6mm Creedmoor and 108gr ELD-M performance
Two key aspects to this upfront, which have a huge effect on confidence. Never in my life have I had such an easy cartridge to find a working load for. And never have I had a rifle that dealt out sub-MOA at all ranges so effortlessly.
Howa Varmint 6mm Creedmoor
KRG Bravo chassis & stock
MDT steel mag
Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 FFP
22” factory barrel
DPT suppressor (extra SS baffle)
Harris bipod with podlock and spikes
Starline SR primer brass
AR2209 powder (H4350)
CCI BR4 primer
Hornady 108gr ELD-M @ 2,972fps
Shooting off a plastic picnic table with a front and rear bag, I was able to get three half-MOA or below groups (3 shots). For a factory rifle that started life at 26” and then was cut and re-threaded at 22”, that’s not too shabby. Load development was as simple as working up in single shots to find pressure, back off 0.5gr, and see where that got me. It got me 0.35 MOA (3 shots) the first group I tried. Took 13 shots in total to pin the load...
The rifle weighs 13lb all up. It is a deliberately heavy carry-it-on-the-quad field rifle for medium range shooting. The stock remains the same, the barrelled action gets swapped out for whatever the need. Currently have .243 Win, 6mm Creedmoor, 6.5 Creedmoor and .308 Win. On the kind of sloped, rough, prickly, ungulateshit covered hill country, the weight and stability are essential. A well fitting chassis, prone, with the tilting bipod set perfectly and the bubble aligned, it’s amazing how rock solid the point of aim can be. I only have to carry it for an hour or so at a time, so nothing too strenuous.
Recoil from a 6mm on a heavy rig like this is a non-issue. Just adopt a solid rest, setup properly on the rifle, grip the forend, and maintain sight picture at impact no problem. Simply a matter of technique.
The following comments are based on the first week of use, and an estimated two dozen goats and six red deer. At the kind of ranges that I need to shoot - typically 250-600m - I would say without a shred of doubt that the 6mm Creedmoor and ELD-M combination is a killer goat and small deer medium-range load. Up to the largest of goat, fallow and yearling reds are never going to beat this bullet as long as you’re on the vitals. But big red deer past 400m have to be hit exactly on the money to guarantee fast killing. Two deer shot with the classic “high shoulder” shots were instantly paralysed but not killed outright, and both required a finisher once they came to a rest downhill. The damage observed in the shoulder suggested I’d be better off aiming for the hilar shot, and taking out the bottom of the front lungs, so the next two deer got this treatment and both died very quickly. The second of these was a well built red spiker, and I investigated the bullet performance with interesting outcomes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8fjL55egvY
One minor upgrade done to this rifle was the addition of a stainless steel baffle to the DPT mod. It is very noticeably quieter than the 6.5 is with one less baffle, despite the 2” shorter barrel.
I’ve made some changes to my ballistics model based on field observation, basically missing three times high and all filmed, which makes diagnosis of the miss straightforward. I’m dialling 0.1MIL less than Strelok is telling me past 350m, and making sure I don’t aim too high on the shoulder. Since I made this change, no misses.
Now for the obvious comparison, with the .243 Winchester. The fundamental difference between this rifle and my .243 is the fact that the 6mm Creedmoor has a 7 1/2 inch twist. This allows it to throw a bullet up to ~115gr at speeds ~3,000fps. Considering that these bullets have a G1 BC of 0.54-0.62, you can see how the retained energy at medium ranges is up to half as much again as the humble .243 can manage with 100gr ProHunter. Bottom line is that at close ranges there’s not a lot in it, if you are using the tool correctly, you’ll get a similar result. But by 150m, the 6mm Creedmoor has streaked ahead and at 200-250m it’s no contest. My rudimentary calculations suggest that the 6mm Creedmoor doubles the effective range of the .243 Winchester. My .243 breaks 1,200ft-lbs at 205m, whereas the 6mm breaks 1,200ft-lbs at 440m. It’s a 270m gap at 1,000ft-lbs! If you are using a similarly constructed bullet (ideally fragmenting), then the 6mm hits way harder downrange.
I have two out of six red deer with the bullet found in the opposite side hide, which is excellent. Three of the other four have not exited, but I haven't bothered to try and find the bullets. One clearly exited but it was shot high up on the shoulder and took out the bottom of the spine with it, so a lot of bone was involved in the size of the exit wound.
They say I’ll only get a couple of thousand rounds out of the barrel. But that’ll be 2,000 highly accurate shots that knock over meat-on-legs, so I don’t care.
Verdict: will it replace my .243 Win? On the hill, with the bike, yes. In the woods, no. What is my favourite heavy hill rifle? The 6.5 Creedmoor and 143gr ELD-X.
