[Big Bird]

I'm going to give you a counter argument to the 6.5 Creedmore in favor of the .308 Winchester.

First and foremost, any long range shooter who relies on ballistics of a given cartridge to save his bacon doesn't know his business. I say this for the very simple reason that I have shot with some of the very best in the nation at Long Range Highpower and the bottom line is this. You either know your come-ups for a given range or you don't. You either have wind dope for a given range/conditions or you don't. Make mistakes in either case at ranges beyond about 600 yards and I don't care what medium weight cartridge you shoot. You will miss. So knowing your gun and load is about 10 times as important as cartridge selection. I've shot in many many unlimited 1,000 yard matches where people shooting .308s beat 7mm Magnums etc.

Secondly, the 6.5 Creedmore has a fairly short barrel life of less than 2,500 rounds or so. This is about half of what you can expect in a .308. Anyone who thinks they are a long range shot and hasn't burned out a barrel or two doesn't know their business. It takes thousands of rounds to learn long range shooting. The 6.5 is a crummy round to learn the game with for this reason. Wait? Barrels burn out that quickly? Yes...on long range rifles they do. The throats erode and you won't be able to hold the 10 ring at 600 yards and beyond. You will never see it if all you shoot is 100-200 yards.

Third, people like to compare the ballistics of a 6.5 140 grain bullet to a Sierra Match King 169 grain bullet. Step up to a 175 or 190 grain (190 is a superb .308 long range bullet) and the differences in BC and other factors begin to fade. So if you handload you can shoot High BC bullets like Berger's and get close to the ballisitic performance of a 6.5 without all the excess barrel wear etc.

Yes, recoil is a little more in a .308. Have you held a Ruger Precision Rifle...its a heavy SOB. Recoil will not be an issue with this gun.

Forget things like ammo availability. The .308 wins that hands down.

So you see my reasoning. The .308 is no slouch and with good handloads and good dope data and a shooter who knows how to read conditions will perform right alongside the 6.5. Is the 6.5 a better round? On paper yeah. But like most shooting stuff the difference between paper data and actual practical utility gets blurred quite a bit when you look and see actual user results...

 

[Big Bird]

Good post there Big Bird.

I bought a .260 Remington for my boys to deer hunt with some years back. I sure like that 6.5 caliber, kills the crap out of the deer and light recoil for a 120 grain/2950fps load. Always thought it would be a fun one to experiment on a long range rifle with. But your points, especially barrel wear, are worth considering.

I've always wanted a .260 but I already have a .257 Roberts and a .243 Winchester so I just can't convince myself to buy one. The truth is they all kill deer dead just fine and there are very few convincing arguments for one medium size centerfire deer rifle over the other except possibly recoil for kids and women.

I do kind of laugh when people point to irrelevant things (from a practical utility standpoint) like the exceptional sectional density or high ballistic coefficient of a given bullet. Ballistic coefficient is mostly meaningless at 300 yards and under. For the vast majority of people who hunt it plays no part in their ability to hit an animal.

My go to deer rifle since I was 14 years old has been a .270 Winchester with 130 grain bullets. It will keeps pace with a .264 Win Mag and a 7mm Rem Mag both with 140 grain bullets. Most people balk when I say that but go check out the ballistics tables some time and you will see the three cartridges are so darn close in terms of trajectory, energy and velocity that there isn't a deer or elk alive that would ever be able to tell a difference.

 

[Big Bird]

Most people who place in long range shooting competitions use 6.5 or 6mm.

But Big Bird makes some excellent points.

Don't get me wrong. There's a case to be made for the 6.5 and 6mm at long range. And you are correct that the really serious folks have gone over to the 6.5/6 because it is an excellent cartridge with certain ballistic advantages over the .308. For a serious competitor the 6.5 MIGHT save you a point or two in a wind gust. Which might mean the difference in the match. But as anyone who shoots highpower/long range knows...correctly reading the wind and applying the right correction is hard regardless of whether your shooting a 6.5 or a .308. For a High Master...it could be the difference that wins the match. For the Marksman, Sharpshooter or even Expert...its not going to make a difference.

When I was competing seriously I would screw a new barrel on my .308 gun around 5,200-5,400 mark. And it was a pain in the butt because it always seemed to fall in the middle of a season. So I ended up having to go back to the range and break in the barrel and re-tweak my loads for the new tube. The guys who shoot seriously will end up screwing a new barrel on a 6.5 about every year. So its not THAT big a hassle to them. I knew shooters who used 7mm Rem Mags in unlimited long-range that needed a new barrel around the 1,900 round mark! People think this is some huge deal too... Even if you reload you are burning enough ammo that it still represents thousands of dollars in cost. A couple three/four hundred for a new barrel is no big deal...

At then end of the day though shooting long range is a real logistical hassle for most people. Few people who buy these rifles will ever really use them much if at all beyond 100-200 yards. Its simply too hard to sight in a rifle on paper at 1,000 yards without a pull target in a pit with someone marking the target. Hell...you can't even see bullet holes in paper beyond 200 yards with the best glass you can buy... So for most people a .308 makes WAY more sense.