Looking at the old dies I inherited with my reloading press. I have a set of 6.5x55 dies, can anyone tell me about this cartridge. Thanks, Lone Hunter

This happens to be one of my favorite calibers. It's more than a century old, and newer cartridges do shoot faster and flatter -- but not without the added noise, recoil, etc, and they certainly won't kill medium-sized game any deader than the old Swede.

My most-used load is the Hornady 140 grain SP ahead of 46 grains of Re-22 in Lapua or Norma brass. MV from my 24" Encore is 2740 fps, and accuracy is outstanding. I've taken lots of game with this and similar loads, and it always works to perfection. And, you don't need premium bullets as the long, slender spitzers have a high SD and penetrate like nobody's business. (In fact, I happened to take 2 hogs with one shot last month. It wasn't planned -- just bad luck on the 2nd hog's part. I was leading a moving sow and was touching off a shot, and the other hog, some 25-30 yards behind and to the right side of the target animal, must have taken off and gotten behind the other just as I pulled the trigger.)

With a 24" barrel, you can safely drive 120 grain bullets to nearly 3000 fps, and this makes for a fine, flat-shooting load, one that will handle any whitetail or mule deer with ease. But it is the 140 grain bullets that I tend to use the most -- and that's because they are so effective, the results tend to be rather predictable.

The 6.5X55 was adopted by the Swedish military around 1894. It is still an extremely popular round there for big game up to and including moose. I believe the military rounds were loaded mostly with 160gr. projies.
I think it was in the 1950's that Swedish military carbines began to be imported into this country. My dad picked up a model 94 gustaf carbine in the early 60's and sporterized it.(My research shows this as being made in Sweden in 1895.) Over the years he has taken many nice whitetail with it. Since it performs so well with its 16.5 inch barrel,I have ordered a 14 inch barrel from VVGC (1 in 9 twist to handle 120gr. projies better).
There are many sites dedicated to this round and its rifles. the one that comes immediately to my mind is http://www.armscenter.com/dutchman/
I guess I have rambled on long enough. I must be getting anxious for my swede encore to show up at my door.
Regards
Rick

[ 07-21-2002, 17:12: Message edited by: cricker ]

Thanks for the info. I assume it a Encore only round? Lone Hunter

Lone Hunter-
You are correct...

It's not safe in a Contender.