My Grandson Evan has an impressive string of one shot kills on WTD with his 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser, I believe he is at 6 now. Not many metric cartridges have achieved great popularity in the United States, despite the ballistic virtues of many of them. The 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser has, however, gained considerable following stateside, with good reason. It offers a host of attributes that make it an ideal round for many hunting situations. So I took some time to re-look the ballistics on his hunting load which may surprise some of us. First let's look at the rifle. It's action is a 1889 Lowe Berlin Mauser with a Timney trigger, drilled and tapped for scope with a side wing safety. The barrel is a new(old) carbine barrel 22 5/8 inches with a 1 in 7.8 twist (the tight twist was to stabilize the long heavy 6.5 bullets). I left the military step and added a target crown. I picked the long Nosler 130 grain Accubond bullet which turned out a match from heaven. So lets look at the 0 to 300 yard ballistics.

Range yds        VEL         Energy Ft Lbs      Traj inches
      0                2818           2292                     0  
     50               2720            2136                  -1.5
     100              2625           1989                   1.8
     150              2532            1850                   -1
     200               2440           1719                   0
     250               2351           1595                   -3
     300               2263           1478                 -7.6
     350               2177           1368                 -13.9
     400               2093            1264                 -22.1

So at the end of the day, we have a very capable 350 yard deer rifle. At just under 9 pounds with scope and 5 rounds, you can carry it all day and it shoots 1/2"MOA .

Here is Evan with this year's buck.

Nice buck and a nice rifle.
Looks like you cooked him up the perfect recipe Rick!

Quote from: Jamie.270;155494Nice buck and a nice rifle.
Looks like you cooked him up the perfect recipe Rick!

Honestly, Jamie I had no idea how well it might shoot. I started with the barrel for $100 delivered. Then Paul gave me the action which had the magazine and floorplate. It was a Spanish model so it has a button release floorplate. I had a Timney trigger and my former gunsmith Mark Skaggs set the barrel and headspace then cut the target crown for $250. I did all the polishing and my new gunsmith in KC, Rodger Wright blued it for free as I gave him some Brownells Bluing salts. Evan picked out the 80 dollar Laminated stock so the bottom line was a total of $430. I started with 41.3 grains of IMR 4064 and the Accubond, two through the chrony, 2 at fifty and the first 100 yard group was an inch. It was 50 thou off the lands and I had gobs of free run so I loaded up 3 at 80 thousandths and that was it......1/2 MOA deer rifle born! My dad used to say if you can't be good, be lucky! It's a shame Sako never offer a 6.5X55 cause that would be my new deer rifle.

Great story.  I love it when they work out like that.
$100 barrel must have been an Adams & Bennett.(?)
My 'Smith raved about the one I bought for the Mauser sporter I built.
He said he'd seen $500 barrels that weren't finished as well as that one was.
I wish those were still available.

Quote from: Jamie.270;155496Great story.  I love it when they work out like that.
$100 barrel must have been an Adams & Bennett.(?)
My 'Smith raved about the one I bought for the Mauser sporter I built.
He said he'd seen $500 barrels that weren't finished as well as that one was.
I wish those were still available.

The barrel is a standard Swedish Mauser military carbine barrel. Some guy got his hands on several of these and was selling them on the gunboards forum for 100 delivered some 7-8 years ago. I should have bought 5 of them!!

I heartily agree that the 6.5 Swede is a great round. Good punch with  modest recoil. Some time ago I picked up a new 6.5x55 military long  barrel (29 inches) from an importer and put it on a small ring Turk  mauser action. The military barrels usually have a long leade for the  military bullets that run something like 156 to 160 grains. This rifle  shot nicely at 100 yards with 140 grain pills and I called it good at  that. The 130's sound interesting to try.  One of these days I need to  take it to a range and see how the sights regulate out to 200 yards and  beyond.

The 6.5 Swede is a superb cartridge. The odd size of the case body is why the 6.5/257 Roberts became so popular. The 6.5/257 AI is even better. I bought a reamer for the 6.5/257 AI  but now i'll most likely never use it. ......Paul H

Quote from: sakorick;155493Here is Evan with this year's buck.

That is a terrific photo Rick.

Great work on that rifle build and load work-up.

Marcus

Quote from: sakorick;155495 It's a shame Sako never offer a 6.5X55 cause that would be my new deer rifle.

Great outcome Rick.

You are obviously not referring to the new Sakos as the 85s come in 6.5x55, the Beretta Sakos wouldn't be real Sakos to you. :grin:

Rick and others, do you recommend the 6.5x55 for a novice female shooter. My wife is getting her shooter's license and she wants to accompany me on red deer hunts. She has shot 22LR rifles and is quite proficient. I was thinking of getting a 243 Win rifle for her as she doesn't like the 270 and my 30-06 because of the recoil but I was not sure if that was enough gun for reds. I shot a Sambar with a 243 Win with a 100 grain pill but that was out of the fact my mate had shot it too far back and he had no ammo left and I didn't want it to run and die a slow death. It went through the heart and lung area as it was running and it dropped on the spot but as it was already hurt so I assumed it was already weakened and just succumbed to the shot.

I had South African friends that said they used the 243 on larger antelopes the size of deer but my wife is not as experienced as that fellow was. I get get a Swedish mauser in 6.6x55 sporter which are plentiful here in Oz and reasonably priced as a company called Fuller Firearms imported them and converted them to sporters with decent aftermarket stocks and and scoped them.

The 6.5 doesn't have much more recoil than a 243.

http://thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3060&highlight=gitano
See post #10.


http://thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4516&highlight=gitano
See post #1

 Paul


PS - Sambar are significantly larger than Mississippi white-tails.  EVERY ONE of my wife's caribou, (similar in size to Sambar), ran at  least 100 yd with "perfect", double-lung shots. My caribou, shot side-by-side with my wife's, (me using the .308 Win with 130g HPs), dropped in their tracks. Multiple examples.

The  6.5x55 is a great cartridge. Hundreds of Scandanavian moose are killed  every year with rifles chambered for that cartridge. However, your wife  won't be shooting Scandanavian moose, or whitetail deer, from a stand.


That said, the Accubond bullet is 'serious business'. While it MIGHT  level the playing field a little between the larger diameter .308 and  the 6.5mm, as soon as you add the Accubond to the .308, you're back to  apples vs apples, and the .308 "wins" by virtue of it's larger diameter.  To give some reference points, the difference in diameter between the  6.5 (.264) and the .308 is 0.044". The difference between the .308 and  the .338 is 0.030". (That's FORTYSEVEN percent SMALLER than the difference between the 6.5 and the .308.) Which would you say has more "hammer" effect; the  .308 or the .338? To quote Popeye: Fizzeeks is fizzeeks.

Paul


PPS  - Recall that last year, my daughter shot a nice 12-point whitetail,  from a stand, using a 6.5 Creedmore. "Dead right there". She hit it in  the spine just below the head. I suspect an elephant would have fallen  to that shot placement. In fact, Karamojo Bell shot thousands of  elephants with a 7mm Mauser. He was an "expert".


Pick one you like and don't look back.

Paul

I would take the 6.5x55 over the 243 all day long and twice on Sunday.

See post scripts to my above post.


Paul

PS - My recommendation is ONLY made in the context of you reloading!
Paul