Why did Hornady make the 6.5 Creedmoor?

[David Milisock]

A certain W.D. Bell said of brain shots on elephants.
"Again, the smallest bore rifles with cartridges of a modern military description, such as the .256, .275, .303 or .318, are quite sufficiently powerful for the brain shot. The advantages of these I need hardly enumerate, such as their cheapness, reliability, handiness, lightness, freedom from recoil, etc. For the brain shot only bullets with an unbroken metal envelope (i.e., solids) should be employed; and those showing good weight, moderate velocity, with a blunt or round-nosed point, are much better than the more modern high velocity sharp-pointed variety. They keep a truer course, and are not so liable to turn over as the latter."

The 7 x 57 was used by him for awhile also I believe.

 

[wbm]

It was. He was quite a hunter. I learned so much from reading him over the years. If he wrote the following on most hunting forums today he would be flamed as an ignorant fool.

"I have never been able to appreciate “shock” as applied to killing big game. It seems to me that you cannot hope to kill an elephant weighing six tons by ” shock ” unless you hit him with a field gun. And yet nearly all writers advocate the use of large bores as they “shock” the animal so much more than the small bores. They undoubtedly “shock” the firer more, but I fail to see the difference they are going to make to the recipient of the bullet. If you expect to produce upon him by the use of big bores the effect a handful of shot had upon the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, you will be disappointed. Wounded non-vitally he will go just as far and be just as savage with 500 grains of lead as with 200. And 100 grains in the right place are as good as ten million." W.D.M Bell

 

[David Milisock]

It was. He was quite a hunter. I learned so much from reading him over the years. If he wrote the following on most hunting forums today he would be flamed as an ignorant fool.

"I have never been able to appreciate “shock” as applied to killing big game. It seems to me that you cannot hope to kill an elephant weighing six tons by ” shock ” unless you hit him with a field gun. And yet nearly all writers advocate the use of large bores as they “shock” the animal so much more than the small bores. They undoubtedly “shock” the firer more, but I fail to see the difference they are going to make to the recipient of the bullet. If you expect to produce upon him by the use of big bores the effect a handful of shot had upon the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, you will be disappointed. Wounded non-vitally he will go just as far and be just as savage with 500 grains of lead as with 200. And 100 grains in the right place are as good as ten million." W.D.M Bell

As with most things there's a yes and no answer. There's big game, there's dangerous game and the mix in between. Then there's the I'm the hunter and the I'm the backup situations.

While as a hunter I'd be able to use a 220 grain solid in a 30-06 to take an elephant, (Teddy Roosevelt did and that was the early 20th century 06), or a brown bear, as the secondary protection I wouldn't have the luxury of having time, if I had to fire, I'd have to be quick and devastating. Hitting hard enough to break the front shoulders to stop forward movement. Then follow up with the kill. The big bore rifle can break the bones that allow the animal to charge, the small calibers need critical placement in the brain. Nearly impossible with a charging animal, the shoulders are a larger target but require heavy power to break through.

 

[TC260]

As with most things there's a yes and no answer. There's big game, there's dangerous game and the mix in between. Then there's the I'm the hunter and the I'm the backup situations.

Reminds me of something I heard once, "you can kill anything with anything but that doesn't make everything a good idea" :

 

[ronsatspokane]

Reminds me of something I heard once, "you can kill anything with anything but that doesn't make everything a good idea" :

I would modify that a bit, you can kill anything with anything but in some cases that anything might finish you off before you have a chance to finish it off.

 

[243winxb]

I was wondering why Hornady ever made the 6.5 Creedmoor.

New is good for the bored.

The display features 21 cartridges that Hornady® has introduced as SAAMI cartridges since 1988.

 

[whatsupdoc]

As with most things there's a yes and no answer. There's big game, there's dangerous game and the mix in between. Then there's the I'm the hunter and the I'm the backup situations.

While as a hunter I'd be able to use a 220 grain solid in a 30-06 to take an elephant, (Teddy Roosevelt did and that was the early 20th century 06), or a brown bear, as the secondary protection I wouldn't have the luxury of having time, if I had to fire, I'd have to be quick and devastating. Hitting hard enough to break the front shoulders to stop forward movement. Then follow up with the kill. The big bore rifle can break the bones that allow the animal to charge, the small calibers need critical placement in the brain. Nearly impossible with a charging animal, the shoulders are a larger target but require heavy power to break through.

I have some OLD OLD Hornady 220gr .308 bullets and they are MAGNETIC.

EDIT: They are FMJ

 

[David Milisock]

I have some OLD OLD Hornady 220gr .308 bullets and they are MAGNETIC.

They make the 30-06 a different cartridge.

 

[6.5 forever]

I don't understand....

Some long winded posts were trying shoot holes in a cartridge. Maybe shut up and shoot whatever you like.

I do.

 

[wbm]

Exactly.

 

[whatsupdoc]

Annnnnnd next month it will be.

Why did Hornady make the 6mm Creedmoor?​

 

[6.5 forever]

Why is there a ?
6.5 PRC
7 PRC
300 PRC

I'm glad to see belted cases missing on EVERY manufacturers new releases. Maybe somebody can write a positive post!

 

[rijndael]

I'm also glad belted stuff seems to be nearly dead.

 

[46and2]

I'm also glad belted stuff seems to be nearly dead.

Adg and Lapua have been adding belted magnum cases to their production. Far from dead.

 

[jkirk]

Yes to the name origin, but not the other bit according to David Emary. In a quite detailed feature article on the cartridge's origins and design features in the Lyman Long Range Precision Rifle Reloading Handbook published in 2018 Mr Emary confirms the widely known story that Dennis Demille pushed for a new cartridge at an after matches dinner, actually a three-way discussion between Messrs Emary, Demille and Joe Thielen, Hornady's head engineer for cartridge case production at the conclusion of the 2006 CMP Service Rifle matches. To quote David Emary:

"Dennis said that he was getting really frustrated with his Tubb 2000 match rifle and the 6XC cartridge it was chambered in. I asked him what problems he was having and got an earful. To boil down a lot of conversation there was no standardized loading data for the 6XC. Most of the loads being used were quite warm in order to get the performance needed to be competitive at longer ranges. He reported frequent hard bolt lift and pierced primers, both of which could be very problematic in the rapid fire matches. Dennis stated he wanted a cartridge that was very accurate, was not loaded to problematic pressures, would have a load that would produce moderate recoil at 300 yards for rapid fire, would be as good as anything to 1,000 yards and had to go in a short action receiver. He also wanted this ammunition to be factory loaded, accurate enough to be competitive and have the loads written on the label so anyone could produce them. In short he didn't have the time to reload and really didn't want to. At first glance this seems a pretty tall order, especially the performance expectation from a factory loaded round. We concluded the conversation with me throwing an idea at him for a 6.5mm cartridge to which he responded, 'I don't care what it is as long as it works.' I had my marching orders."

I'm not disputing that Dennis Demille had previously used the 260 Rem in one form or other, but it's obvious from this description that his immediately previous cartridge was the 6XC, and there appears to be no automatic expectation on his part of a 260 Rem based design being a front-runner in finding a replacement. (In fact, the Creedmoor design uses Hornady's existing .30 TC cartridge case more or less unchanged except for necking it down to 6.5mm. David Kiff of PT&G who had been closely involved in the earlier development of the TC wrote in a different thread on this forum some years back that it had originally been intended for the 30TC to be the first of a 'family' based on the case as are the 243, 260 etc, etc on the basic 308 Win and he designed a 6.5TC chamber as part of his original brief, the various Creedmoor updates and tweaks being in effect to produce a match variant of that never introduced hunting design.)

That's what I don't understand. Why didn't Emary and Demille go with the 6.5X47 or at least consider it. It looks like it checked all the boxes for what they want, and Hornady, I assume, could have started producing 6.5x47 ammunition and components. It's just odd there is no mention of them maybe saying "we considered the 6.5X47 but..."

I think the 6.5X47 and 6.5 Creedmoor are both very fine and similar cartridges. It's the lack of 6.5X47 in the history of the 6.5 Creedmoor that gets me.

And the 30 TC is a great, underrated, modern cartridge. IMHO, Hornady should have commercialized a 25 and 7mm Creedmoor (sorry, digressing a little bit).

 

[dsotm]

Why do people get their panties so wadded up about a cartridge?

 

[TC260]

Adg and Lapua have been adding belted magnum cases to their production. Far from dead.

Dead in terns of a feature on new cartridges, I doubt we'll see any new belted cases in the future. But there's still a bazillion rifles chambered for belted mags floating around so cases will be around and produced for decades

 

[TC260]

Why do people get their panties so wadded up about a cartridge?

My teenage daughter laughs at how emotional grown men get over different rounds

 

[marchx]

I am sorry, I did not follow the previous 7 pages of this thread. Where are we?

 

[TC260]

That's what I don't understand. Why didn't Emary and Demille go with the 6.5X47 or at least consider it. It looks like it checked all the boxes for what they want, and Hornady, I assume, could have started producing 6.5x47 ammunition and components. It's just odd there is no mention of them maybe saying "we considered the 6.5X47 but..."

I think the 6.5X47 and 6.5 Creedmoor are both very fine and similar cartridges. It's the lack of 6.5X47 in the history of the 6.5 Creedmoor that gets me.

And the 30 TC is a great, underrated, modern cartridge. IMHO, Hornady should have commercialized a 25 and 7mm Creedmoor (sorry, digressing a little bit).

Somewhere here in all this, I either read it or heard it on Hornadys podcast, that the initial design intent with the 30 T/C case was to later introduce it in other calibers. I dunno, maybe that was a factor in why they used it for the CM, it was already on the drawing board?

And I agree about the 30 T/C, their velocity claims were a ridiculous marketing angle IMO but I have a few boxes of ammo left over from an Encore barrel I picked up dirt cheap years ago at a store closing. It's actually a nice looking round and shot very well. It was never going to carve out a strong niche next to the 308 but in and of itself there was nothing wrong with it IMO.