I drew a Colorado Mountain Goat tag for this year and am thinking about using this rifle for this hunt. Can anyone tell me how the following preform: Nosler, Hornady, and Barnes. I've always loades Hornady in my 7mm Mag and Woodleigh in my 375 H&H. Any info is greatly appreciated.

MAC

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When hunting and fishing get in the way of your job, it is time to quit the job!

I've never shot mountain goats but have read that they are fairly tenacious of life. I would expect your 6.5x55 to do just fine if the right bullet is steered into the boiler room.

For a hard-to-get tag like m. goat, I'd probably use a premium bullet. I have read good things about both the 125 & 140 Nosler Partitions. The 120 Barnes-X is available with their XLC coating this year (as is the 140, but in the X-bullet line you won't need a 140). The Speer Grand Slam in 140 weight should also work well.

Since I presume that most goats are shot at 100 yards plus, you might find the greater speed/flatter trajectory of the 120 grain bullets to be a virtue, if that flatter trajectory is accompanied by accuracy.

BigIron

By the way, Craig Boddington wrote some very complimentary things about the Remington 140 grain PSP Core-Lokt he observed his wife use in her .260. Even on bigger things like zebra it expanded but penetrated well. If you are interested in a standard-quality bullet, you might check that one out.

[This message has been edited by BigIron (edited 05-12-2001).]

My 2 cents worth is - don't fall into the trap of trying to make a 25-06 out of it. Some of the loads in the Nosler book are pretty fast. 3,000 with a 100, 2,800 with a 120 or 2650/2,700 with a 140 is lovely to shoot and very effective. I can't imagine a situation where a conventional 140 would fail on a goat sized animal.

My own 2800fps load with a 120gr ballistic tip is .5inch high at 100 and 2.5 inches low at 200. The 2,700fps load with 140gr speer is the same.

Re How bullets perform. The only one you mention that I know is the ballistic tip which in this calibre is stopped by bone on raking shots but is fantasticaly accurate. I and my friends personaly love the 140gr speer hot core, someone else didn't.

[This message has been edited by 1894 (edited 05-14-2001).]

You will enjoy this caliber .Guaranteed .

My experience is that the swede performs well with slow burning powders. I have little experience with the lighter bullets and prefer to use the 140 gr'ners for which it was designed .
I use Reloder22 for hunting and get 2650fps from 48 gr with exceptional accuracy .

See what works in your rifle .After shooting 7 RM and 375 for some time you will enjoy the light recoil .

Ben

The most accurate load I have found so far is 50.2 grs. of RL-22, W-W cases, WLR primer, 140 gr. Hornady SP. This load gives 2796 fps @ 59,100 psi (M43) in my test rifle. The load shoots less than MOA in my test rifle.

As you can see from the data, this load combination develops signigicantly more pressure than the Swede's maximum 51,000 psi. This pressure ceiling, though, is out of deference to older military actions chambered for the cartridge.

Does anyone if Swift will make their scirocco bullets in 6,5mm? I want a 110-120g bullet for my 260 Rem.

Not sure I agree with the practice of postulating the reason why a cartridge has a given pressure limit - how do you KNOW it's due to weaker actions and not case strength or both for example. Also you might have a pressure meter but most haven't. As they say in the book a tiny increase in charge weight can have a massive effect on pressures.

Anyhow what's the point? What makes this cartridge unique is an ability to launch heavy for calibre (and hence long and skinny) bullets at moderate (but ample) velocities while keeping pressure (and hence noise and recoil) low. It is the sum of all parts. Give it a loud muzzle blast, harder recoil and very slightly increased muzzle velocity and it is pitched into the rest of the competition where it becomes ordinary.

quote:

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Originally posted by 1894:
Not sure I agree with the practice of postulating the reason why a cartridge has a given pressure limit - how do you KNOW it's due to weaker actions and not case strength or both for example.

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Bro,

I have to side with compadre OK here. Mr Watson has BT, DT and generally knows what he's talking about. In this case it is thusly: The 6.5x55 was chambered not only in the Swede Mausers, but in the Norweigan Krag too; and that's indeed a weak action with its single locking lug.

Case strength is not much of a factor in deciding max pressures.

-- Mats

Does your 6.5x55 have the long military-style throat to accommodate the 160 grain roundnoses, or does it have a shorter throat??? Thanks.

BigIron

Point taken and sorry for taking issue in this case (grin). I agree that it is generaly held that the reason for the Swede's pressure limit are the weaker actions.

But I still maintain that I am unsure about extrapolating pressure limits. The reason for my doubt is because I feel that people are tempted to think that they can add a couple of grains to the lower pressure max load they see in a book and they'll be around the higher figure....I'm not so sure we can rely to the extent we appear to on primers and extraction to tell us when things are getting dangerous. It only takes one primer to go.

Anyhow we all have different ways of going about things which is why we reload in the first place!

quote:

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Originally posted by 1894:
...I feel that people are tempted to think that they can add a couple of grains to the lower pressure max load they see in a book and they'll be around the higher figure... I'm not so sure we can rely to the extent we appear to on primers and extraction to tell us when things are getting dangerous.

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Very good points. I'm DAMN sure we can't rely on the latter...

-- Mats

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WyomingSwede