opinions what 6.5 bullet weight

[Spike A]

hello all... i need to pick your brains, i have a 6.5 creedmoor 30" barrel 1/8 twist... how i have been shooting 123 gr a-max's... i must say they do shoot very well.. But i find myself wondering if i would benefit from shooting some 140gr bullets ( would lean towards the eld-m's & eld-x's).. i just dont know what to do because the 123's shoot good.. no complaints what so ever. some times i just think that i might gain enough maybe bucking wind to make a switch?

 

[rardoin]

hello all... i need to pick your brains, i have a 6.5 creedmoor 30" barrel 1/8 twist... how i have been shooting 123 gr a-max's... i must say they do shoot very well.. But i find myself wondering if i would benefit from shooting some 140gr bullets ( would lean towards the eld-m's & eld-x's).. i just dont know what to do because the 123's shoot good.. no complaints what so ever. some times i just think that i might gain enough maybe bucking wind to make a switch?

It depends on the type of shooting you do. If 600yds or greater I would favor a heavier bullet (your twist rate will handle 140 class bullets just fine). Also, a consideration may be the throating depth on your particular rifle. It may like longer secant ogive projectiles (like the ELD/AMAX 140's) that can be closer to the lands if throated deep. Try some and see if you find an advantage.

 

[Shynloco]

It depends on the type of shooting you do. If 600yds or greater I would favor a heavier bullet (your twist rate will handle 140 class bullets just fine). Also, a consideration may be the throating depth on your particular rifle. It may like longer secant ogive projectiles (like the ELD/AMAX 140's) that can be closer to the lands if throated deep. Try some and see if you find an advantage.

+1. If it's short or shorter distance, go the other way in bullet weight. Won't really know until you test as to what bullet weight your rifle likes the best at any given distance.

Alex

 

[Spike A]

I shoot any where from 200up... So far only went to 800 but slowly working to a grand... I just didn't want to buy any if it really wouldn't give me much more of an edge.. But if u think they will I will pick some up today...

 

[Ledd Slinger]

The 6.5 Creedmor doesn't quite have enough gas to push the 140s very fast. At least not fast enough to the point where you would see much of an improvement. Eventually the superior BC of the 140s would take over and outweigh the faster speed of the 123s, but that probably wouldn't be evident until after 800-1000 yards.

It takes a lot of extra BC in a bullet to overcome a lighter bullet launched at 100-300 fps faster speeds. If you run the heavy bullets and light bullets at their respective speeds and BCs in a calculator, you will see what I am talking about.

But I would recommend trying the Berger 130gr VLDs or OTM Hybrids. Hornady bullet's will rarely outperform Berger bullets. Thats why you haven't seen many Hornady bullets winning any competitions or breaking any records for nearly a decade. Berger and a couple other custom bullet manufacturers rule the roost when it comes to the long range game.

 

[BOBC]

hello all... i need to pick your brains, i have a 6.5 creedmoor 30" barrel 1/8 twist... how i have been shooting 123 gr a-max's... i must say they do shoot very well.. But i find myself wondering if i would benefit from shooting some 140gr bullets ( would lean towards the eld-m's & eld-x's).. i just dont know what to do because the 123's shoot good.. no complaints what so ever. some times i just think that i might gain enough maybe bucking wind to make a switch?

This is my 130 out of a 6.5 X 47.

 

[Shynloco]

This is my 130 out of a 6.5 X 47.

What distance and how many shots? Thx

Alex

 

[BOBC]

What distance and how many shots? Thx

Alex

5 shots @ 100yds. The 141.5 & the 120 gr. did about about the same. So we went with the 130 because of a little less recoil than the 141.5 gr.

 

[Spike A]

i do not doubt that bergers tend to shoot better.. how ever i do not think that until my abilities improve more i could see the difference, i mean i have had many groups with hornadys in the 2's and 3's .. so i would rather keep practicing with these until i think i will notice a difference in the bullet.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

i do not doubt that bergers tend to shoot better.. how ever i do not think that until my abilities improve more i could see the difference, i mean i have had many groups with hornadys in the 2's and 3's .. so i would rather keep practicing with these until i think i will notice a difference in the bullet.

Yeah thats good for short range groups. Though I was referring to long range performance. The Bergers generally have much more uniform shape, weight, and jacket thickness from lot to lot. That means less vertical and horizontal stringing, which equates to smaller groups downrange at 1000 yards.

At shorter ranges 200 yards and under, the bullet variations won't seem to have as much of an effect on the group sizes. Get down to 1K and the variations are greatly amplified and more evident.

 

[Willow]

130gr Berger VLDs, jam them 10 thou and go for it.

 

[Dan Boone]

YES Spike, you can and likely will see a difference with the Bergers. I've used several different bullets and weights in my Creedmoor and the Bergers made a noticeable difference at 300 yards and beyond.

 

[BOBC]

Yeah thats good for short range groups. Though I was referring to long range performance. The Bergers generally have much more uniform shape, weight, and jacket thickness from lot to lot. That means less vertical and horizontal stringing, which equates to smaller groups downrange at 1000 yards.

At shorter ranges 200 yards and under, the bullet variations won't seem to have as much of an effect on the group sizes. Get down to 1K and the variations are greatly amplified and more evident.

1 & 200 yds is a good starting distance to see if a bullet will consistently group well.
Once its been established that the bullet groups well, then go for the long range testing.
Properly made custom bullets should give you good groups all the way, because of their
uniformity in their production. A highly uniform bullet unfortunately cannot dope the conditions for the shooter.
When I shot NRA High Power, I had two sets of zeros, one for the commercial production type match bullets for practice and the other for my handmade ones which I only used in competition.

 

[Shynloco]

5 shots @ 100yds. The 141.5 & the 120 gr. did about about the same. So we went with the 130 because of a little less recoil.

That's a fine shooting rifle. Impressive to say the least!

Alex

 

[Spike A]

Aren't hornady's new ELD-M's suppose to be better than the a-Max's for uniformity? I thought that was their big push because they were tired of loosing people to Berger?... Down side to Bergers is they are a little harder to find around here..

 

[Sniper338]

130 berger hunting vld is what i would use...


The 123 hornadys will shoot 1000 and get on steel though... berger 130s will do it better..

 

[Ledd Slinger]

1 & 200 yds is a good starting distance to see if a bullet will consistently group well.
Once its been established that the bullet groups well, then go for the long range testing.
Properly made custom bullets should give you good groups all the way, because of their
uniformity in their production. A highly uniform bullet cannot dope the conditions for the shooter.

My personal rule of thumb for good consistency is 300 yards. 100 is just to get some hopeful loads together for testing. 200 will give you an 'idea', but I've often found that 300 is the minimum test to see if a bullet will perform good the rest of the way down range so I don't even shoot at 200 yards much anymore. Just my personal preference and approach to it.

 

[BOBC]

That's a fine shooting rifle. Impressive to say the least!

Alex

I agree with you Alex, only wish it were mine.

Bob C