I am in the process of getting a new rife ready to compete in the local club this year. The rifle will compete at 100-200 yards in our kinda sorta Hunter Benchrest Class. How long should I cut the barrel? It' a 6mm Creedmore, Barrel is a Kreiger Bruno's light Varmint Contour. Weight is a consideration as the whole thing must weigh less than 10 pounds. I found a Rem 660 at a local pawn shop and it will be the action used. I plan on making my own target stock. Again depending on the weight. I have a Weaver 36 power to get started with. Oh by the way this is my first dedicated target rifle made to compete before hunting, looks, any other consideration. I am a beginner in the sport at 70 years old. As the stock is being built, I will post a few pictures. It will be unorthodox as I have only made a couple of stocks and I am pretty sure I don't do it "right".

When it was first developed back in 2009, the 6mm Creedmoor was built for long range target shooting (out to 1,000 yards) so most of the load development was done for 26" - 30" barrels.

Shooting it at 200 yards is kind of like using the Formula 1 car in the 1/4 mile drag races.

Have you considered going with the 6mm PPC? If I remember correctly, it still owns the 200 yard world record and has been winning Benchrest competitions since it was developed in the 1970s.

Our club has some specific rules for what they call hunter benchrest. There is no exception for the 30 BR and the case must have a 45 grains of water capacity. I have been shooting a 243 and there are a bunch of folks that shoot 308 to get the large diameter bullet hole advantage. Being old I am looking for less recoil so--- I picked a caliber that my gunsmith had a reamer for and that would kick less than a 308 or 243 and still have the case capacity needed. About the only other rule that comes into play is a 10 pound limit for the gun and scope.

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Being old I am looking for less recoil so--- I picked a caliber that my gunsmith had a reamer for and that would kick less than a 308 or 243 and still have the case capacity

Just load the 308 down same case capacity less recoil.

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Originally posted by dwheels:
Our club has some specific rules for what they call hunter benchrest. There is no exception for the 30 BR and the case must have a 45 grains of water capacity. I have been shooting a 243 and there are a bunch of folks that shoot 308 to get the large diameter bullet hole advantage. Being old I am looking for less recoil so--- I picked a caliber that my gunsmith had a reamer for and that would kick less than a 308 or 243 and still have the case capacity needed. About the only other rule that comes into play is a 10 pound limit for the gun and scope.

Those are good reasons. I'd say weigh the stock and action to see how much room you have for barrel weight. Then go to your barrel maker's website and pick the contour that you want and start cutting it down until you make weight. I'd probably base it on a 20" barrel (minimum).

A Krieger light benchrest barrel is 5.5 Lbs. at 27" so you could probably get it down to just over 4 Lbs at 20"

I was thinking 22 minimum. I'm making the stock, action is a Remington 660, Barrel is a Kreiger Light Varmint contour. Jewel trigger.

By the way Thanks Fjold

You might also consider fluting the barrel if you need a couple of ounces to get the 22" length.

This may be the one time that the few ounces that fluting takes off is actually worth it.

A 6mm Creedmoor is an overbore cartridge. You need to think in terms of a 26" barrel, 24" minimum. With a 22" barrel you are throwing a significant amount of velocity away.