200 grain 6.5 revisited (Attention Elkaholic, and Hammer)

New thread began to avoid hijacking the other.

OK Rich I've apparently painted myself into a corner. Apparently EOL and Berger are moving forward with a 155 grain 6.5 bullet.

I have 2 actions to play with a #1, and a magnum Montana 1999. Which case do we play with? Open to one you haven't done.

Steve I've been thinking about 6.5 set up around a Hammer for a few month's. How heavy can we get an all copper? Starting from scratch so spin it as fast as you want? No magazine length worries.

Toss common sense, and practical for now, free style a bit,

Others thoughts perfectly welcome.

Yikes, I have so many going on now that I can't keep up! How fast do you want to push it?......Rich

We have a 6.5-338 Lapua imp reamer just waiting for this. Figuring a pointed bullet and a 7" twist we would be looking at about a 140ish bullet out of the mono copper. Looking at our Sledge Hammer line we could push 150g in the 7" twist. Get down to a 6" twist and we could probably get into the 160-170g bullets.

Steve

It'a wild hair project Rich, as much about education as results. So the possible variations are endless. Only requirement is having fun with it. No hurries or worries. I'm fairly booked up as well.

Whatever happens Steve I've been thinking 1-6" would be good, but uncertain where we get one? Or 2 possibly LOL! 160-170 would be awesome.

I have the Montana 1999 Action, it looks like they are building on the Lapua case??? I'm intrigued! Montana has an adjustable stock I've been eyeballing, then most model 70 stocks are supposed to work.

HARPERC said:

It'a wild hair project Rich, as much about education as results. So the possible variations are endless. Only requirement is having fun with it. No hurries or worries. I'm fairly booked up as well.

Whatever happens Steve I've been thinking 1-6" would be good, but uncertain where we get one? Or 2 possibly LOL! 160-170 would be awesome.

I have the Montana 1999 Action, it looks like they are building on the Lapua case??? I'm intrigued! Montana has an adjustable stock I've been eyeballing, then most model 70 stocks are supposed to work.

Click to expand...

I know they are doing the Lapua, I shot one of theirs the other day. Rock Creek I think will cut the 6" twist.

We would like to be part of the project. Stay in touch.

Steve

You had better get 2 if you go with a 6.5xLapua

What cartridge would you use in the second barrel Rich?

HARPERC said:

What cartridge would you use in the second barrel Rich?

Click to expand...

Depends on what velocity you want?

Unsure! We did decide today on a Rock Creek 1-6", at about 31". Sounds like the waiting begins, about 6 months worth.

Regrouping. Apparently action unsuitable for the Lapua case. Thoughts on what case would launch a 160 grain 6.5, roughly 3000 fps?

I think we can make that mark easily with the 338 rum parent case or the 300 Norma parent case. Kirby's 6.5 Allen Mag is capable of running 140g bullets at 3550fps. An extra 20g of bullet with the lower pressure associated with our PDR design we should have no trouble eclipsing the 3000fps mark.

Steve

160 at 3000fps, Rich won't your 6.5SS do around that?

I kind of looked at the 6.5x68, and 26 Nosler also.
I have RUM brass on hand.

I've been talking with Kirby Allen about this project. With the action that we are going to use it is not recommended to go with either the 338 Lap or 300 Norma as a parent case as they are capable of producing pressures that are higher than the action can handle. He did not recommend doing his 6.5 Allen Mag due to the lack of availability for 338 RUM brass. There is good availability of 300 and 7mm RUM brass. So with all that in mind to build a true fire breathing 6.5mm he thought that would be the way to go. We have a a reamer on the shelf for what we call the 6.5 Ultracat. It is a 300/7mm RUM with 40* Ackley shoulder. With the 6" twist barrel we will be able to design a bullet that can take advantage of the cartridge. Should be able to get better performance than we did the first time that we worked with this round. It was before we were making bullets and we just could not get a heavy enough bullet that would stabilize in the 7" twist and survive the launch. With the over bore and too light of bullet we just could not keep the consistency of the US869 to fully take advantage of it. A good load one day would lock it up the next with a 10deg rise in temp. Wound up loading it way down in order to hunt with it. We should be able to get at least 30g more bullet with a good vld design and look at launch speeds in the mid to upper 3000fps area. With the idea of a rifle that will finish in the 14-15lbs range scoped with a 31" barrel with a good brake it should have little to no recoil. Certainly will not be a high volume varmint rifle but it will be a legit 1000+
yard medium game rifle shooting on a rope.

We did two rifles in this chamber a few years ago and they were super fun to shoot. What we are looking at doing this time should solve the problems that we encountered last time. Really looking forward to this one.

Steve