Wow, we have kept at least one 6.5 Creedmoor build going for the past couple years. But now, wow we have 5 Custom builds and 4 barrel jobs.it is a great cartridge flat shooting and good ballistics. I see now why brass is getting harder and harder to find. I wander how many more we will see.
6.5 Creedmoor craze
- Thread starter carolinaprecisionBrian
- Start date
Yeah , everybody that orders one ask that question "where can I find brass?"Midway so far has kept some in stock. Push comes to shove make your own.
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boltman13
Gold $$ Contributor
It is not surprising that more and more shooters and hunters are coming around to the 6.5 Creedmoor. I had my first build the year after Hornady and Creedmoor introduced the round. I have never felt handycaped in F-Open with my rifle. I get 2,885 fps with a 29" barrel. Others can get 2,900 or more if they really push it but brass life suffers. There are now 4 sources of brass for the 6.5CM. Availability is still somewhat hit or miss, but that is true of many other cases as well. There is also excellent match loads from Hornady if you can find them. My experience has been that the best powder is the one Hornady started with, H-4350, which is also not on every powder shelf lately. Other similar burn rate powders will also give good results, however. I recently lucked out, and found a Ruger American Rifle in 6.5 CM at our local Sportsman's Warehouse. I had been trying to get one for a long time and it has not disappointed. The world is full of 120-140 gr match and hunting bullets for use on various game and match types. I personally favor 140 gr match bullets and the 140 gr Nosler Acubond LR for hunting. Deer and antelope should drop quickly if hit properly, and I would not pass up elk at reasonable ranges, and presentations. As time passes I think more manufactures will include the 6.5 CM as a selection and would recommend it to others personally.
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
6.5x55 or 6.5x47 for me. I dont like to be kneecapped by brass
What are the makes you can get in the US? (We can get Hornady and starting recently Norma as unprimed brass in the UK - wondering who makes the other two.)
Nosler is one, Winchester made some ammo with their headstamp, but it's not on the market for sale as a component.
I bought 200 Norma 6.5mm Creedmoor cases a month or two back - not cheap at £120 / 100 including the UK 20% VAT (sales tax). Actually, at that price, I intended to buy 100, and the dealer gave me two bags thinking they were 50-ct. They seemed a bit heavy, and by the time I got home, my wife says a panicked gunshop owner has been on the phone saying he'd given me 200 by mistake! Anyway, after weighing / measuring a sample of 25, I went and gave him another £120 rather than return them - they are that consistent. They're a bit heavier than Hornady and have 14-thou thick necks v 13-thou for the US brass. Weights are within 1.5gn, a very few examples per 100 aside, and most are within a 1gn range. Necks are very consistent, 90 odd % within 0.0140-0.0145" and consistent around the neck measuring at three points.
I've only just started using them for load development in a Savage 12 LRP, and kicked off with the old low-BC 140gn Nosler CC that groups well with H4350, not quite so well with the new IMR-4451. However, the initial star was with Reload Swiss RS62. This is from the same manufacturer (Nitrochemie) as Alliant Re17, but without the added nitroglycerin treatment - ie a single-based 4350 speed powder. It is longer-grained too. Three round groups found a promising node at a modest 2,725 fps in the 26-inch barrel factory Savage and I was persuaded to use it in the 'Factory' class of our first UK Bench Rest Association 1,000 yard league round at Diggle in Northern England last Sunday despite limited load development and a rough new Savage barrel with less than 150 rounds down it. This is going to be disastrous I thought on Sunday morning wishing I'd taken my Stolle 6.5-284 Light Gun instead and the sighting-fouling rounds predicted a poor performance with terrible (like REALLY TERRIBLE) elevations - 30-inch groups here I come I thought. However, the barrel seemed to settle down as it fouled and the first three 5-round groups were all lateral with wind changes. Group 4 saw the wind drop, but an elevation based spread from mirage. The 4 x 5-round group 'agg' was just over 10-inches and the smallest group was 180mm (7.08"), so I was really pleased and not a little surprised. I was 5th overall in a field of 31 and 2nd in class. The Savage is a slow shooter as it's a magazine rifle and throwing a round into the port doesn't work - you have to 'fiddle' it part-way into the chamber with the finger tip or the round hangs up.
That was batched and prepped Norma cases (neck-turned to 0.014" as a light 'clean-up'), flash-holes uniformed, neck-sized in a Wilson arbour die and then expanded with a Sinclair E26 mandrel, CCI-BR2 primer, 140gn Nosler CC BTO-batched, trimmed and pointed at 20 thou' 'out' and 42.2gn RS62.
I've not done a water capacity check yet to see how the internal capacity compares to the Hornady brass. We'll have to see how robust the cases are too, although I don't intend to push them hard. For hot loads, I'll re-form Lapua 308 'Palma' small primer cases. Next on the agenda is 123gn bullets and one of the higher-BC 140s.
I've only just started using them for load development in a Savage 12 LRP, and kicked off with the old low-BC 140gn Nosler CC that groups well with H4350, not quite so well with the new IMR-4451. However, the initial star was with Reload Swiss RS62. This is from the same manufacturer (Nitrochemie) as Alliant Re17, but without the added nitroglycerin treatment - ie a single-based 4350 speed powder. It is longer-grained too. Three round groups found a promising node at a modest 2,725 fps in the 26-inch barrel factory Savage and I was persuaded to use it in the 'Factory' class of our first UK Bench Rest Association 1,000 yard league round at Diggle in Northern England last Sunday despite limited load development and a rough new Savage barrel with less than 150 rounds down it. This is going to be disastrous I thought on Sunday morning wishing I'd taken my Stolle 6.5-284 Light Gun instead and the sighting-fouling rounds predicted a poor performance with terrible (like REALLY TERRIBLE) elevations - 30-inch groups here I come I thought. However, the barrel seemed to settle down as it fouled and the first three 5-round groups were all lateral with wind changes. Group 4 saw the wind drop, but an elevation based spread from mirage. The 4 x 5-round group 'agg' was just over 10-inches and the smallest group was 180mm (7.08"), so I was really pleased and not a little surprised. I was 5th overall in a field of 31 and 2nd in class. The Savage is a slow shooter as it's a magazine rifle and throwing a round into the port doesn't work - you have to 'fiddle' it part-way into the chamber with the finger tip or the round hangs up.
That was batched and prepped Norma cases (neck-turned to 0.014" as a light 'clean-up'), flash-holes uniformed, neck-sized in a Wilson arbour die and then expanded with a Sinclair E26 mandrel, CCI-BR2 primer, 140gn Nosler CC BTO-batched, trimmed and pointed at 20 thou' 'out' and 42.2gn RS62.
I've not done a water capacity check yet to see how the internal capacity compares to the Hornady brass. We'll have to see how robust the cases are too, although I don't intend to push them hard. For hot loads, I'll re-form Lapua 308 'Palma' small primer cases. Next on the agenda is 123gn bullets and one of the higher-BC 140s.
No experience of the Norma 6.5X47 brass Milo. In fact I didn't know they made it. In the UK, Norma is available, but generally not a great seller as it's much more expensive than Lapua to us, where both companies make a case. So everybody uses Lapua 6.5X47L and I doubt if you could sell much if any Norma at a maybe 40% higher price.
boltman13
Gold $$ Contributor
Laurie, Besides Hornady and Norma that you mentioned are available in the UK, we have Nosler, and Winchester, but only as loaded ammunition not as a component, at least not yet. I have used Nosler brass and found it to be of excellent quality. Right now Norma is the most available and quite expensive. The rumor persists with no real verification that Norma makes Hornady and Nosler brass as well. Hum!
I wouldn't be too surprised if Norma makes the Nosler case as there is a history of such contracting between them. (Norma makes as many cases with other company's headstamps on as it does under under its own name, if not more.) On the basis of my batches, I'm sure Hornady and Norma are not the same. Not only is the consistency of the latter much better, but brass colour, annealing marks etc don't match. When mouth chamfering or neck-turning, the Hornady metal seems much harder and more brittle and it produces different felt neck tensions on bullet seating. I'm not 100% happy with the factory annealing on my examples and annealed the entire collection after one firing just to make sure. The Norma examples have drilled flash-holes too, whereas some of the Hornady cases I have had massive punch frazes left inside. I had a couple that needed real force to get the uniformer / deburr tool to turn and which produced figure 8 slivers of brass between an eighth and a quarter inch long. (To be fair, my Hornady cases were obtained not long after the cartridge's introduction and scuttlebutt says later lots were better made.)
boltman13
Gold $$ Contributor
Laurie, I do not turn necks so I have no experience with neck hardness. I do find the Hornady flash holes do vary with flash hole deburing, some have little flakes and require minimal effort, and some are as you related, although that is not common. One problem came up with the last 50 case box of Nosler brass I bought specifically for my Ruger American Rifle in 6.5 CM. The primer pockets were extremely tight and required considerable force to seat CCI BR-2 primers. I eventually wore myself out and seated the last 20 with my Redding Big Boss press. I had never had this problem with other Nosler or Hornady brass with this lot of primers so I am attributing this to this particular batch of the Nosler brass. I agree with you that Norma does not make Hornady brass for the 6.5CM. I am not fanatical about weight sorting brass. I weigh each case, and segregate them into the heaviest half and the lightest half. Keeping the 2 batches does add legistical problems but I think it is worth that much effort.
Hornady 6.5 Creed brass is very good at first, then around its 8-10 firings it goes south, as far as availability I started making it from Win 308 brass, the process is pretty easy, I first move the shoulder down using my Whidden FL die with the guts removed, then I final size the case with a plano Hornady FL die, trim to length on my Giraud and fire form, you need plenty of Imperial Sizing wax and slow steady pressure to move the shoulder without collapsing it
"The same can be said for 6.5x47 Lapua. Its even more accurate then the 6.5CM and brass has been getting bought out everwhere as soon as it comes into stock."
The statement of more accuracy has no hard evidence to back it up. I do agree that the advantage, perhaps the only advantage is having available Lapua brass that can take many cycles before failure. In order to have the 6.5x47 run the same velocities as a 6.5 Cm the pressures are higher. If you convert Lapua 308 Palma brass to 6.5 Cm, you equalize the brass variable and have an equally capable cartridge running lower pressures for an equivalent velocity....I like that. What i don't like is having to convert brass.
The statement of more accuracy has no hard evidence to back it up. I do agree that the advantage, perhaps the only advantage is having available Lapua brass that can take many cycles before failure. In order to have the 6.5x47 run the same velocities as a 6.5 Cm the pressures are higher. If you convert Lapua 308 Palma brass to 6.5 Cm, you equalize the brass variable and have an equally capable cartridge running lower pressures for an equivalent velocity....I like that. What i don't like is having to convert brass.
I actually found it easier to use Hornady 243 brass for the conversion. Even with necking up, the brass will hold good neck tension. BTW, anneal before resizing.
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