Fellow shooters/hunters,
I'm well aware of the ballistic properties of this calibre and it's capabilities. I am interested in finding out what manufactures made these and what models (#'s) they came in. Also, any personal pros and cons you might have gleaned from using any one of these in the hunting fields...for any game type.
best,
bhtr

Rem 600's,660's, and 700's. Ruger made some 77's in this caliber as well. There may have been a few European rifles made too, but these are the only one's I recall. A very under appreciated caliber I might add. - Dan

6.5 REM MAG is avery nice fat case only problem is mag lenght , original REM factory use 308 mag box wich not allow long oal so with 140 gr bullet you are contrain to seat deep in the case that make bad SD and poor balistic ( loos of case capacity )
in medium lenght box as WIN 70 , M98 , or SAKO you can seat your bullet at the right place ( with a special throat chamber ) and you get impressive performance close to 6.5/06 AI

case as original 6.5 REM MAG are very hard to find but that easy to make from 350 REMMAG ( still in production ) and you can during the process make neck turning to get a prefect neck fitted to the chamber in 6.5 .

good shooting

DAN TEC

I have two 6,5 RM's. One is a factory original Ruger, the other a 660. Remington also housed this baby in the 18.5" 600 and a 24" 700. I have been kicking myself for not buying the 700 a few years ago when I had the chance.

This was a real great idea and gets 270 class ballistics from a short action. The problem of deep seated bullets was way overstated the thin 6.5 bullets do not take up much powder space and 140 Noslers can be easily loaded in the 2.825 magazine box of the Rem or the 2.9" of the Ruger. I can get to 2900 in the 20" Rem and nearly 3000 in the 22" Ruger.

My Rem 660 is easily my favourite tundra rifle and I am working on over a dozen caribou with 1 shot each from 80-270 yards. I have used everything from 120 CL (REM) to 160 Hawk bullets but like the 125 Nosler Part at 3000ft/sec for all uses. All tested loads have shot under 2MOA and the best loads go .75.
RL 19 has been very good in this rifle. 120 Sierras and RL 19 shoots like a varmint gun and works pretty good on light caribou.

The Ruger is more of a challenge accuracy wise though it's best load of 129 Hornady's and H4831 will go MOA and I have a 370 yard kill on a wounded caribou with this load.

Remington was ahead of it's time with this caliber and I am glad to see that the new short magnum class is doing better without being re-engineered by know it all gun writers. IMO there is not much to be gained by using a long action on these calibers as you improve them out of the carbine class they were designed to fill.

By the way I have amassed close to 1000 rounds of factory ammo at big discount prices. I use to be a consultant in Nunavut and noticed that there was a lot of this for sale in village Northern stores ( The new name for the Hudsons Day Company).

Apparently rotating managers would be asked by hunters to order 6.5 ammo for the surplus Swede 6.5x55 rifles. Over the years mistakes were made and 6.5 Rem Mag was ordered and sat on the shelves for decades until I came along. I actually started buying the ammo before the rifles. I had a 260 in a Rem 7 but sold the no good bastard when I bought my 660.

I had one of the Ruger 77's in 6.5 years ago (and, of course, sold it for a tiny fraction of what it shortly came to be worth). I used exclusively 120 grain bullets in it, which seemed to be well-matched to the caliber (at least a couple of deer and coyotes seemed to think so). Brass was reworked from standard 7mm Remington Magnum with no problems.

It's basically a 6.5-06 on a short action, and is slightly more capacious but virtually identical ballistically to the 6.5-284. As I see it, all the advantages go to the 6.5-06, unless you really want or need the short action for whatever reason.