess but we haven't had a 250 Savage thing recently so I just don't get the spin it up deal ........oh yeah , I guess maybe if the X/TSX/TTSX at standard per cal weights is a real threat then it might make sense . A 1-10 or 11 7mm would make me a happy camper vs the classic 8.5&9.5 .

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

IIRC this one is 1:9 but it is a Shillen barrel from Brownells. Its been a good shooter. But I never really wrung it out. I stumbled on a 4350/125g load that hit 3100 ish and shot touching and left it. Years later I stumbled on a 140g load with H4350 cause I had a big jug. That hit 3000 fps. I figured it was just a accurate barrel.

Ok ya kinda startled me when ya posted a 300 rnd barrel life Bret!!! I mean this is a whisker smaller then the beloved 270 and ya narry read ANYTHING bad about it! Heck when I sent off to have the dies made I used 270 cases!! (They have a slight difference then the '06)

CW

 

[Bret4207]

the 264 win could be a barrel burner for sure.
but they weren't target rifles or varmint rigs either, 10 maybe 20 shots a year at most and another 11 months of life in the cabinet is pretty much their forte.
my Deer rifle got a new scope on it last Fall, it still didn't hardly see 20 maybe 25 rounds at most after killing 3 deer, sighting in and checking for group/drop at 1-2 &300yds.

That's the whole thing, isn't it? How many rounds, shot how quickly and with what loads? The history on the rifle I mentioned was that it was built by an outfit called "Wallack and Holmes" back in the late 50's on a commercial FN Mauser. The Wallack was Bob Wallack who gained some notoriety in past decades. Anyhoo, it started as a Swift and from what I gather lasted a few summers of chuck hunting before it was "shot out". It was rebored to 6.5 by a forgotten company and used for chuck hunting again for a few summers before it to was "shot out". I can verify that its about as hopeless looking a barrel as I've ever seen that hasn't suffered from rust. The guy that had it alleged in both iterations he only got around 300 full power loads. Oddly, IIRC he went with a 222Mag afterwards and reportedly lived happily ever after. I'm betting the guy ran the Swift and 6.5-06 balls to the wall out of that 26" barrel going for every bit of speed he could get in what was heavily populated chuck country, so lots of shooting. Maybe with todays steels and better powders it would have lasted longer. I can say the steel is that creamy, smooth cutting stuff that's just easy to work with based on the muzzle chamfering I did in an attempt to maybe get some life out of it. I recut the "benchrest style" muzzle and it was like cutting cheese almost, very soft and easy to work.

 

[fiver]

you can still smoke a 220 swift barrel in a hurry.
just fill the case up and use light bullets.
same recipe for frame cutting a revolver.

 

[todd]

The 6.5-06 can be a barrel burner. Anything along those lines where you have a large for the bore case pushing bullets hard tends to go through barrels kinda fast. 25-06 can do the same thing. It's a great cartridge for sure, but they can, not always, be one of those 300 round lifespan barrels. My 6.5-06 started out as a Swift, got shot out, became a 6.5-06 and got shot out. Just saying that might be part of the issue on why they never standardized it. These days it's just not sexy enough. No belt, no Super Duper Short, not a magnum. Seems to be the trend these days.

I have an '09 Agrie. They do tend to be soft. My action got tweaked trying to remove the original barrel. I un-tweaked it, but the damage is done...and that barrel never did come off. I shoulda left well enough alone but back in those days finding a box of 7.65x53 brass was like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Times have changed.

the only thing that sells hand over fist is the 6.5 creedmoor. i've used it in three barrels, 15", 16 1/4" and 23" MGM Encore barrels. i killed around 10-15 deer with it (120gr nosler bt and superformance powder), but i quickly got bored of it, they could do 1/2" group at 100 yards blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back. i think it was 2008 or '09 when i first got 6.5cm. the dies didn't cause a problem (i think midway? had hornady dies), but 6.5cm brass was next to non-existent. so i did 22-250 brass and necked it to 6.5/22-250 brass (i believe it was .01 or. 02" short).

i have a 6.5x55 swede that i'm going to give to my son, when i'm done with the stock. its a '16 spanish mauser with a numrich 6.5x55 barrel. it has a timney trigger and is d&t with a 2 position safety.

i have a 95 Chilean mauser action that needs barreled to a 6.5x57, but that is a long way off.

your probably right with the name, but now i'm interested in the old calibers and cast boolits.

i have three '91 argies(2 of them i gave to my sons) and i feel your pain!!! the 7.65x53 was like finding a pot of gold, but i formed '06 cases to 7.65x53. now i go to grafs and buy prvi 7.65x53 brass.

when i was in my teenie years, i wanted a win m70 in 264 win mag in the worst way. in my mind, i would kill a deer 500, 600 and even 700 yards. it would be one shot and drop. all thanks to my 264 win mag. the furthest i shot a deer (doe) was around 365 yards and the closest was 12 feet(my avatar). they were shot by the same rifle and load, ruger #1 in 270 win with 130gr nosler bt and imr4350. oh, and most of my shots are only 30-40 yards. i can count on fingers and toes shots over 100 yards. i'd say i had magnumitis quite a few years ago, but i got over it. except the 44 mag, but my ruger sbh fell in luv with the 44 spl and 250gr penta hp with a skeeter load. that will be the only magnum i have/had/will have.

 

[richhodg66]

I have been playing with various cast bullets in my 6.5 Creedmoor, so far with pretty un spectacular results. I like the rifle and would enjoy shooting it more, but two things, may be related, short throat requiring deep seating and the fast twist, niether is conducive to cast accuracy.

I had a bunch of cast bullets left from a 6.5 Swedish project which was an abortion. Was hoping this would od better and it has by far, but I don't think it'll be good enough to pursue it much, so when I shoot up the ones I have, it'll probably be relegated to jacketed which it shoots very well.

I always thought the .270 Winchester should have been a 6.5, why Winchester wnt with a weirdo bore size nothing else uses is beyond me. The 6.5-06 is one wildcat that sounds pretty interesting.