Any of you gun guys know where or why it shines, along with some other newer calibers?

Advertising…come up with a new fad and promote it enough and people buy into it.

But how are they different? How do they perform compared to similar old calibers?

A good round but surrounded with far more hype than deserved. It is no worse or better than the dozens of other chamberings in the same class. Nothing magical about it despite what the guy behind the counter or the keyboard commandos tell you.

The 6.5x55 and the 260 Remington both preceded it, were better rounds, and have met with a collective yawn by the American shooting fraternity. They never had as good an agent as the Creedmoor. And the 6.5x55 has a long history as both a successful military and sporting round. The 260 was a couple decades early. If it had come out in the last five years with a marketable name it would be the newest, hottest thing going.

The 6.5 Creedmoor had good marketing. It’s a good round. Maybe even a great deer round. But it is not all it’s hyped to be.

Seems the hype has to do with heavy for caliber boolats paired with faster twist rates in the barrel. Nothing particularly amazing, IMO.

The advantage of the Creedmoor over its “old” counterparts is a shorter COAL which allows use of modern, VLD type bullets and still maintain mag length.


I shoot a 6mm Creedmoor, it’s become my main bread and butter coyote rifle.

Does it really do anything a .243 doesn’t? Nope.

Except be able to load 105-115 grain VLDs and utilize the magazine with room to spare.


Back when I shot a .260 I had to modify a Rem 700 magazine box in order to accept 130 grain VLDs. And even than they barely squeezed in there. A 140 grain would have had to be a single shot.


I’m a pretty big Creedmoor fan, I’m currently acquiring parts for a 25 Creedmoor build. That being said, I have never actually owned a 6.5 version.

The 6.5 and .260 are basically the same. Give a cartridge a new name and pimp it and it’ll sell…advertising.

You will not find a “new” caliber that does anything different than any other caliber before it. The .270 has been around longer than I have but lost its appeal amongst the younger generation so they came out with a 6.5 Creed, 6.5 PRC for a “magnum” version.

I don’t buy into fads when the old tried and true still work and work better a lot of times.

Basically it's the easy button I'd you want a 6.5. unlike the .260, the sweede or some of the wild cats or older cartridges you can get one super affordable like. Don't have to have a gunsmith do any custom chambering or anything just go to any place that selling guns and drop $400-1000.

And compared to .308 it's just a lot nicer to shoot calle a sissy but it is . And ammo is about as easy to find and about the same price as .308.

I feel it's a pretty good cartridge....but all the hype Hornady does is pretty friggen annoying....

I tend to agree with that, Wanna Be. The 308, 270, 25-06, amongst many more, are all still relevant and very capable rounds.

Last thing I will say towards the new round fad. I wish folks would get the idea that they are going to take game at great distances out of their heads. That would go along way in these new rounds being so sought after. Hunters and snipers are two different things.

Like Marty above said there are other older caliber taht do the same thing. I had a semi custom 260 rem built years before the creedmore came out. I could have picked any cal but picked 260.

WHY?? I was getting into long range shooting and 260 with 140gr bullets are long and skinny with good bdc. It gets less wind drift and drop at 1000 yards than a 300 win mag with 30% less recoil than a 308. Uses a lot less powder also. It also has fair barrel life.

I have shot several coyotes with it and it worked great. BUT not any better than a 243 or 7mm-08.

Put the 6.5 creedmore in place of 260 and the reasons interchange. IT Should be a great deer gun if you like a 243 or 7mm-08 since its right in the middle of them. But it shines putting holes in paper at a long range. For typically deer hunting it will work about the same as many other caliber and make deer dead.

It had great marketing that sold a lot of advertising and magazines.

Wellll that's factually false a lot of the new cartridges , buy the numbers are more efficient and do thing the other won't out the box ... Now a lot of those are cutting hair and it may be just the fact that newer stuff does it right out the box where you'd need to go custom with a older cartridge or newer will work better for this or that but still.

It's like how I got a .22 creed barrel coming in right now . Yeah you can say all day that .22-250 CAN do everything the .22 creed can...but the deal is ... How much do I need to do to the legacy to make it work like the new out of the box. Get a custom barrel spun up that's 3-8 weeks for most places or I just went to shaw and drop $250 and boom were here

There's also th discussion of case and chamber design being more efficient and all ( because along now the never stuff are just going ahead and doing some of the things that end up getting done when folks " improve a cartridge) but honestly for the average guy ...eghhhh

And I mean yeah if you have a smith and load or you just want a pretty generic performance set it's kinda a whatever deal. But to say the new stuff doesn't do anything different is just factually false even if it's as simple as " this new stuff is the easy button"

It has had a successful life because of great marketing.

If you want to kill deer at a mile or more, you can only do it with a 6.5 Creedmoor. PUN INTENDED

I'm sure it's a great low recoil round that's fantastic for shooting paper and steel plates.

Everyone is hyped up on fast twist and thinking they're a long range shooter when they buy a 6.5 CM

But every firearms season I get to go help someone I know track a deer that they shot with a 6.5 Needmore.
All but one of them had solid and property placed shots that should have killed them sooner than they did. And that one wasn't far off.
But for whatever reason, deer tend to travel a ways before they die from a 6.5 CM shot. I'm not saying that we don't find them eventually, but I don't want to drag a deer any further than already necessary.

I have been seeing and hearing good things about the 6mm ARC on both deer and varmints.

You do you, but there are better cartridges then the 6.5 CM for deer sized game that have decades of proof backing them up.

I mean.... Lotta says 6.5 creed is basically JUST a modern 6.5 Swede.. how they been Killin mosse with that over there for the last 100years so

The main problem, as I see it......is the 6.5 Creedmore is first and foremost a target rifle caliber. The long, skinny, high ballistic coefficient bullets have less wind drift at distance. So if goal is best groups at 1,000 yards.......the CM is your huckleberry.

Two problems emerge from that when use gets redirected to hunting. First is muzzle velocity is on low end to begin with......in 2,800 fps range.......so stopping power falls off quickly past 200 yards or so........and people seem to also graft notion that if they can shoot targets out to 800 yards, they can shoot game out that far too......so end up wounding and losing more animals than they kill. Eric Cortina put together a video series on 500 yard challenge. Bring your best "HUNTING RIFLE" and take one cold bore shot at 500 yards........make an accurate kill shot. Going from memory, fewer that 1 in 10 could do it, and those are experienced F class target shooters.

Having said that, family members killed 3 deer with 6.5 CM's on opening weekend of MO deer season. But all were shot inside 100 yards.

Raghorn sounds like they are not using proper bullets for deer to me. I get half dollar to grape fruit size exits on coyotes and the same exact results as I get from our 243 and 7mm-08.

It's not a caliber issue its a hunter issue doing something wrong bad shot, wrong bullet, or maybe a bullet failure. BUT it always easier to try to Blame a cartridge.

I just love reading these threads, lol.

I've had no problems with mine on hogs all 1 shot 1 kills farthest one ran was10 yards

It is a modern case design engineered with barrel life, accuracy, and a twist rate so it handles high BC bullets.

Short action make a handier rifle.

The weight bullets it uses puts it in the perfect sweet spot as a deer cartridge.

Recoil is very manageable for female or young shooters.

Lot of rifles chambered in it and lots of ammo available.

If you already have a rifle that does most of these you don’t need a 6.5 CM. But if you don’t IMO it is a balance of near perfection.

People hated the 30-06 too. They hated Dale Earnhardt. They hated Tom Brady. Things are are good and solid generate animosity.

I’ve shot big bucks with 6.5 Creedmoor and it’s more mild cousin Mr. Grendel. Never a far tracking job. Makes me smh and wonder if the haters really have experience with them.

If limited to factory ammo for the 6.5 Creedmore, what brand, type and weight would be best for southern whitetail.

I dont get into ballistics info much and know next to nothing about handloading. But, Ive heard so many bad stories about lost/almost lost deer to the 6.5 CM in my area that it is shocking. Some of these deer I have seen (after they were finally found) and they were hit where it appeared perfectly. Most were pass throughs. What gives?

Folks here have been selling their 6.5 CMs as fast as they could for a couple years now.