Am I the only one here who uses a 6.5 Sharpe & Hart (7x61 S&H necked to 6.5)?

If any of you do, or have, will you share some of your loading data here, please?

AC - thats one I've never heard of before, but it sure sounds like it would be a super round. I'm thinking that if you fill the case with water & fill and 6.5 rem mag case & weigh the 2 that you could arrive at a pretty good starting point

Hi,Butchloc-

Yeh, that would likely work.

I have actually been shooting it for 20+ years already. It performs almost exactly like a .264 Win Mag but with significantly less powder. I was just hoping someone out there besides me might have some more loads to offer which I could try out.

This whole idea must be a fairly old one. In 1986 a friend of mine bought the whole inventory of a gun shop in Globe, Arizona at an estate sale.

included were some things he didn't want and I got. One was an unknown make of light profile sporter barrel for a Mauser action, chambered in 6.5x61 belted mag. Paul Marquart fitted it to an action for me, chopping off the barrel a wee tad for headspacing purposes. So it is now actually a 6.5 x60 m/m.

Two other items were a whole unopened 20-lb keg of Hi-Vel #2, and an opened keg of original H-4831. He gave all 3 to me for nothing, as he knew I'd use & enjoy them.

(I had to buy a Mk X barreled action to use the barrel, so I got one from the importer in .300 Win Mag and took off the barrel. Don't recall which stock I used, but had one somewhere around here that fit just fine.)

Anyway, it is a fine-shooting rig, which I believe fits a Mauser action box better than a .264 Winchester does.

i've still got a 50# keg of that old 4831 too. good powder for anything bigger. haven't seen hivel #2 for long time now, but somewhere back in my data we used to load 06 with the stuff, then surplus 4895 took over. that 4831 - clarence purdie bought truckloads of it when it became available, called it bonanza 4831 and gopher shooters had to build a powder magazine a few miles out of town to hold it. I think at the time they were selling it for about $.20/#.

There was a long article on this cartridge in the Shooting Times magazine in the late 60's .
Unfortunately I gave my copy away just a few months ago.

Measure the water capacity - bullets to be used -seating depth -barrel length etc.
Then use Quickload.

Glenn

quote:

Originally posted by Stonewall:

Measure the water capacity - bullets to be used -seating depth -barrel length etc.
Then use Quickload.

Glenn

This may be how I will need to proceed. I have had Quickload for some months now, but haven't yet loaded it onto my computer...I've been intending to get a new PC with a LOT more RAM and a multiple times larger hard disk, but haven't yet gotten to it.

May have to bite the bullet at one end or the other though and either load up the Quickload on this ancient machine (now over 11 years old), or hurry up and buy the new one.

In the meantime, guess I'll have to stick with the loads I have for the cartridge using both 139 gr. and 156 gr. bullets. They shoot well and kill well; I was just hoping to try some new stuff that others had found desirable.

Alberta Canuck There is an article in "Handloaders Digest"about the 6.5x61. I am away from home right now and can't remember which edition but I believe it was one of the earlier ones. That article included loading data. Hope that helps.

Thank you Snowman. I have maybe 5 or 6 of the older Handloader's Digests. I'll look through them to see if I can find the article. Would appreciate it very much if, when you get home, you could let me know which edition it is in. I can then always buy one through the on-line used book emporiums if I don't have that particular one.

Thanks again,

AC

Alberta The article you are looking for is in the eighth edition of the Handloaders Digest

Thanks Snowman......I just checked and I DO have that edition on the shelf here. So will be reading the article tonight while eating my bedtime snack. Thanks again, very much. Really appreciate your effort.

Best wishes,

AC

AC
The 6.5x61 should have the sazme capacity (within a gr) or a 6.5Gibbs. My 280PDK has the same capacity 75+ that a 7x61 had. I have necked it down to a 6.5 in the past. Most of my loads were old manufacture MRP. MRP gave me my maximum loads. I would use Rocky 6.5Gibbs data as a starting point. From a 26" barrel and using MRP I had no trouble exceeding Rocky's postings.

Paul - Interesting article.

One of the things I usually do in working up loads for wildcats is measure the case capacity of water, and compare that to the capacity of other potentially similar cartridge cases which I have loading data for. I haven't done that yet with the 6.5x61 Mag, despite having used it on and off for more than 20 years.

But, I read the article in the 1978 Reloader's Digest last night, and I can see I'm going to have to do a capacity comparison. That article reported a difference in case capacity of over 4 grains between various 6.5x61 cases , just depending on which parent cases the brass was formed from.

What really tells me I need to do a water capacity comparison, though, are some of the loads and ballistics they reported. With 139/140 grain bullets, they reported about 100 fps more velocity than with the .264 Win Mag. firing the same weight bullets!

That sort of stunned me, so I looked carefully at the loads they used in the 6.5x61 and in their .264 WM. No wonder! They were using about 1.5 grs. more of the same powders in the 6.5x61, which I think is a smaller capacity case. If the 6.5x61 Mag IS smaller capacity than the .264, their operating pressures must have been significantly higher than those in their .264 Maggie.

As my 6.5x61 barrel is markedly lighter profile than my .264 pre-'64 Model 70, I don't want to run around routinely shooting what I consider "proof" pressures. I wouldn't want to do that even if my barrel was twice as thick, and made of titanium!

Five-shot groups in my rifle only averaged about 1-1/8 to 1-1/4" at 100 yards, but they were both good deer killers and, as in my notes from the mid-1980's, "seem to have authority over game". I suspect heating of my really light profile barrel over 5 shots enlarged the groups substantially from what lighter charges might have done. Even so, Extreme spread with 60 grains of one powder which my log identifies only as "unknown" was only 18 fps over the 4 rounds chrono'd...from a low of 3,351 to a high of 3,369....with 129 gr. bullets.

quote:

That article reported a difference in case capacity of over 4 grains between various 6.5x61 cases , just depending on which parent cases the brass was formed from.

I found that or more in comparing 280 cases when I was designing my 280PDK.

My 6.5PDK had right at 75grs water capacity. I had no trouble matching my buddies Rem 700 264wmag. While some of it was a 26" vs 24" even adjusting for that I could still match and for max accuracy my load is about 50fps faster. One problem we had with his 264 was a darn short throat.

When I desgined my 280 I plotted up velocity vs capacity for all 7mm rnds I could fine. The capacity of the 7x61 was about the most efficient. So I enlarged my 280 case to match. So it would be darn close for the 6.5 as well.

Like I said earlier I had great luck with MRP.

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
When I designed my 280 I plotted up velocity vs capacity for all 7mm rnds I could find. The capacity of the 7x61 was about the most efficient.

Like I said earlier I had great luck with MRP.

The 7x61 may also be more efficient in the 6.5 range as well. I used Norma "Super" cases to form my 6.5s, and still have plenty of them.

Wasn't MRP considered by some folks to be about the same thing as Norma 205? I ask because I still have a good supply of 205, but I've never owned any MRP.

Anyway, I sure like the cartridge. With my 24" barrel, it is moving a bullet just one grain lighter than what I shoot in my .270 at almost 150 fps faster than the .277" pill. 'Course my .270 (a pre-64 Winchester M70 FW) only has a 22" barrel IIRC.

And 1-1/8 MOA at 100 yards is still inside 6" at 400 yards, so is quite okay for my hunting. The only living thing I shoot at that far away or farther nowadays is prairie dogs. If you hit a sod poodle with a 6.5 mag, it's probably gonna die right there, right now, while an antelope or deer may just escape in misery. That's something my conscience doesn't need these days.

quote:

Wasn't MRP considered by some folks to be about the same thing as Norma 205? I ask because I still have a good supply of 205, but I've never owned any MRP

AC I was told years ago that I could substitute MRP for 205. I have also seen info saying that 205 is actually between 204 & MRP. I did use MRP in book 205 loads with no issue. Then I also heard that RL22 was MRP. The first lott of RL22 I tried was several grs hotter than my old MRP. However my current lott of RL22 is loading gr for gr with my old MRP loads. Even though MRP is once again available since I have 10+lbs of RL22 I won't be going back to MRP in the near future at the rate I shooting now days..

Paul-

Have you ever tried any version of W-785 in your 7 m/m 'cats on the 7x61 case? I've had surprisingly good results with it in a few of my rifles....not many, but some.

quote:

Have you ever tried any version of W-785

Nope don't think I have ever used a W powder period. Lot of 4350 Old surpuls H4831 and MRP and RL22 for the last 20 years.

I'll waive as I fly over in the morning on my way to my Alaska 14say cruisetour with the little lady.