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6.5-284

One of the most insane cartridges ever developed and the only one that caused me to scratch my head, constantly !! Very finicky to say the least with ALL of the new brass. Being a range master at a long range competition match I saw plenty of them under the line and saw many owners saying the words ," that's impossible "..lol ..far more than any other single cartridge. Good luck and keep the faith and work with it...
 
I have tried Hybrid 100 and found RL19 gave great accuracy and locally Stayball is in stock but want to try RL26 but can't find any around here a friend has a bunch but he is 600 miles away
 
I'm going off memory here (been a few years), I did try Staball with 140gr bullets and IIRC it did OK but not near what RL23, RL26,or Retumbo offers for speed or accuracy. The lighter bullet may be a different story. I just looked at a post I did from 2020 and I started at 44gr @ 2575fps and finished with 47gr @ 2774, I had planned on testing that further but don't believe that I did. That testing was with a 140gr Speer Gold Dot and 46gr and 47gr were accurate. 51.8gr of RL23 pushes that same bullet at 2970 fps. If Staball is what you have I think it would be worth a try, the mid 40's were where I started because I had no data to go by either. Hope this helps.
 
H4831 is the gold standard in this cartridge. It's what the benchrest shooters used most, so look for alternative powders in that burn rate if you don't have it. I mainly use it or RL23 in my Norma. Retumbo and RL26 have worked well for many, too. I remember when I first started s hooting this cartridge some years ago, someone posting a load using RL17. I believe it was a Gunwerks load.
 
Hydehunter, I use 6.5Staball in my wife's 6.5x284Norma to push the 123 Absolute Hunter Hammer bullets to 3260fps without pressure signs in her rifle, thought the same load was not happy in another rifle. I'd recommend starting in the upper 40s and work your way up carefully. Be sensible about it. Though H100V and Staball are next to each other on the burn rate chart it is noticeably slower than the H100V. It does its best when the case is quite full and no doubt there are other powders which will give better overall performance.
 

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