Can’t-Miss Creedmoor

The 6.5mm Creedmoor and its little brother, the 6mm Creedmoor provide accuracy and low recoil.

It took a few years to gain traction, but the Creedmoor cartridges are probably the most successful rifle fodder shooters have seen in decades.

You can’t go into a gun shop and swing a dead cat and not knock a dozen or more 6.5 Creedmoor rifles off the rack these days.

Familiarity often breeds success, and it didn’t take long for tinkering souls to neck down the Creedmoor case to .243. Hornady introduced the 6.5 Creedmoor in 2007, and its 6mm cousin arrived three years later in wildcat form. Having competed in long-range precision matches over the years, I watched the majority of long-range competitors swap their .260 Remingtons for 6.5 Creedmoors in masse about 2015-’16.

A few years later, the 6mm Creedmoor appears to be following the same trajectory of top-ranked competitor adoption. The biggest reason for the transition is less recoil, which translates into being able to better watch bullet impact through the scope.

I enjoy long-range shooting competition, but it pales in comparison to using the same skills to bag game. Down here in Tennessee, we plant wind flags on some of our favorite fields before deer season for a reason. Over the past several seasons, the Creedmoor clan has helped me bag my longest whitetail shot, at 710 yards, as well as one of the biggest-bodied bucks I’ve killed at 376 yards.

Feeding the Creed

Some would say I’m a slow learner, but my success with the “Creed” has bred some familiarity with the cartridge. I’ve lost count of the number of rifles I have tested chambered for bullets with a Creedmoor head stamp, so it made sense for me to figure out what to do with all of the empty brass generated. Stick around to read some of what I’ve learned.

6mm Creedmoor

The 6mm Creedmoor has been around for more than a decade. John Snow at Outdoor Life had a wildcat itch he needed to scratch, so he hooked up with GA Precision’s George Gardner to build a rifle around his necked-down Creedmoor. He went to Hornady and they provided a set of custom dies. Fast forward several years and Gardner decided to build an AR-10 rifle in 6mm Creed for compete in the fledgling Precision Rifle Series (PRS) matches.

PRS rules specify that cartridges used in matches must not exceed 3,200 fps to prevent target damage, so cartridges used tend to reach toward that mark at near case capacity for maximum efficiency.

Gardner dusted off the 6mm Creedmoor reamers and chambered a barrel for an AR-10 in 2012. He cut a second barrel in 6 Creed for a member of GA Precision’s PRS team and they shot the rifles in a PRS match that year. A year later more members of George’s team asked for bolt guns in the new cartridge.

Until 2014, shooters had to neck down 6.5 Creedmoor brass to feed their rifles. Gardner made a commitment to buy 100,000 pieces of 6mm Creedmoor brass from Hornady to get things started. GA Precision alone has sold more than 1 million pieces of 6 Creedmoor Hornady brass. Today, more top PRS shooters field the 6mm Creedmoor than any other cartridge.

I paid attention when I shot in the Steel Safari in 2014, and most shooters were still using a .260 Remington in comparison to 6.5 Creedmoor. Even fewer shot a 6mm rifle. A poll of top PRS shooters in 2014 by precisionrifleblog.com’s Cal Zant showed that the 6mm had eclipsed 6.5mm rifles used in competition in 2014. Several big rifle makers offer precision rifles in either chambering.

Ammo seems to be scarce and expensive these days, so handloads seem to be the best option for many shooters. It’s not hard to find a rifle that will shoot sub-MOA groups with factory fodder, either, but where’s the fun in that?

When Federal Cartridge entered the 6mm Creed game, I acquired a Savage Model 110 Tactical Desert in 6mm Creedmoor. The first 10 shots from the Savage averaged 3,052 fps, with a standard deviation of 20 fps. Ten 5-shot groups hovered around 1 MOA at 100 yards, with the smallest measuring 0.937-inch. After barrel break-in, the smallest Federal load shrank to 0.738.

Gun Details

Savage’s 110 Tactical Desert employs several features that make it an accurate rifle, and as you’ll read later even more accurate than previously mentioned. The first element on a long list of features makes this rifle a shooter. One of the keys to Savage centerfire rifle accuracy is the floating bolt head within the action’s design. The floating bolt head allows the bolt head lugs to come into complete contact with receiver when a round is chambered. The floating bolt head also evenly engages the base of the cartridge case, which aids accuracy.

The barrel is a 26-inch light varmint contour tube with a 7 ½:1 right-hand twist. It’s Savage’s “BA” series that’s precision button rifled. The muzzle is threaded 5/8-24 threads per inch for adding a suppressor or other muzzle device, and comes with a muzzle thread protector.

When I started searching for handloads for this rifle things got interesting. Factory loads with 105-grain bullets hovered around 3,050 fps, but I wanted to find a hunting load since deer season still had a few weeks remaining. I opted for Hornady’s 103-grain ELD-X bullets to fit the bill for that need. CCI BR2 primers were used in the once-fired Federal cases that were neck sized only.

I went through several promising powders that yielded sub-MOA groups, but not with consistency. When I got to Alliant Reloader 17, things got real interesting. Using a Hornady OAL gauge I found that bullets seated to and OAL of 2.823 made contact with the chamber throat. A 5-round group with that OAL produced a 1.742-inch group at 100 yards, so I seated bullets deeper, to 2.801, and loaded five more. The next group produced a tight cluster measuring 0.639. This load produced an average of 3,173 fps, with an SD of 7 fps. This load is as fast as the maximum load listed for 100-grain bullets in the .240 Weatherby Magnum, according to the Speer No. 15 Handloading manual.

I’ll chalk the velocity for this load up to its 26-inch barrel length. THIS IS A HOT LOAD, SO FOLLOW MAFACTURER-SUPPLIED DATA WHEN WORKING UP YOUR OWN LOADS. I have since fired more than 100 rounds of this load and groups are only getting tighter. The last shooting session averaged half-MOA, with the smallest group measuring 0.292 for 5 shots at 100 yards.

Going back more than a decade, I have worked with several large-framed JP Enterprise semi-autos in various calibers. One that shines as a JP LRP-07 Chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. It wore a 22-inch Supermatch barrel, and a JP single-stage fire control group were just a couple of the key features to this accurate rig. This rifle was accurate, but other financial commitments at the time won out over buying this rifle.

A couple of years later, I did build a 6.5 Creedmoor Mega Arms MATEN with A LOT of JP components. Spending a few days at the JP Enterprise factory some time earlier learning how to build an AR “the JP way,” taught me a lot about building accurate rifles. The MATEN/JP I built drives tacks, and I learned a lot about powders and gas pressure curves and getting a self-loader to function consistently.

Load Work

The first handload tried in the JP LRP-07 6.5 Creedmoor was a 123-grain Sierra Match King driven by 35.8 grains of IMR 8208 ignited by a Federal large rifle Match primer. The overall length was 2.795 inches. I loaded these rounds with a set of Hornady custom dies.

I loaded and fired six 5-shot groups that produced a 0.976-inch average, which was a good starting point for this rifle. Two 10-shot strings were fired across a chronograph to ferret out possible problems, and even though velocity averaged 2,718 fps, it did have a rather sizable standard deviation. When I examined groups, I wasn’t surprised to see four groups printed with tiny 4-shot clusters with single-round flyers. Even the two groups that measured .619- and .767-inch produced a distinct cluster with outliers.

Performance: 6.5mm Creedmoor Hanadloads

Bullet	Powder	Charge	Velocity	C.O.A.L.	Accuracy
Sierra MK/123	IMR 8208	35.8 gr.	2,718	2.795	0.619
Berger VLD/140	W760	42.8	2,662	2.800	1.085
Hornady Amax/123	Reloader 15	38.0	2,641	2.800	1.241
Sierra MK/123	Varget	39.2	2,710	2.800	0.339
Hornady Amax/140	W760	42.8	2,673	2.800	0.567
Speer H.P./100	Varget	41.0	2,894	2.800	0.483

Range Time

The first load tested was a 123-grain Hornady AMax driven by 38.0 grains of Reloader 15. I knew right away that this wasn’t going to be this rifle’s pet load, since it hovered around 1.5 inches for five shots at 100 yards. The best group measured 1.241 inches. Things got decidedly better when I switched to a 110-grain Speer hollow-point driven by 41.0 grains of Varget. This load produced a best five-shot group of 0.483 inch. The next Varget load was 39.2 grains driving a 123-grain Sierra Match King. This load produced a 0.339-inch group.

I moved up in weight to a 140-grain Berger VLD driven by 42.8 grains of W760, which averaged 2,662 fps. The combination was disappointing, with the smallest group measuring 1.085 inches. The same powder charge driving a 140-grain AMax got a little better, with a 0.567-inch group. Off to a good start, I feel that this rifle is capable of ¼-MOA groups with a little more fine tuning.

Performance: 6mm Creedmoor Handloads

Bullet	Powder	Charge	Velocity	C.O.A.L.	Accuracy
Hornady ELDX/103	Reolder 17	40.5 gr.**	3,173	2.801	0.292
Nosler  RDF/105	H1000	44.4	3,025	2.800	0.495

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