• This Forum is for adults 18 years of age or over. By continuing to use this Forum you are confirming that you are 18 or older. No content shall be viewed by any person under 18 in California.

Why did Hornady make the 6.5 Creedmoor?

The Creedmoor discussion seems to go 3 ways, the indifferent, the Creedmoor defenders and the Creedmoor's no better than this crowd.

Hornady says that they developed the Creedmoor so they would have set the chamber and cartridge specifications and therefore could create ammunition at a higher quality level and then they admitted that they wanted to market it, (make money) their answer.

Here's my performance observations as a purchaser of a rifle based on one of the new fangled Hornady cartridges.

As of late yesterday I finished my compairison tests of my Aero Precision AR15 M4E.
The tests were CQB ranges, 16, 25, 50, 100, 200 300 yards. Also steel plates from 300 to 650 on torso sized plates. Rifles tested M1 Carbine, Stag Arms S1 M4 Clone, Colt H-Bar AR15 A2 in 5.56 NATO and my Aero Precision M4E1 in 6MM ARC. This was shoot and scoot field shooting, 100 yards + prone shooting no bi-pods.

All the stats are too much to waste your time on so I'll give a general expectation and end result evaluation.

My experiance when I was much younger was with an M2 Carbine in M1A1 configuration as my secondaryweapon, in close, a devastating CQB system, out past 200 yards not so much. I have not been extremely happy with any development since then but I thought the 6 ARC was worth a look.

In close the Aero in 6 ARC was the best by a very little, the 30 Carbine and the Stag M4 Clone were very close, the A2 H-Bar a bit slower, the accuracy of all 4 were devastating.

At 100 the 6ARC and the A2 were the best, near identical accuracy . The Stag accuracy and the 30 Carbine were close. At 200 the results were similar to 100 yards.

At 300 the 30 Carbine fell off a cliff, the 6 ARC and the A2 did well and the Stag was next to last, better than the Carbine by quite a bit but nothing like the 6 ARC or the A2.

At 400 the Stag was like the 30 Carbine at 300 and only the A2 and the 6 ARC were used at 500 + Yards. The A2 dropped way off at 500 with XM 855 ammo but picked up and did well with 68 grain match loads, the 6 ARC was much better, same for 650 except an increased improvement by the 6 ARC over the A2. I got what I bought and I'm happy even though it's a modest improvement.

Moral of this winding, wind blown story, evaluate before you buy, stop being overly negative about a companies motives about development and stop being overly zealous about new developments. Just evaluate honestly. Well that's what I tell my boy.
 
Haters gonna hate but some do shoot good.

Seekins Precision rifle. Granted just three shot groups trying a lighter weight bullet but I think it shot them well. At least well enough to kill coyotes.
 

Attachments

  • 20230113_152409.jpg
    20230113_152409.jpg
    435.7 KB · Views: 38
  • 20230113_152352.jpg
    20230113_152352.jpg
    319.2 KB · Views: 37
It was created by to fill a need in the market. In 2007 there were very few factory options in a “long range” rifle that wasn’t a 30 caliber of some kind or a high priced special order. “Invent” a new cartridge, load the ammo for it, call up Ruger and have them build a funky looking “precision” rifle as the PRS series explodes and boom. You’ve got a product that the public is going to buy. Throw in the fact the optics companies were making more affordable “precision” optics and you could have average joe buy a setup for $1500 and be at the range later that day hitting a target 1000 yards away.

One could argue that one could write a sizable case study in marketing on Hornady and the campaign they used for the 6.5 Creedmoor and now other cartridges.
 
Hornady just took their hyped 30 TC case that didn't sell, telling you it had 30-06 performance in a short action...then necked the 30 TC case to 6.5 with a bunch more advertising hype and created the 6.5 Creedmoor...success.
I like the Creedmoor in AR platform... and OK in a bolt gun. But I'll never own another 6.5...
Then there was the 300 Ruger Compact Mag that didn't sell, but Hornady necked it down to 6.5 PRC and worked its advertising magic again...
It's what manufacturers do to keep selling products,... improvements? You decide...But Hornady puts alot of products for shooters on the market, and I'm glad they do...but unfortunately they can not keep up with the demand of many of their new products...and would be buyers lose interest, or get frustrated by long never ending wait times.
 
Last edited:
Haters gonna hate but some do shoot good.

Seekins Precision rifle. Granted just three shot groups trying a lighter weight bullet but I think it shot them well. At least well enough to kill coyotes.
Man that’s hooking it out of a Creedmoor, but it shot tight there at the max load.
 
Hornady just took their hyped 30 TC case that didn't sell, telling you it had 30-06 performance in a short action...then necked the 30 TC case to 6.5 with a bunch more advertising hype and created the 6.5 Creedmoor...success.
I like the Creedmoor in AR platform... and OK in a bolt gun. But I'll never own another 6.5...
Then there was the 300 Ruger Compact Mag that didn't sell, but Hornady necked it down to 6.5 PRC and worked its advertising magic again...
It's what manufacturers do to keep selling products,... improvements? You decide...But Hornady puts alot of products for shooters on the market, and I'm glad they do...but unfortunately they can not keep up with the demand of many of their new products...and would be buyers lose interest, or get frustrated by long never ending wait times.

Like all companies that build something there's a risk, there's many factors that affect the acceptance of a product and for better or worse many lives affected when failures accumulate to the point where it brings a company down.

For example the 450 Marlin, one side of the argument goes that it wasn't needed because the 45-70 covered the same needs. The other side of the argument being the it was safer to use the 450 Marlin because of a multitude of reasons, all that were true.

In the end the nostalgia for the 45-70, poor marketing by Marlin, the sale of Marlin and other factors saw the demise of the 450 Marlin. Not for me I wanted a custom 45 rifle and the 450 Marlin chambered in a bolt rifle ticked all the right boxes, especially the safety boxes. A properly loaded 450 Marlin with 500 grain bullets cannot chamber in sub-45 caliber rifles, nor a lever action 450 Marlin and can be loaded to 60,000 PSI in a bolt rifle.

I believe that the 45-70, the AR15 in 223, 223 Wylde and 5.56 NATO are the rifle chamberings I see most often blown up. The 45-70 due to improper loading for the pressure class of rifle and the AR's due to 300 Blackout being chambered in 224 caliber rifles. So the safety considerations for the 45-70 were real in my opinion.

With all this BS said Hornady takes risks, some pay off some don't, I'm glad they're doing well and have stuff I need.
 
With all this BS said Hornady takes risks, some pay off some don't, I'm glad they're doing well and have stuff I need.

Absolutely. Nobody forces anyone to buy a new product, so why the whinges? in fact, standard marketing textbook doctrine has it that fewer than 5% of new products are completely successful, and a majority are quickly complete flops. People can't even complain the Creedmoor has killed the 260 Rem as Remington did that job itself through lack of attention and support.

This whole pointless debate increasingly resembles the 'What have the Romans ever done for us?" skit in Monty Python's Life of Brian.

 
Who cares why.
It is here and I enjoy my 6.5CM just like I enjoy many other calibers.

It seems to shoot fairly well... LOL

6.5 Creedmoor Ultra Precision rifle at our range's 500 yard line. I would say that it shoots ok with the Thunder Beast Suppressor mounted......

BTW...This was shot with FACTORY AMMO!
 

Attachments

  • 20230111_102017.jpg
    20230111_102017.jpg
    883.2 KB · Views: 20
Who cares why.
It is here and I enjoy my 6.5CM just like I enjoy many other calibers.

It seems to shoot fairly well... LOL

6.5 Creedmoor Ultra Precision rifle at our range's 500 yard line. I would say that it shoots ok with the Thunder Beast Suppressor mounted......

BTW...This was shot with FACTORY AMMO!
That's the key point from Hornady gor the Creedmore's and the ARC, they set the specifications and they can make the factory ammo more accurate.
 

Upgrades & Donations

This Forum's expenses are primarily paid by member contributions. You can upgrade your Forum membership in seconds. Gold and Silver members get unlimited FREE classifieds for one year. Gold members can upload custom avatars.


Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.

You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.


To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.

Forum statistics

Threads
166,265
Messages
2,215,495
Members
79,508
Latest member
Jsm4425
Back
Top