Thread: Is a 6.5x55 enough gun for Thar

There is a good shot placement resource here: https://www.africahunting.com/community/shot-placement/

The entry for Tahr isn’t as comprehensive as some of the others but it is well worth looking at nonetheless. https://www.africahunting.com/thread...ng-tahr.49741/.

I am not a Tahr Hunter (yet) and cannot comment on the OP‘s question about the 6.5x55 being suitable or not. Obviously the bloke that wrote this entry in the shot placement thread would probably say “no it’s not”, but I would bet a dollar or two on him being a Magnum shooter and that tends to skew their perspective, that’s been my experience.

My view as a regular 300-600m 6.5mm deer shooter is that the bullet choice is the key, with the heavier 6.5 bullets having an undeniable benefit of a very high sectional density. So a good premium quality bullet in the 130-150gr range pushed hard at 2750-2900 ft/sec is unlikely to struggle with penetration. I guess I’m just reflecting on how I would prepare for my first Tahr hunt if I was determined to use my proven rifle - if it can knock over big heavy reds and 150lb++ pigs at those ranges I’d be pretty confident I could knock over a Tahr - as long as I selected a bullet tough enough for the job.

Several good quality bullet options stand out for me, the main bullet type that I would avoid full stop would be the A-Max / ELD-M, Tipped MatchKing types, they work very well at distance on our soft skinned deer and goats but would be a poor choice for Himalayan Tahr.

I would be keen to get my hands on some of the new Norma Bondstrike in 6.5 for Tahr, I hope it doesn’t take too long for them to arrive in New Zealand as projectiles only. I don’t much like the marketing though as they are pushing them as extreme long-range bullets, which doesn’t really make sense to me.