Thread: 6.5 Creedmoor load development

Round two of my 6.5 Creedmoor journey.
I re-chambered a 20" long 1-8" twist light profile Trueflite Ultra Match barrel in creed for my Desert Tech SRS A1 rifle the was previously chambered in .260Rem by the late great Robbie Tiffen that will be my light weight walk about rig.
I have another heavy fluted 26" Lothar Walther barrel in .260Rem for the Desert tech that I never shoot so really dont see me using two.


I have mostly been using the 6.5x47 Lapua barrel for hunting but it is a heavy 24" long axle of a barrel with another 1.3kg of DMRII tactical scope and mount which really excels in its long range prone role.
I really went back in forward over whether to just chamber this barrel in 6.5x47 Lapua too and use the same loads but I still had a lot of Creedmoor Lapua brass and dies etc so figured I may as well make another Creedmoor instead.



I ordered a Dave Kiff premium CIP chamber reamer which eventually arrived and did the job nicely. The std CIP freebore on this reamer is quite a lot shorter than the custom one I finished up with in the Remington barrel but I will see how it goes before any further throat mods.





RL16 was my powder of choice for this cal with the shorter barrel and that has not changed, I will continue to use it in this barrel but backed off a full grain to check pressure limitations of this barrel before carrying on where I left off. Pressure signs and chrono numbers were all in the same ball park as my last barrel so I had a good load worked out before I even put them to paper.

Being this will be my shorter range walkabout rig I decided not to test any lighter 123gr bullets and will run 130 to 147gr bullets instead.
I have quite a few match bullet offerings in that weight range but also will sway toward a more hunting purposed bullet if they shoot ok.




The line up I have chosen to test first is as follows:

130gr Hornady ELDM
130gr Sierra Tipped Match King (my go to in the Remington and also my new 6.5x47)
143gr Hornady ELDX
130gr Berger VLD Hunter
136gr Lapua Scenar L (more of a control bullet as this barrel shot them the best when it was a .260Rem at 1/4 MOA)

All loads tested here are Lapua small primer brass with CCI BR-4 primers, RL16 powder and bullets seated 5 to 10 thou off the lands.

I shot a few of each over the chrono to find the pressure range for each bullet that I wanted to operate within which were all fairly predictable and no eventful apart from the 130gr VLDH and the 130gr ELDM which were quite low in velocity due to the shorter bearing surfaces and higher case volume resulting from the bullets seated long to lands.

This pic shows the 130gr bullets with the variation in bearing surfaces:



This is the 130gr VLDH next to the 143gr ELDX





The selected loads for each were selected with the intention of preserving brass life so nothing to hot. I get very mild primer cratering but not stiff bolt lift or any brass swiping/ejector rings.





The chrono results of these first loads were as follows: (average of 3 shots)

136gr Lapua Scenar L COAL of 72mm with 42.5gr of RL16 (the exact same load I loaded for the .260Rem that gave 2700fps) gave 2878fps.
130gr Sierra TMK COAL of 73mm with 43.5 of RL16 gave 2891fps (I ran 44gr at 2910fps with the longer free bore Remington)
143gr Hornady ELDX COAL of 73mm with 42.0 of RL16 gave 2891fps
130gr Berger VLD hunter COAL of 73.5 with 43.0 of RL16 gave 2743fps which was very slow so I went with 44gr which gave 2772fps.
130gr Hornady ELDX COAL of 73mm with 43.0 of RL16 gave 2701fps which was also very slow so I bumped it up to 44gr which gave 2756fps.

The 130gr TMK seems to cope with a higher charge getting higher velocities than the other 130gr bullets which were starting to show the faintest of ejector kisses with the 44gr load so I have called that my max load.


To the 100 meter range...

Originally Posted by Wingman

Round two of my 6.5 Creedmoor journey.
I re-chambered a 20" long 1-8" twist light profile Trueflite Ultra Match barrel in creed for my Desert Tech SRS A1 rifle the was previously chambered in .260Rem by the late great Robbie Tiffen that will be my light weight walk about rig.
I have another heavy fluted 26" Lothar Walther barrel in .260Rem for the Desert tech that I never shoot so really dont see me using two.


I have mostly been using the 6.5x47 Lapua barrel for hunting but it is a heavy 24" long axle of a barrel with another 1.3kg of DMRII tactical scope and mount which really excels in its long range prone role.
I really went back in forward over whether to just chamber this barrel in 6.5x47 Lapua too and use the same loads but I still had a lot of Creedmoor Lapua brass and dies etc so figured I may as well make another Creedmoor instead.



I ordered a Dave Kiff premium CIP chamber reamer which eventually arrived and did the job nicely. The std CIP freebore on this reamer is quite a lot shorter than the custom one I finished up with in the Remington barrel but I will see how it goes before any further throat mods.





RL16 was my powder of choice for this cal with the shorter barrel and that has not changed, I will continue to use it in this barrel but backed off a full grain to check pressure limitations of this barrel before carrying on where I left off. Pressure signs and chrono numbers were all in the same ball park as my last barrel so I had a good load worked out before I even put them to paper.

Being this will be my shorter range walkabout rig I decided not to test any lighter 123gr bullets and will run 130 to 147gr bullets instead.
I have quite a few match bullet offerings in that weight range but also will sway toward a more hunting purposed bullet if they shoot ok.




The line up I have chosen to test first is as follows:

130gr Hornady ELDM
130gr Sierra Tipped Match King (my go to in the Remington and also my new 6.5x47)
143gr Hornady ELDX
130gr Berger VLD Hunter
136gr Lapua Scenar L (more of a control bullet as this barrel shot them the best when it was a .260Rem at 1/4 MOA)

All loads tested here are Lapua small primer brass with CCI BR-4 primers, RL16 powder and bullets seated 5 to 10 thou off the lands.

I shot a few of each over the chrono to find the pressure range for each bullet that I wanted to operate within which were all fairly predictable and no eventful apart from the 130gr VLDH and the 130gr ELDM which were quite low in velocity due to the shorter bearing surfaces and higher case volume resulting from the bullets seated long to lands.

This pic shows the 130gr bullets with the variation in bearing surfaces:



This is the 130gr VLDH next to the 143gr ELDX





The selected loads for each were selected with the intention of preserving brass life so nothing to hot. I get very mild primer cratering but not stiff bolt lift or any brass swiping/ejector rings.





The chrono results of these first loads were as follows: (average of 3 shots)

136gr Lapua Scenar L COAL of 72mm with 42.5gr of RL16 (the exact same load I loaded for the .260Rem that gave 2700fps) gave 2878fps.
130gr Sierra TMK COAL of 73mm with 43.5 of RL16 gave 2891fps (I ran 44gr at 2910fps with the longer free bore Remington)
143gr Hornady ELDX COAL of 73mm with 42.0 of RL16 gave 2891fps
130gr Berger VLD hunter COAL of 73.5 with 43.0 of RL16 gave 2743fps which was very slow so I went with 44gr which gave 2772fps.
130gr Hornady ELDX COAL of 73mm with 43.0 of RL16 gave 2701fps which was also very slow so I bumped it up to 44gr which gave 2756fps.

The 130gr TMK seems to cope with a higher charge getting higher velocities than the other 130gr bullets which were starting to show the faintest of ejector kisses with the 44gr load so I have called that my max load.


To the 100 meter range...

Awesome speeds there

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk