ramrod/JustC:



Sorry to take so long to reply...this message slipped down a page before I remembered to go looking for it!



My rig is set up for sheep hunting - basically an all weather light-weight backpacking gun. It has a #1 contour Douglas barrel (10" twist), finished at 24".



It was built with portability in mind, but it still shoots like a hot-damn. With the 140 grain bullets it regularly shoots 0.3" groups (despite the 10" twist). I haven't shot for groups out at longer ranges with it (mostly because we had a small range where I recently moved from, but now I live near a longer range so I have no excuse!)



With 120 grain bullets it likes to put them in one ragged hole (although I readilly admit that I seldom shoot it that well!). I just prefer the 140 grain bullets for hunting, so I seldom play with the 120's.



I really like the Gibbs cartridge, but I seldom recommend it to people. I like it because it is effective and very few people have one. I don't mind the extra work (case forming can be a pain). But, if you are only after results, I stay stick with a 6.5/06AI. Your pretty much splitting hairs for performance, and reloading is much less time consuming.



A buddy of mine has a 6.5/270 (aka 6.5 Brenneke, aka long necked 6.5/06). He gets exactly the same performance I do with 140gr bullets, primarly because the long neck and a deep throat allow him to seat those longer bullets out quite a ways and gives him almost as much case capacity as my Gibbs. The other advantage is that he gets good accuracy and velocity with the 160 gr Hornady RN (even though he has a 9" twist). They eat up too much case capacity in my Gibbs, and my 10" twist won't stabilize them.



Now that I am geared up for the Gibbs, I am thinking about building a varmint rig with a heavy 26 or 27 inch barrel. I think I'd go with a 9" twist this time however. An 8 or 8.5" twist would probably be the way to go for a real long range rig, though, especially with the longer VLD's in the 140/142 gr category.



Cheers,

Canuck

Hey
Has any one tried a lighter bullet with any of these 6.5mm (70-100grainers) and how did they do for speed and accuracy. If so that did you use for powder charge.