With Remington announcing the reintroduction of the 6.5 Rem mag., it has whipped up my interest in this chambering. I am currently having a .350 Remington mag. put-up and I don�t own anything between .223s and .30s, so I am ginning-up a lot of good rationalizations to have one built. Nevertheless, it clearly failed with the shooting public the first time around, so I am wondering why its reception would be any different this time around? CP.

I dont really know, but my guess is with Remington re-introducing the 350 Remington last year and the 6.5 Rem mag brass is based off the 350 Rem mag brass, then it made sense to re-introduce the short mag 6.5 of theirs. Couple that with different times today where suddenly short cartridges are getting alot of interest. Maybe they figured out that a WSSM cartridge in 6.5 wont perform up to the 6.5 Rem mag, and a WSM cartridge based on the 6.5 may be too hot, with barrel burning probabilaty. Also, we (or they, I should say) know that a good short bolt feeding mechanism exists for the 6.5 in Remington and other rifles. It will outperform the 6.5-284 by about 200 fps with 140 grain bullets according to Hornady's Fifth Edition reload book. Further, they arent faring well with their short mags, and maybe they wanted an offering in the 6.5 mm caliber group. I believe it makes alot of sense for Remington to re-introduce this cartridge, but they also need to get it in a Model 700, and such. Maybe they are planning on necking it down to 6mm also and competing against Winchester's 243 WSSM. The argument could be made, as a hunting rifle, theirs would hold one more in the chamber, and the feeding mechanism has a reliable "proven" history. Be interesting to see what a 25 cal would do coming out of this cartridge also. I am sure that wildcat has long since been made for both. Maybe some of you wildcatter's can chim in.

The one very smart thing I believe Remington did with the 6.5 Rem mag coming back out in the Model 673 is offer it in a 22 inch barrel. Still, I would love to see the reloader's dream rifle come out also in the Model 700.

�and the feeding mechanism has a reliable "proven" history.�



AggieDog, from my vantage, the feeding issue with the WSMs and SAUMs is a real consideration. The forums are full of musings about folks fighting feeding problems with the new short magnums. Certainly, postings about the alleged flawless cycling performance of these cartridges also abound, but there is just too much smoke around this issue for me to dismiss it. Thanks for your comments. CP.

Hey CP, Pay attention to what Stonecreek said. Since he had good luck forming the 6.5RemMags from the 264WinMags, maybe you can too using regular Dies.

As Stonecreek mentioned, we do sometimes have different experiences while doing the same thing. Real glad to hear he had such good luck - maybe he got all mine! Perhaps my cases needed to be Annealed even though they were new, maybe the alloy was slightly different, who knows. But, if he had good luck doing it without ruining cases, and you still want the 6.5RemMag, it is definitely worth trying "BEFORE" buying the special very expensive Forming Dies.

...

By the way, I flipped through one of the Speer Manuals I have on hand and noticed the Velocities between the 260Rem and the 6.5RemMag were nearly identical. Both were in 24" barrels. That seems strange to me.

How`bout it Stonecreek? Any ideas on those strange results? I do realize some barrels are just "faster" than others. Maybe that particular 260Rem just had a fast barrel and that 6.5RemMag had a slow barrel.

Typically, when you find a cartridge with a larger case capacity that is matched in velocity by a smaller case in a loading manual, it is because the technicians who wrote the manual had a pressure barrel for the one cartridge (in the case, the .260) and not for the other. They have to be more conservative when working without reliable pressure data, and therefore only print loads known to be on the safe side. I've noticed this same phenomenon in some older manuals with the Weatherby series of cartridges, where the techs obviously didn't have pressure equipment for the Weatherby and as a result loads with a .338 Winchester, say, were as fast as the fastest loads with a .340 WBY.

Also, as you say, there are "fast" barrels and there are "slower" ones, and this can make a lot of difference. I've got a "fast" barrel on a .270 that does 3250 fps with a 130 grain bullet and tops out about 1.5 grains of powder short of most .270's -- so the "fast-slow" barrel issue can be significant.

I don't have the exact data in front of me, but the loads I used in the 22" barrel of the 6.5 Ruger were with original surplus 4831 and yielded a chronographed velocity of 3200 FPS with a 120 grain bullet, and no indications of excessive pressure.

You're certainly right about the differences in brass, and the possible need to anneal. Sometimes (though not very often) even new factory brass will be harder than expected in the shoulder area and will need annealing. As it happens, the brass I was working with molded like butter in the shoulder area without any modification. If starting with fired brass, you're much more likely to need to anneal when doing as drastic a size-down as from a 2.5" cartridge to one that is about .4" shorter.

Good loadin' and good shootin'!