Why the 6.5 Creedmoor?

Preface

When Hornady released the 6.5 Creedmoor over a decade ago, it showed great promise with claims of flat trajectory, superior wind deflection, low recoil and many other positive attributes. All this as compared to the extremely common and widely used 308 Winchester. We have all had a great deal of time and experience now to see how the Creedmoor stands up to its purported goal, and today we are going to dive into it.

PFI, pride fowler industries, evolution, rifle scope, bergara b-14, hmr — This Bergara rifle chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor has worked fantastic for us the last few seasons, taking its share of venison

History

The design of the Creedmoor case was based on a few criteria; small enough to feed from short-actions, fit neatly in magazines and provide enough power to propel high ballistic coefficient (BC) bullets to a reasonable speed. Some of you might ask why when there was already well-established cartridges that did just that. The .260 Remington does about the same things as the Creedmoor, but has long fallen by the wayside compared to the 6.5 Creedmoor.

From left: 6.5×55 Swede, .260 Rem, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5×47 Lapua. You can see why the Creedmoor and X47 cases do well when feeding from box magazines, their shorter cases allow bullets to be seated much further out.

Cartridge designers based the Creedmoor case off the 30 Thompson Center case, and necked it down to .264 with a 30-degree shoulder. The Creedmoor case is a bit shorter than the .260 Remington and the very popular 308 Winchester. This is by design, as it allows room to seat the longer high BC bullets that make the cartridge perform so well. You can shoot the exact same bullets from the .260 Remington, and often at faster velocity. But you’ll also have a hard time getting them to fit and feed from a box magazine.

Franchi Momentum Elite Varmint, 6.5 Creedmoor, Athlon Optics Helos 2.5-12, Hornady ammunition — this Franchi Momentum rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor shoots very well when fed the **Hornady 140 Match ammo**

Perhaps just as important as the Creedmoors performance, was the huge support of the cartridge by Hornady and others. Excellent bullets and ammunition lines of Creedmoor cartridges ensured that people shot the cartridge and quickly learned of its value in shooting.

Let’s Look at the Numbers

Taking a look at the raw numbers of the 6.5 Creedmoor will help shed some light on its success. The Creedmoor case head uses the same .473 bolt-face as many popular cartridges, this would make it easy to chamber all the popular rifles in 6.5 Creedmoor. The maximum SAAMI overall length for the 6.5 Creedmoor is 2.825 inches, only .015 longer than the 308 Winchester. This would make it compatible with the plethora of magazine systems for precision rifles that were designed around the .308.

Creedmoor cartridges fit nicely in most magazines whether they be AICS pattern for competition or factory hunting rifle magazines like this one from a Mossberg Patriot

The capacity of the Creedmoor is slightly less than the .308 Winchester, holding 52 grains versus the 308’s 56 grains. This is likely due to the shorter case. But the Creedmoor has a trick up its sleeve over the 308. Higher BC bullets like those used in the Creedmoor are more efficient. Two bullets with identical ballistic coefficients fired at the same velocity will perform very similar. But a bullet with a higher BC and fired at a higher velocity will do much better on its way to the target.

Semi-automatic rifles like this **Desert Tech WLVRN** with a 20-inch 6.5 Creedmoor barrel pack an incredible amount of accuracy and firepower in a compact and mobile rifle

The way these numbers actually look from a real world application is like this; Let’s look at two of the most popular precision loads for the 6.5 and 308. The Federal Gold Medal Match 175 grain load has long been the literal gold standard for 308 sharp shooting. And the Hornady Match 140 ELDM is pretty much the equivalent for the Creedmoor. The 308 has a 35 grain weight advantage but it comes with a lower velocity leaving the muzzle at 2600 Feet per second (FPS). The Creedmoor while lighter, starts out a bit faster with a muzzle velocity of 2710FPS. The following graphs show how the 308 has an energy advantage in the first 300 yards, but after that it quickly loses ground to the Creedmoor.

The Creedmoor never loses its velocity advantage, this is due its superior bullet efficiency. And being fired at a higher muzzle velocity, the lighter bullet is easier to get to higher velocities with similar or less powder charges.

The drop of both bullets in inches also shows a clear advantage for the Creedmoor. The 308 requires significantly more corrective elevation at distance. And though I didn’t graph it here, the wind deflection show the same trend. The 6.5 bullets are less affected by wind drift than the larger diameter 308 bullets. And their faster speed and shorter flight time gives the wind less time to affect the 6.5 Creedmoor.

Hint: being at the top of this graph isn’t good

All these numbers are just a fairly broad comparison, and only to the 308 Winchester. If you were to compare the same numbers against a .260 Remington there would be very little difference. The same might be said for the 6.5X55 Swedish Mauser cartridge or the 6.5X47 Lapua. The curves you see here are why some people say the 6.5 Creedmoor gives 300WM ballistics with less recoil than a 308 Win.

Paper Puncher VS. Hunting Cartridge

Many of the 6.5 Creedmoor’s detractors often like to relegate it as a target round only. After looking at the numbers we just went over, it’s laughable when these same folks say something along the lines of “I’d rather hunt with something with more power like the 308.” It would be silly to reduce the Creedmoor to a target round even though it does the job very well. But the same attributes that make it good on the target range make it a good choice for hunters.

both of these elk were taken with 6.5’s, one shot put em on ice

Excellent wind deflection and flat, accurate shooting are just as important for competitive shooters. Feeding from a detachable box magazine is more of a sport function than a hunting one, as many hunters still use the simple two or three round top-load magazines. But the Creedmoor does well from either.

Competition rifles like this one chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor from Master Piece Arms do fantastic in precision shooting

We have used the 6.5 Creedmoor many times now for deer and elk hunting. it does a fantastic job putting energy in the right spot. And the excellent bullet selection allows you to choose what you prefer. It might be a bit on the light side for elk hunting, but the Swedes have been using their 6.5 on moose for the last century. And the Creedmoor produces similar if not superior results depending on how they are loaded.