I re-read my african exploring and safari collection of book for ideas on new book and authors to buy from. Most recently I have been reading about a collection of letters sent from famous hunters to Denis D. Lyell. In these letter there are two distinctions being made about the 6.5 Mannlicher. They are referring to the 6.5 Mannlicher rimmed or rimless, and again as the 'old' 6.5 Mannlicher vs. the 6.5 Mannlicher-Schoenauer.

In fact they appear to prefer the 6.5 Mannlicher to the Mannlicher-Schoenauer due to bullet performance and reliability of ammunition. It appears the Mannlicher-Schoenauer ammo had problems at times.

Can anyone help as to the actually caliber designation of the "Old 6.5 Mannlicher" and which one of the rimmed calibers they are calling the "6.5 Mannlicher" rimmed?

333

I'm not sure this will be of much help but in my collection I have 3 different 6.5 "Mannlicher" cartridges. The oldest, I believe, is the 6.5x52mm Italian rimless for use in the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. It dates to approx 1890. Next is the 6.5x53mmR Dutch & Romanian for use in the military rifles of those countries. It dates to approx 1895. For all practical purposes it is identical (except for the rim) to the next one which is the 6.5x54mm Greek which dates to approx 1900. This is the same rimless cartridge used in the 1903 Mannlicher-Schoenauer sporting rifle.

My guess, and it's nothing more than that, is that the "old" Mannlicher would be the rimmed Dutch, while the 6.5 M-S would be the newest of the three and the one most often seen today, the 6.5x54mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer. The rimmed was most often used in double rifles while rimless was the magazine rifle version.

I think all 3 were loaded at one time or another with hunting type bullets. You may encounter some that are referred to as 6.6 or 6.7 mm since it was the custom in Europe to refer to the military ammunition by bore diameter and sporting ammo by the groove diameter, although this was not always the case.

And we think the American system of cartridge ID is complicated.

Ray

I don't claim to be an expert about these things, but Cheechako has it correct IMHO. From my readings, the old one was the 6.5x53R and the new one was the 6.5x54 (rimless). My 1936 ICI/Kynoch catalog reprint lists both cartridges. BTW, the British also called the 6.5 Mannlicher cartridges the ".256".


from: http://www.kynochammunition.co.uk/





Images courtesy of Steve's Pages at http://www.stevespages.com/page8d.htm

-Bob F.

quote:

You may encounter some that are referred to as 6.6 or 6.7 mm since it was the custom in Europe to refer to the military ammunition by bore diameter and sporting ammo by the groove diameter, although this was not always the case.

ALthough I have seen it advertised as such in old readings, this was a typo on my part to list it in the title as 6.6.

Both of you shed a lot of light here. I was using the Cartridges of the World, but thought it also wise to ask.

Recently I saw an old Fraser rifle built on what looked like one of the pre-Schoenauer in-line clip rifles. It was very nice. Must be what a lot of the writers were discussing.

If you have the book Safari Rifles by Craig Boddington, he discusses the "old" and the "new" 6.5 Mannlicher cartridges in the chapter "Some Useful Metrics".

-Bob F.

C'mon Bob. What does he say? I don't have the book.

Ray

Here ya go!!!

"Perhaps the most famous of all the 6.5s is the 6.5x53R Mannlicher-Steyr, originally a Greek military cartridge and sold all over the world in the fine Austrian Mannlicher sporters. The English called it the .256 Mannlicher after their manner of calling a cartridge by its bore, rather than groove or bullet, diameter.

Firing a very long , well constructed 160-grain bullet at 2,300 feet per second, the penetration of this little cartridge was incredible. The 6.5x53R sparked the small-bore craze that swept Africa, and it was widely used by many turn-of-the-century hunters. The near-identical 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer that followed it in 1903 (and was soon called the “new†6.5 or .256) shared its ballistics and reputation. Sometimes it’s unclear who used which cartridge. Phillip Percival loved the .256, and so did the great lion hunter Leslie Tarlton. Bell used it some, and Powell-Cotton, John Millais, and Blayney Percival swore by it. It was the favorite rifle of the great hunter/soldier Major C. H. Stigand."

Cheers!
-Bob F.

Bob

Many thanks.

Boddington is incorrect by the way. The 6.5 x 53Rmm was the cartridge for the 1895 Dutch (Netherlands) service rifle. The Greek model 1903 Mannlicher-Schoenauer used the 6.5 x 54mm cartridge. It used the spool type magazine developed by Otto Schoenauer and still used in the Steyr sporting rifles.

Ray

Yeah... He was off a little. Still, it does indicate that the 6.5x53R was the "old" 6.5 and the 6.5x54 was the "new" one.

-Bob F.

I should have bought the little 6.5X53R 1895 Steyr-Mannlicher that was made up by Fraser of England. The little thing had express sights out 5 leafs and scars from Africa with a new barrel from Jeffery I believe it was.

Ray is correct on the issue of multiple 6.5 Mannlicher designs. But we have the same situation on this side of the pong . . . think, for example, of all the .38 Winchester proprietary rounds - .38-56, .38-70, .38-72 and .38-90 just to name four of them. The issue is not the rounds themselves so much as writers' imprecision in referencing them.

Generally speaking when the older books on African and Asian hunting refer to either the "6.5" or".356" Mannlichers, they are referring to rifles for the older, rimmed version. When they intend to reference the newer rimless version, the specify such by adding modifiers such as M/S, "Schoenauer" or some such.

There were, of course, also more hunters using the 6.5x55 than we often now recognize. Having come out in '94, it was also one of the rounds available...particularly in German East Afrika.

The same is also true of the Scot/Brit "stalking rifles". The majority of those nice classic little pieces, with their very long and skinny barrels and very short forends, were rimmed 6.5s or .256's on the "Dutch" actions, bought directly from Steyr, and finished up by such firms as Gibbs, Fraser, et. al.

I've owned dozens of each, most of which I bought in England for 5 Guineas or less. (Sure wish I had kept at least one of them!!) The 6.5 stalking rifles, in both rimmed on the Mannlicher-Steyr actions and (later) rimless on the Mannlicher-Schoenauer actions seem to have been the bread & butter product of Gibbs in particular.

I think this is one of the rifles we are all talking about? What model action is this?

That looks like a Dutch Mannlicher due to the magazine look, nice soprter btw.

It appears to have both Rumanian [their spelling] and Dutch features. These actions were made by the same guys that made later commercial action on the M-S and out of part and machinings that would have been going to military rifles, but the contracts were up. They were bought by English firms as either actions or barreled actions. The barreled actions were in 6.5X53R. I got this from another source recently. The three I have looked at were Model 1892s stamped on the top of the action with the date of 1893 next to Steyr on the left side of the action. They are very smooth actions and fired what I now know as the preferred 6.5 Mannlicher by the ivory hunters.

quote:

Originally posted by 333_OKH:
I should have bought the little 6.5X53R 1895 Steyr-Mannlicher that was made up by Fraser of England. The little thing had express sights out 5 leafs and scars from Africa with a new barrel from Jeffery I believe it was.

Yeh, you should have. Fraser, BTW was NOT an English gun maker. He was a Scot, doing business in Edinburgh. He was widely considered the Scottish equivalent of Purdey, or better, in terms of quality. When I sold my collection of Fraser's in 1979, even then I got over $2,000 for the rattiest of my Fraser single shots (NRA "wretched" bore) ...a side-lever .303 Brit.