Thread: 6.5CM craze

Originally Posted by rewa

As has been mentioned, ammo-availability, is a huge factor. In a way, the Market was trying to get away from the weak-action 6.5x55 hype (BS!). They knew it was a winner, from what down-loaded swedes could do, and what years of forums showed handloads could do in that same caliber, long before all the other 6.5-hybrids came along. Most hunters (USA at least) just want to buy grunty, off-the-shelf ammo. All us Swede-owners, just yawned and smiled, when it came along. It is a good all-rounder, and I've yet to see an inaccurate one...plus all you .308 guys should compare how many wet ph-books the two will go through, side-by-side with equivalent projectiles. You might be surprised. The US military was, back in the day, when the Swede out-performed the 7.62-Nato, by 9" into compressed-wet-sand-bags...so the "Sweedmore" should be adequate for most things,given that its 'almost' a x55....almost

There was a flurry of 6+mm in the world's militaries end of the 19th Century, they had thought long and hard about it and settled on 6.5 as the ideal calibre. The Scandinavians (swedes + norse, not just the swedes) settled on the 6.5x55, the Japanese on their 6.5x51SR (similar case capacity to 6.5creedmoor and about 1.5x muzzle energy of 5.56x45). The Americans in turn went overboard and had their 6mm Lee Navy, a very flat shooter (whose main legacy is as the mother case for .220 Swift) but their bores got eaten up by the hot, eroding, Rifleite powder and they settled on the 30/40 Krag. The Japanese in turn standardised on a rimless .303 clone shortly before WW2.

Post WW2 the pendulum stayed on 30 calibre, in the form of the .308 which is just a short action 30/06. But then (because it was really to big for infantry weapons, especially the M14 with high barrel above its gas tube) the military pendulum flicked waaayyy back to the .223... whose main advantage is that you get to carry a lot more bullets.

Now we seem to be settling on a short action 6.5 Jap. No problem with that. We know they make great cars and much better photocopiers, great everything. A superior nation getting it right in so many ways.