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What’s with the hate for 6.5CM in some circles?

Just an observation from an engineering and product development perspective...

Cartridge development is very plowed ground. The only items that really move it forward are advances in powder and bullet design. With the latter, often changes in chamber design and barrel twist are required (as most here already know and do).

Hornady is being very smart. They are a component and tool company. To sell new sleek bullets to a larger market (more than just handloaders) they need folks to be able to use them in factory ammo. A good way to do that is to bring improved performance to factory chamberings. They also get to sell you brass, dies, etc. as well.

They are taking old cartridge designs and updating them to match the current state of powder and bullet design, and making these standard. The 6.5CM and the 260 Rem. is the same as the 300 PRC and 300 Win Mag.

In its mertits, the 6.5CM is a good mid range round. If I were to want a 6.5mm caliber gun, it would be on the list of options. The hate comes from dealing with those who are new to shooting who buy the hype without seeing the reality. I have a few friends who are new to shooting... they think an RPR in 6.5 CM will get them to a mile, and nothing else compares. This from guys who have never shot more than 200 yds. It becomes tiresome explaing basic physics.
 
6fatrat said:
I don't think it is hate, just disgust with firearm manufactures and gun mags for pushing this new round on the uneducated new shooters.
Steve Bair
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So...it should have been reserved for educated and experienced shooters?

They sold a good design to as many as will buy it, and they've bought a lot of it and are still buying 13 years later.

Sounds like a successful product roll out to me.
 
Meangreen said:
So...it should have been reserved for educated and experienced shooters?

They sold a good design to as many as will buy it, and they've bought a lot of it and are still buying 13 years later.

Sounds like a successful product roll out to me.
Click to expand...

Nah, they should have described the 6.5 Creed this way:

- Not as accurate as the 6 BR Variants for long range

- Not as accurate as the 6 PPC for short range

- Not as powerful as the big 30s or 338s on large game

- Shorter barrel life than a .308

- More expensive than a .223

Then see who'd have bought it........ :oops: :)
 
Last edited:
INTJ said:
Nah, they kai should have described the 6.5 Creed this way:

- Not as accurate as the 6 BR Variants for long range

- Not as accurate as the 6 PPC for short range

- Not as powerful as the big 30s or 338s on large game

- Shorter barrel life than a .308

- More expensive than a .223

Then see who'd have bought it........ :oops: :)
Click to expand...
If someone made reasonably priced brass for those 6mm's...and made reasonably priced ammo, in a plethora of offerings, as well as reasonably priced and accurate guns that would actually function as reliable repeaters to shoot them...then you might have had something there.

How about more range than a 308, better wind drift and horse power than a 6mm, and same trajectory and penetration of a big 30 or 338 without the recoil?
 
They're not actually that great and it's not very different. 6.5BR was doing what 6.5CM is now doing for decades before 6.5CM was even a dream. That the BR is a couple hundred FPS slower with the same bullet weights but that's not really an issue. 108's at 2900fps is still totally viable for PRS. CM's only advantage of note is that it feeds better from unmodified AICS mags than BR based cases.
 
ballisticxlr said:
They're not actually that great and it's not very different. 6.5BR was doing what 6.5CM is now doing for decades before 6.5CM was even a dream. That the BR is a couple hundred FPS slower with the same bullet weights but that's not really an issue. 108's at 2900fps is still totally viable for PRS. CM's only advantage of note is that it feeds better from unmodified AICS mags than BR based cases.
Click to expand...
The fact that there were predecessors that were every bit the equal isn't the point.

Remington had a 10 year head start with the 260Rem and could have owned this middle ground segment of the market, but they didn't. They lacked insight and it cost them dearly.

Hornady saw what people were wanting and gave it to them in bulk.

Hornady wins.
 
Meangreen said:
If someone made reasonably priced brass for those 6mm's...and made reasonably priced ammo, in a plethora of offerings, as well as reasonably priced and accurate guns that would actually function as reliable repeaters to shoot them...then you might have had something there.

How about more range than a 308, better wind drift and horse power than a 6mm, and same trajectory and penetration of a big 30 or 338 without the recoil?
Click to expand...

I am not a Creed hater. Like most of my fellow old timers I am more amused than anything else, as we have all seen cartridges hyped before. And we weren't immune either, as I love the 300 WSM when it doesn't do anything a 300 H&H, 30-06 Ack, or plain old 30-06 can't do. In truth I am glad whenever someone gets excited about a cartridge.

As for the 6 BRs, Lapua brass is very reasonable and it lasts twice as long as many other brands. I agree that very few make complete rifles in the 6 BR or variants and there isn't hardly any factory ammo.

However, the 6.5 Creed simply does not have the stopping power of the big 30s or 338s. Penetration is critical, but a large wound channel with full penetration works best on large game. I am not saying the Creed isn't an excellent deer round and a reasonable minimum for elk, but it just isn't in the same class as the big 30s, 338s, and up.

My friend took a nice bull elk last week at 650 yds. He used a 300 RUM that I developed a load for. It wasn't even a hot rod load. 190 LRABs at 3150 fps. He anchored the bull with a shoulder shot. That is where the big 30s and up excel. There is no substitute for bullet diameter--the right bullet--and velocity when it comes to max effect on large game.

That said I have tried to talk that same friend into a 6.5 or 6 Creed. He wants a super lightweight rifle with no recoil that is 1000 yd capable. He got all excited when he saw my Dasher and BRA rounds for LR BR and wanted me to build him a rifle in one of those cartridges for hunting deer. Of course he wants me to find a load and then load up his ammo. I want him to have factory ammo available, so one of the Creeds makes a lot of sense. Though lightweight and 1000 yds don't really go together.
 
Meangreen said:
Remington had a 10 year head start with the 260Rem and could have owned this middle ground segment of the market, but they didn't. They lacked insight and it cost them dearly.

Hornady saw what people were wanting and gave it to them in bulk.
Click to expand...


AFAIK, Remington never offered any match loadings. The company saw the 260 purely as a light deer cartridge and after a good launch effort in '97 with a wide choice of its rifles chambered for it and different loadings, then largely lost interest in only two or three years. It appears to have been happy to get modest sales from a handful of product 'lines' for Whitetail hunters and similar. If you consider how big Winchester was in the brass / ammo field 20 odd years ago, the absence of any Winchester 260 Rem products says a lot. (Not because it was Remington either as Winchester has adopted many Rem designs including the 260's 7mm-08 sibling.)

Before PRS came along, Tactical and Sniper were quite big and very influential disciplines and 260 Rem / 260AI were widely used chamberings for some time. Between 2000 and 2006, people like Terry Cross were winning with custom but hardly exotic 260s.

https://www.accurateshooter.com/guns-of-week/gunweek046/

Did Remington exploit this? (Was Remington even aware of this?) Nah ..... not a chance! Anyway there was a five, six year window of opportunity before the 6.5X47 Lapua arrived in which the Remington Arms side could have been making factory Tac/sniper products and the ammunition division some accurate match rounds. It was left to the small scale 'boutique' ammunition producers to load decent 260 range or gong-shooting fodder for those who don't handload.

I'd bet the bean counters who run companies like Remington would have told you prior to 2007 that there is no market / profit in making and loading match cartridges of this calibre / size / performance. They'd have told you that shooters loved the 308 and wouldn't ever shift away from it. Hornady not only proved there was (is!) a significant market for modest 6mm and 6.5mm designs that perform well at 1,000 yards and even beyond in affordable factory rifles, but cashed in in spades by recognising this and playing its hunch - taking a BIG risk for this size of company. It is this issue as much as, if not more so, than the Creedmoor's 'improvements' - real or otherwise - that saw this cartridge become a runaway success. Maybe Hornady people went to the ranges, spoke to shooters and read blogs, forums like this, online reports and so on - like Remington did a generation before in the Mike Walker glory days, and that without the benefit of the Internet too. It looks like Remy have been completely unaware of the huge shift in shooters' interests and expectations over the last 15 or so years, that first saw 1,000 yards as a distance to aspire to, then moved on inexorably out further distances up to a mile. For Heaven's sake, how many You Tube videos are there alone out there about shooting gongs on US alfresco desert 'ranges' at these sorts of distances? (... and from Australia and elsewhere too!)
 
Yup Terry was kicking our ass pretty good with the .260 but when the fast twist .243s with 105+ bullets started to be used in 2004 instead of our .308s we started giving him a run for his money. LOL
 
3Sigma said:
Just an observation from an engineering and product development perspective...

Cartridge development is very plowed ground. The only items that really move it forward are advances in powder and bullet design. With the latter, often changes in chamber design and barrel twist are required (as most here already know and do).

Hornady is being very smart. They are a component and tool company. To sell new sleek bullets to a larger market (more than just handloaders) they need folks to be able to use them in factory ammo. A good way to do that is to bring improved performance to factory chamberings. They also get to sell you brass, dies, etc. as well.

They are taking old cartridge designs and updating them to match the current state of powder and bullet design, and making these standard. The 6.5CM and the 260 Rem. is the same as the 300 PRC and 300 Win Mag.

In its mertits, the 6.5CM is a good mid range round. If I were to want a 6.5mm caliber gun, it would be on the list of options. The hate comes from dealing with those who are new to shooting who buy the hype without seeing the reality. I have a few friends who are new to shooting... they think an RPR in 6.5 CM will get them to a mile, and nothing else compares. This from guys who have never shot more than 200 yds. It becomes tiresome explaing basic physics.
Click to expand...
Nosler took Hornady's playbook and went one step further, selling the rifles for their new cartridges. Hornady missed the boat on that one. They could have subbed out the production of rifles and sat back with another income stream.
 
And we will let the free market decide regardless of barrel life, cost of reloading (a very small % of shooters reload), cost of rounds and performance.
 
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