re: New Deer rifle

quote:

---

I like to bag on it as much as the next guy, but it's a damn fine hunting caliber. It just happens to suffer from a lot of crappy ammo available on shelves that people buy because it looks cool.

---

Ahhh, the 6.5 ManBun. Yes, part of the problem is ammo choice but I’m convinced that another problem is that the cartridge was absurdly over-hyped when released; there’s a perception - and I’m not saying it’s unjustified - that it is the rifle of choice for people who learned most of what they know about hunting on YouTube and their toughest decision was whether to buy a bolt gun rather than an AR. There’s this perception that it is not a round serious hunters would choose.

The 6.5 Creedmoor is nothing more than a modern redesign of the 6.5x55 which has a long history of success on deer sized and larger game BUT is more likely to be found in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing. For the sake of full disclosure I also own a a rifle in 6.5x55 - it’s my favorite rifle and the only time it let me down I was shooting Hornady SSTs, which just proves that bullet selection counts. But load it it with 140 grain cup and core or bonded bullet and it will do it’s job every time as longer as you do yours. And if that’s true for the 6.5x55, it also has to be true for the 6.5 Creedmoor - if you push the 140 gr. .264 bullet to the same velocity doesn’t care about which round it came from.