I have only been loading the 6.5x55 Swede for less than a year and have only used American brass (mostly Winchester, now Remington and one box of Federal from my box of factory ammo). When reading about the cartridge, they commented in the loading manuals about its' unique dimensions, slightly larger rim size, slightly larger base of case body, etc. Yet when I measure the cases with my dial caliper, they seem to be the same size as the popular US calibers like 30-06 and .308. Has the Swede case been "Americanized" to more closely resemble the ever popular 30-06 family of cases? I just ordered some Lapua cases to try, are they the European dimensions? If so will they give me problems in my Howa 1500? I realize the differences are pretty small, like .003 on the rim diameter, .003 on the base of the body of the case, but the rim thickness itself is like .009 or .010. Please tell me the Lapua cases will work , cause they weren't cheap, even on sale at Midway. (More than double the cost of the Remingtons) I have been pretty disappointed with the quality of the 6.5x55 Winchester brass. So far the Remington seems to be a step up, and I am hoping the Lapua will be even better. I just hope it will work in my rifle! Appreciate any replies.

I went through exactly the same chain of questions.

The US companies do make their brass to 30-06 base dimensions. I miked some of mine, and put the question to Winchester. Their reply was that the dimensions I gave then were within tolerances for the 6.5x55.

I have had no difficulties with Winchester brass.

If you have problems with Lapua brass, I would be astounded. I do have some for my 7.62x39, and it is superb brass. If anybody knows about making 6.5x55 brass, it ought to be Lapua.

I load the 6.5 x 55 in both a Ruger 77 and also in a Model 70 push feed featherweight.

I usually prefer winchester brass. I have used it a lot, and it will not fit using a standard shell holder that will fit the 30/06 sized cartridge. I have always used 30/30 shell holders like recommended by RCBS.

I have also had problems at times, that the Winchester Cases will not always eject out of my Model 70 Push feed. The push feed looses it grip on the cartridge evidently.

So after several years of using Winchester, I drove 40 miles or so to a source to pick up some 6.5 x 55 Winchester brass and they were out of it, and only had Remington.

I was really grumbling to myself but since I needed it since it was hunting season, I took it reluctantly.

To my happy surprise, I found out that its case head for the shell holder will use the 30/06 sized shell holder!. So I joyfully took a batch of it and played with ejecting it out of my push feed model 70. Low and behold, no problems.

So in final conclusion, I use Winchester or Remington or some PMC brass I have in my Ruger and My Swedish Mauser. However in my Winchester Model 70 pushfeed, I use Remington brass exclusively!

A little ironic/

The only Euro brass I have ever used, was Norma for a 30/30. it would not eject and became a real mess getting it to get unjammed out of a Model 94. So since American brass works fine, I stay domestic on my brass, period.

A Mauser or Ruger action, it won't matter. But on a Remington or Winchester Push Feed, I stick with the Remington Brass.

Cheers and good shooting
seafire

I use Remington brass in my 6.5x55 (Tikka) with good enough results for hunting but I think you will find that Lapua is the best, most consistent you can buy anywhere - ask most bench rest shooters.

Yeah, dimensionally the European brass does differ from its American counterparts. I have 3 old military M96 Swedish mausers in 6.5x55 plus a Remington Classic. I now use only Lapua, and it works splendidly once it's been fire formed in your chamber. You may have a problem with your shell holder. I use the Forster MU4. It's made for the European 6.5s and readily accepts the case head. There are several advantages to using Lapua brass. Dimensionally it's very uniform in weight, all cases weighing about the same. Because the primer pocket flash holes are drilled out instead of punched out you'll never have to deal with internal projections remaining in the brass. Just one mans opinion, but Lapua and Norma brass works well for me. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

I use lapua, I shoot it in a M70 and a swede mauser.You wont have any problems with your rifle. The shell holder might be alittle snug. I bought the shell holder for it.

I have two different examples of once fired 6.5x55 brass in my hand along with a calipers (official diameter .476):
Winchster .473
Norma .477

Paul

American (Remington and Federal) brass as well as European (Lapua) all feed and extract just fine from my CZ.

American brass fits fine in an RCBS #3 shellholder (meant for 30-06 case head dimnensions). Lapua brass does not, and needs to use the proper RCBS #2 shellholder.

Not only is the rim diameter larger in the true 6.5X55 (.480" vs. .476" basic), but the rim is thicker as well. I don't remember the dimensions but I can post them tonight after I look in my reloading manuals.

"Real" 6.5x55 brass is larger in the rim and base diameter than '06 brass. Since this larger diameter is still the proper spec for 6.5x55, the chambers must match. You can "get by" with '06 diameter brass, but true-dimensioned 6.5x55 brass will give you less swelling in the body-head area and will fit the extractor better -- provided the manufacturer used the proper extractor and bolt face and didn't just use their regular '06 face bolt.

Years ago I found some Norma-produced (Herter's brand) 6.5x55 brass at a bargain. I didn't have a 6.5x55, but figured I could resize it to use in a .243 or some such. I found that attempting to run it all the way into a .243 die was impossible and that the last 1/16 inch or so of the 6.5 case was left with a sort of "belt" where the smaller .243 die tried to swage the head. Going the other way with smaller brass in a larger chamber will work, but they're going to be loose and subject to swelling.

I prefer Lapua for 6.5X55. The larger dimension of the casehead fills the chamber more completely, even if slightly. With Lapua, I get very consistently centered firing pin strikes on the primer, while with US-standard brass, the primer strike is offset. I wouldn't have thought 0.006 difference would be so visible, so perhaps there's something else at work.

Additionally, Lapua brass requires significantly less chamfering case prep than either my Winchester Remington brass does.

Finally, Lapua is more consistent in dimension. I measure neck thickness and discard anything that varies more than 0.015" from the other side of the same neck. I don't recall ever discarding a Lapua case, but a in recent lot of Winchester brass, I had a reject rate of 20%. Typically, I understand, it's 2%, so I got a bad lot - sent it back to Grafs. (In terms of cheapness, it's significantly cheaper to by Winchester and Remington, then sort for neck thickness than to buy lapua.)

Jaywalker

OK, I would imagine that US die manufacturers make their dies to work with US (-06 based)brass. Am I right or wrong? If right, where does one find dies that will not overwork CIP spec brass (or anyone else's for that matter) in a CIP spec chamber?

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by NFMike:
OK, I would imagine that US die manufacturers make their dies to work with US (-06 based)brass. Am I right or wrong? If right, where does one find dies that will not overwork CIP spec brass (or anyone else's for that matter) in a CIP spec chamber?

Mike

My Lee 6.5X55 full length sizer works just fine with bot American and European brass. The dimensional difference is on the rim only, and I know of no die that resizes rims.

quote:

Originally posted by Jaywalker:
Additionally, Lapua brass requires significantly less chamfering case prep than either my Winchester Remington brass does.

Finally, Lapua is more consistent in dimension.

That's why I buy Lapua as well.

After a few calls to USRAC I was informed that their 6.5x55s used the standard boltface and extractors as for the 30-06 for cheaper tooling reasons. My M70 does not want to eject the euro brass due to rim thickness. It sort of catches at the top of the bolt lift. Using only US brass has taken care of that problem. Since my 6.5x55 has a Douglas match barrel, the Lapua brass is not at all necessary. I doubt for my hunting needs anything less than the .5" for 5 shots I get now will be noticed.

larrys,

Very interesting. As I mentioned above, the firing pin strike on my Lapua brass appears more consistent than with AmBrass, but there may be more involved here than just the head size. Using Lapua brass causes me no feeding or ejection problems.

I wouldn't suggest that the USRAC folk you talked to were wrong, but I do suspect that the ones I spoke to were equally positive about the answer to a question I asked - Is the 6.5X55 M70 a long or a short action? They were positive, but they got it wrong - it's not the short action they told me. A noted Winchester aftermarket equipment maker told me USRAC has no real engineers or gunsmiths on staff, so technical questions can tend to have hit-or-miss responses.

I'm not certain what standard ejector they referred to. They've stopped putting in the cast extractor and are now using a stainless steel unit that's much better. If you have one of those older extractors the hesitant extraction may be more related to the extractor than the Euro size brass. Mine's one of the newer units.

Also, using the typical 2% case neck thickness figure, you'd expect to see one flyer out of 50. Glad you're happy with it, but I still prefer the Lapua.

Jaywalker

quote:

I don't recall ever discarding a Lapua case, but a in recent lot of Winchester brass, I had a reject rate of 20%. Typically, I understand, it's 2%, so I got a bad lot - sent it back to Grafs. (In terms of cheapness, it's significantly cheaper to by Winchester and Remington, then sort for neck thickness than to buy lapua.)

Jaywalker

I agree with the reject cases in recent winchester brass. That is what drove me to try the Remington, and finally the Lapua. I do have the proper shell holder for my Rockchucker press, the RCBS No. 2. So I don't think I will have any problems reloading it, am just hoping that the extractor can handle the Lapua brass reliably. Thanks for all responses. Starting to think maybe I should have tried harder to find a .260 Remington. No brass questions and hopefully a shorter throat so that I could have shot the lightweight bullets accurately.

2nd Timer:

I have the 260s and also the 6.5 x 55s.

I load the 100 grain bullets out of for my 6.5 x 55s, and they do fabulous. as well as they do in the 260s Remingtons. I seat them out where they are only seated a 1/4 of an inch or less in the case.

I also load them where they are getting about 3400 fps out of the barrel, with 4064 on my model 70 and about 3350 fps out of the 22 inch barreled Ruger. I can still see the deer drop at the shot, thru the scope at even a 100 yds with the scope on 4x. Recoil is that light.

Cheers
seafire

Seafire,

I sometimes think this "close to lands" issue is overdone. Land jumps from .020" to .030" inches on standard bullets seem to work just fine in mine, and my 120 g bullets seem to work better (counterintuitively) than than the 140's, and they're farther away than that.

"Non-standard" bullets, such as the Barnes XXX recommends even a greater jump, but I don't recall excatly the amount - .075"? You can see the reasoning behind the shorter jump - less chance for the bullet to start crooked - but you'd think that by the time it got to the muzzle, that would all be over anyway.

Jaywalker

quote:

Originally posted by Jaywalker:
Seafire,

I sometimes think this "close to lands" issue is overdone. Land jumps from .020" to .030" inches on standard bullets seem to work just fine in mine, and my 120 g bullets seem to work better (counterintuitively) than than the 140's, and they're farther away than that.

"Non-standard" bullets, such as the Barnes XXX recommends even a greater jump, but I don't recall excatly the amount - .075"? You can see the reasoning behind the shorter jump - less chance for the bullet to start crooked - but you'd think that by the time it got to the muzzle, that would all be over anyway.

Jaywalker

Some bullets with secant ogive profiles, like the Hornady AMAX, and JLK and Berger VLDs like to be very close (within .010") or actually jammed into the lands a couple of thousands to shoot their best.

HP S,

Can't deny it could be true. I looked for it by varying my ogive-to-lands measurement by .003, and I couldn't see any consistent improvement as I got closer, with either A-Max or Nosler Partition. (I'll be the first to mention "technique," so readers won't have to hint at it delicately.) I'm neither a target shooter not a particularly precision reloader, so the failure to find improvement may have been my own fault.

Still, some hunting bullets are more consistent than others. I measured the ogive length of a box of 100 Speer .264 140g HotCor bullets and wasn't impressed. Max to min, the lengths varied from .729 to .743 inches. That's significant, if you're looking to find a consistent jump to lands; one bullet might be on the lands and the next while might be a jump of .014 inches. Hornady SPs had a min to max variance of only .006, so I changed to them for "cheap" shooting. The Nosler 140 g Partitions varied only .001". (Note: bullet variance may be measured more easily by weighing them. Within the limits of a single overall length - and they are, I think - any weight variance will likely manifest itself as an ogive variance also. Where else would the weight go?)

I now start at a .030 jump, and then will go no more than .010" in either direction. If that doesn't work (for hunting bullets), I'll try another bullet. Life's too short.

Jaywalker

Jaywalker, I'm with you. I was just pointing out a specialized exception to the rule.

Jaywalker,

I am not a person who thinks accuracy is a magic " how far from the lands" kinda thing. I do like to load to magazine length and do find in most of my shooting, that loading to the magazine length or close to the lands, does seem to work pretty well, especially if the rifle is long throated.

Normally when I am loading something new, I will load a dummy round and then shove the bolt so that it will force close in the chamber. That give me exactly into the lands, and touching it.

Then on my reloading die, I will back the seater plug down some more, say like half a turn or so, sometimes a full turn. If I go to the range and it really gives me stellar accuracy, then we call it good. If it doesn't I'll try backing it off another turn or two. If several tries of that, don't work, then I just scrap the idea of using that powder in that rifle.

I play around and whatever works. I believe that since all rifles are an entity onto themselves, that what works in one, won't work in another.

I own several calibers, that I have multiple rifles in that caliber. There will be one that shoots everything you feed it with fantastic accuracy, others throw them all over the place... but even on those rifle, I usually find a load that works fantastic in that rifle.

I have a 243 Remington, that shoots almost everything in groups of 4 and 5 inches at 100 yds. However for some reason, that rifle likes 55 or 60 grain bullets at 4000 fps with H 380, it becomes a one hole shooter. It also does the same thing with those bullets and 22.5 grains of Blue Dot. So that is what I will feed the barrel its entire service life in my ownership.

Cheers and good shooting
seafire

Seafire:

quote:

Normally when I am loading something new, I will load a dummy round and then shove the bolt so that it will force close in the chamber. That give me exactly into the lands, and touching it.

I'm certain that works usually, and I used with great success for some years, until I discovered a potentially hazardous phenomenon, in a "specialized exception" ( :-) Thanks, HP Shooter!). When I loaded a dummy round with that procedure, I felt the resistence, then was able to close the bolt. I backed the die off half a turn or so and thought I was there.

Unfortunately, I wasn't "there." My Lee neck sizer sized to .2625, much too llittle neck tension to hold a .264" bullet angainst my pressure on the bolt. The resistence I felt was the throat forcing the bullet further down into the neck, and a half turn farther didn't help much. The whole lot was touching the lands, and gave me some significant pressures, until I realized my error. I ordered a smaller mandrell from Lee (.2615") as a stopgap, but soon went to the Stoney Point ogive measuring gauges.

I now measure land jump and headspace (a different error!) and sleep better at night.

Jaywalker

quote:

Originally posted by Jaywalker:
Seafire:

quote:

Normally when I am loading something new, I will load a dummy round and then shove the bolt so that it will force close in the chamber. That give me exactly into the lands, and touching it.

I now measure land jump and headspace (a different error!) and sleep better at night.

Jaywalker

Seafire, you are welcome to whatever method you like, but I think you are playing with fire be mixing up headspacing and cartridge overall length into one composite measurement.

Sinclair International makes a dead length (COAL touching the lands) measuring tool that only requires you to have an empty case and a bullet for the cartridge you want to measure. It takes the bolt out of the equation, and it makes you measure headspace differently.

It is a much safer way to go.

I had some difficulty with a Rem 700 that I had rebarrelled from .30-06 to 6.5x55. With American brass the thing functioned perfectly, but with Lapua brass it would not eject the spent cases. I solved the problem by taking it back to the gunsmith for bolt face alteration and also had a Sako type extractor installed. Now it functions well with any brass that I choose.

HPS & Jaywalker:

You gentlmen are definitely in the Target precision style of shooting. I am a hunter, varminter and casual target shooter, and load developing kinda guy.

JW I can see what you are concerned about using that method with a neck sizing die only. I tend to full length my brass 95% of the time. Since I hate having stuck cases, I developed my own round about way of avoiding them. I full length size without the expansion button inside the die.
Then I tumble the brass and then use the Lee Neck sizing die to decap the primer. I use RCBS dies for full length resizing, and then use the Lees for the necksizer/decapping procedure. For bullet seating, I use both the Lee die and the RCBS. I have both brand of die sets in most of the calibers I load for. Each brand has features that are sometimes more convenient than the other. I also like having a back up in every caliber.

Don't know about other guys in here, but Lee and RCBS see 3 or 4 of my dies a year to fix what Seafire screwed up and couldn't fix.

cheers and good shooting
seafire

Seafire, I tend to be very careful when dealing with a cylinder containing 50,000+ psi inches from my face.

The effects of miscalcuating headspace and/or distance to the lands could be very bad for your health.

So, serious target shooter or not, the tool I mentioned is cheap insurance.

seafire:

quote:

I full length size without the expansion button inside the die.
Then I tumble the brass and then use the Lee Neck sizing die to decap the primer.

Issues of headspacing and land-jump aside, I like this approach. After FL-sizing without the ball, have you considered decapping with a Lee Universal Depriming Die (about $7 from Midway) instead of the neck-sizer? You could then loosen the depriming rod to the last one or two threads so it's very loose, then push the expander ball DOWN into the neck, with the expander ball self-centering due to its looseness. Pushing down tends to pull the neck out of alignment less than pulling it out. (All credit for the idea goes to writer John Barsness.)

Jaywalker

Actually Jay, I also have a habit of doing that at times also. I have been using the Universal Depriming die for years. I don't have a neck sizing die in all of my different calibers I load for, so I do use the Universal Deprimer.

If I do leave the depriming rod in a sizing die, I always tend to run it up into the case as far up as it will go, where it is not touching the primer.

I have learned little things and tricks that apply best to the certain individual dies I use at times. Like one of my 223's always gives me problems if I use the Lee die set on it. Like bullets falling out of the case, etc or not chambering.... and not the obvious reasons. Yet when I use an RCBS die on that rifle's brass I get no problems and it shoots more accurately.
Makes no sense, but instead of trying to figure it out, I use only the RCBS die for that rifle.

Cheers
seafire

Jaywalker, what I meant by the standard extractor was that the extractor was set for the rim size and thickness of the 30-06 cases and not the thicker and larger cases for the 6.5x55 euro. This was confirmed by my gunsmith, so American brass is fine with me especially, like seafire, I am not a dedicated target shooter and .5" is fine, even without any special loading techniques or expensive brass.

Hpshooter, I understand the dead length measurement tools and their use, but taking the bolt out of the equation is extremely dangerous as the cartridge headspace, when fired, is truely from the boltface to shoulder datum line. This is why all of the guages are used from a closed bolt. If the bolt, when closed is not the same distance as the back of the case on the dead length that is simply shoved into the chamber, either excessive headspace or crush fit occurs. That is why you square the blotface and lap the lugs before you cut the chamber depth, because the bolt DOES matter. I learned this the hard way with a Stoney Point. It said one thing, but the bolt left excessive headspace.

quote:

Originally posted by NFMike:
OK, I would imagine that US die manufacturers make their dies to work with US (-06 based)brass. Am I right or wrong? If right, where does one find dies that will not overwork CIP spec brass (or anyone else's for that matter) in a CIP spec chamber?

Mike

I don't know about now, by my 6.5X55 dies (C&H) were made at least two decades BEFORE there was any such thing as US. made 6.5X55 brass! So I assume these are made correctly......

I have been reading this thread with interest, because I had a Sauer 202 in 6.5x55 on the way. I bought Winchester brass over the weekend. Although it would fit in my standard .30-06 Dillon shellplate, only about 50% of the cases would fit in the shellholder of my Lee hand primer. When the rifle arrived, I was happy to see that the instruction manual (in five languages) contains a caliber conversion table showing that the bolt type is the same for the .25-06, .270, .30-06 and .308 (and some metric calibers including 9.3x62). Only the .243 requires a different bolt type in that action size. Unfortunately, I won't get to shoot it for a couple of weeks.