Another great cartridge that time passed by.
Just got back from an avid mil. collector buddy of mine. After some help he finely reloaded and fire formed some 6.5 x 53.5 Daudetau ammo in his French Navy rifle.The fire forming went well with loads that were close to 6.5 Arasaka loads. No annealing was needed. The cases were made from 7.62x53Rmm Russian cases both commercial and military. Hopefully we'll get some chronograph data but,however, it appears that this cartridge will easily exceed 30-30 energy levels.
It really is impressive that in the 1880s and 1890s how good military cartridge design was, considering what they had to work with. Today only a few remain alive. roger

A friend of mine has one the '71 Mausers that the French acquired from Germany and converted to the 6.5 at the St. Etienne arsenal, and subsequently sold to Uraguay. He also forms brass from the 54R Russian. With cast bullets it's just as accurate as most milsurp Mausers.

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
A friend of mine has one the '71 Mausers that the French acquired from Germany and converted to the 6.5 at the St. Etienne arsenal, and subsequently sold to Uraguay. He also forms brass from the 54R Russian. With cast bullets it's just as accurate as most milsurp Mausers.

What kind of velocity is he looking at ,with what bullet? roger

He uses, IIRC, a 140grCG, Lyman probably and load data for the 6.5X54MS. As far as velocity goes, I doubt he ever checked.