i'm your huckleberry Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 looking to buy a second rifle, 6.5-06 always keeps popping back into my mind. i am a hand loader so no problems for ammo. i like the bc and sd of the 264 bullets. any body have one or a friend with one would really like some feed back on this wildcat cartridge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle john Posted March 11, 2013 Report Share Posted March 11, 2013 I have one. I put this rifle together about 10 years ago, had the local smith put a heavy 26 inch stainless Hart barrel (# 5 contour as I remember) with a 1 to 10 twist on a 98 Mauser action I had. Over the years prior, I had gained a respect for this bore diameter while wearing out a a Swede 6.5x55 carbine barrel and a .264 Win mag barrel. Had a Douglas barrel put on the .264, but it would not shoot to my specs with the bullet weight I wanted, so I decided to try the 6.5-06, mostly because of the economy involved. Brass can be formed by running 25-06 or .270 through the 6.5-55 resizing die, a trim and you're good to go. Also the 6.5-06 has about 3/4 the appetite for powder as the .264. I primarily wanted to use this rifle on deer here in Pennsylvania, but due to the cooperation of the local herd during archery season, I have never taken one with it. The twist rate I chose tends to favor the lighter to medium bullet weights. The Nosler ballistic tip in 120 grain does very well for me with a reasonable amount of H4831. My rifle has a very snug chamber, and I use less powder than the info available suggests, and still get good velocities. The 120 grain does about 3200 fps. A person has to be careful on working out a load, as the pressures can go up dramatically with the addition of a grain or two at the top end. (The .264 is worse!) I have not gone through the whole range of bullet weights with this rifle, but it does acceptable work with the Hornady 140 and the Nosler 140 partition. I prefer the slower powders and a 26 inch barrel for this diameter bore. All said, the 6.5-06 does almost as well as the .264 Win, and with less cost. The thing is, you never know exactly what you have in a custom caliber until you shoot it a bit. The first .264 barrel I put on a 98 action back in the late 1960's cost me $18.95 (P & S Sales, Tulsa, OK--likely an E R Shaw barrel), and it would shoot 1/2 to 3/4 inch groups with almost any bullet. The Douglas barrel hurries itself to do a 2 inch group. The Hart barrel does about 1/2 with the 120's and about an inch with the 140's and it set me back $300 10 years ago. I don't post a lot on this forum, and don't read it regularly, but "Strut" who is married to my niece, will inform me if I miss something, as he did with your post. uncle john Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle john Posted March 11, 2013 Report Share Posted March 11, 2013 My mistake on the above post: I said to run .270 or 25-06 brass through a 6.5x55 die. I meant a 6.5-06 die. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun_300 Posted March 13, 2013 Report Share Posted March 13, 2013 Sounds like a nice cartridge! I have a .25-06 and find the accuracy and ballistics awesome with it. I can load a 75gr bullet at 3500-3800FPS and they can drive tacks. Find it very accurate from the 75gr up to 120gr no matter how hot you load them. And mine is just a factory Ruger M77 Mark II. One thing I do find though is that resizing .270 vs .30-06 is that the .270 sometimes won't chamber as nice, meaning the bolt will be stiffer to close or sometimes won't even close at all and I can't use the round. (should invest in a bullet puller) Anyone else run into this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle john Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 I have not had any trouble on sizing down the .270-got to trim the neck though, as the brass flows out. As I mentioned earlier, my rifle has a snug chamber, so I run the brass through a 30-06 small base die after I have sized it in the 6.5-06 die. That squeezes it down a wee bit more and makes chambering a loaded round a lot easier. Another step, but worth it. You might try coating a tight round with black magic marker and running it into the chamber to see if you can see where the tight spot is. The marker should rub off there, leaving a bright spot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terry264 Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 Also, remember that .270 starts out about .045" longer than the '06 to start with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun_300 Posted March 14, 2013 Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 Thanks for the tips guys, I'm not an extremely experienced hand loader so didn't know at the time what was causing it. After having a few rounds not chamber I was able to take a the bad round and compare with a good round and realize it was in the neck area that was giving me the problem. They felt fine resizing and trimming so never really payed attention to the fine details of it. But like Terry said I did recognize the longer cartridge when I'd trim them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i'm your huckleberry Posted March 14, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2013 after a little net surfing i found cooper is the only company that makes this caliber, how are these rifles, are they well built? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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