New Caliber Option

[guncollector]

Impressive ballistics and it seems to be slightly faster than a factory 7mm Mag. But I would avoid any new cartridge using an uncommon / proprietary parent case. Remember the Winchester short mags and Remington short ultra mag? Neither do I and good luck finding cases to reload.

With the current shortages I would always look up the parent case and see what is involved in forming it to the new cartridge. For example the 6.5 Creedmore is very popular now and shouldn't go away. But I believe you can also form the case from a .308 with a little work.

Since the op has a 35 Remington he knows exactly what I am talking about. This is a popular cartridge that is over 100 years old but you couldn't find any in stock for years (till recently) and good luck finding the brass.

Parent case is the 375 Ruger

[Delkal]

Parent case is the 375 Ruger

Is it readily available? I don't remember hearing anything about it. There are so many cartridges you can make from 30-06, 308, 30-30 and any standard belted mag case why waste your time on something that is just marketing's answer to a problem that doesn't exist.

So here is another suggestion, the 7x30 waters. There is factory ammo out there but the easiest is to take a 30-30 case, neck it down to 7mm, then fireform it to expand the case capacity. Its a mid power cartridge with more slightly more power than a 30-30 and flatter trajectory. It will take care of any deer.

[guncollector]

Is it readily available? I don't remember hearing anything about it. There are so many cartridges you can make from 30-06, 308, 30-30 and any standard belted mag case why waste your time on something that is just marketing's answer to a problem that doesn't exist.

So here is another suggestion, the 7x30 waters. There is factory ammo out there but the easiest is to take a 30-30 case, neck it down to 7mm, then fireform it to expand the case capacity. Its a mid power cartridge with more slightly more power than a 30-30 and flatter trajectory. It will take care of any deer.

I believe that there are instances where new cartridges do outperform the old go too's like the 30.06 30-30 etc. and its worth considering. If you want to stick to those dependables and the variants, by all means it's a choice you can make. For me I don't necessarily make my decisions solely on availability because eventually availability will come. If you want to use a good reference for this look no further than the 6.5 CM that was introduced over 16 years ago. I am pretty sure people were saying similar things about availability and such back then as well. The question is what matters to the individual and what they are looking for in their new purchase. I just offered a choice to take a look at. In any case I say to the OP good luck with whatever you decide on!

[wstrayer]

308 Win due to ammo availability. If you reload, stay with the 30-06. Bullet range makes it one of the most versatile cartridges ever.

[Delkal]

For me I don't necessarily make my decisions solely on availability because eventually availability will come. If you want to use a good reference for this look no further than the 6.5 CM that was introduced over 16 years ago. I am pretty sure people were saying similar things about availability and such back then as well.

The 6.5 CM uses the same basic case as a 308 and can easily be made even if the 6.5 CM went to the bin of obsolete cartridges that didn't make it. I was talking about cases like the short lived "short magnum" craze and others that use a proprietary parent case that is only used for one or two other cartridges. If you do get a rifle in one of these make sure you get hundreds to a thousand of the brass while they are available. For many of these I doubt you will find cases in 30-50 years. No matter what happens you can be shooting the 6.5 CM in 100 years.

Anything using a 30-06/308 rim (there are dozens) or a belted mag should be good forever but even extremely popular oddball sized cases made for 100 years can be problematic. Try finding brass for a .35 Remington.

[Ecclectic Collector]

The 6.5 CM uses the same basic case as a 308 and can easily be made even if the 6.5 CM went to the bin of obsolete cartridges that didn't make it. I was talking about cases like the short lived "short magnum" craze and others that use a proprietary parent case that is only used for one or two other cartridges. If you do get a rifle in one of these make sure you get hundreds to a thousand of the brass while they are available. For many of these I doubt you will find cases in 30-50 years. No matter what happens you can be shooting the 6.5 CM in 100 years.

Anything using a 30-06/308 rim (there are dozens) or a belted mag should be good forever but even extremely popular oddball sized cases made for 100 years can be problematic. Try finding brass for a .35 Remington.

Ahhh, you mean the 6.5x55 Swede perhaps? Larger case capacity means in a modern action it can easily tolerate a bit more then the new redition of an old idea. Only been around 129 years as of my writing this as well and from the looks of it, still going strong.

If the Creemore is based on the parent .308 case what happened to the .260 Remington? Too proprietary a name perhaps? I'm not going to knock the Creedmore round, but honestly the gun industry in this country seems to follow a business model of inventing something to sell new inventory rather than any real need. Then there are all the DOA cartridges: .350 Remington Mag, 8mm Remington Mag, 307 Winchester and on and on. Lots of dead ends in the shooting world as well as good cartridges that simply outlasted their parent role. Honestly, as long as brass can be had, or made you can shoot a gun with ammo you've loaded yourself.

The real question here should only be: what shooting niche do I want this for? The Creedmore certainly checks a lot of boxes nicely: accurate as hell, great long range performance and effective tool for whatever you need it for. But any of the Mauser line which have been on the market for well over a century can do the same too.

To me, the only real need is for cartridges to fill niches (and the magazine well) of the iconic AR platform which so dominates. So take all the advice here (much of it quite good btw) and spent your money on what really seems to work best for you.

[Delkal]

Since the OP mentioned hunting I was thinking bolt action. Many niche cartridges are made for the AR-15 and AR-10 platforms but they are designed around the limitations of the magazine and feeding. In a bolt action I think everything that needed to be done was tried over 50 years ago and any new round is splitting hairs and marketing. Wildcatters have necked up and down every parent case in existence (and fireformed them to increase capacity like the Ackley improved series) for over a century. A deer doesn't care if the bullet was going 100 FPS faster or was shot from a long or short action.

I agree the 6.5x55 Swede is a great cartridge from 100 years ago and uses a heavy bullet with a high ballistics coefficient and sectional density, but Americans never liked the 6.5 bore. In a modern rifle the Swede can be loaded to higher pressure and will easily outdo the 6.5 CM. Same with the 260 (which is a 6.5x308) which is essentially identical to the CM and the 264 Winchester mag which is much hotter and similar to the 7mm mag. Unfortunately they never caught on because no one wanted a 6.5 before the Creedmore craze. So I guess there is something to say about marketing.

[RockIsland]

If'n they had named it the 6.5 Swedemore, it may have caught on better.

I did notice that 6.5 CM was one caliber that was readily available during the scamdemic.

[Noah_Zark]

Ahhh, you mean the 6.5x55 Swede perhaps? Larger case capacity means in a modern action it can easily tolerate a bit more then the new redition of an old idea. Only been around 129 years as of my writing this as well and from the looks of it, still going strong.

If the Creemore is based on the parent .308 case what happened to the .260 Remington? Too proprietary a name perhaps? I'm not going to knock the Creedmore round, but honestly the gun industry in this country seems to follow a business model of inventing something to sell new inventory rather than any real need. Then there are all the DOA cartridges: .350 Remington Mag, 8mm Remington Mag, 307 Winchester and on and on. Lots of dead ends in the shooting world as well as good cartridges that simply outlasted their parent role. Honestly, as long as brass can be had, or made you can shoot a gun with ammo you've loaded yourself.

The real question here should only be: what shooting niche do I want this for? The Creedmore certainly checks a lot of boxes nicely: accurate as hell, great long range performance and effective tool for whatever you need it for. But any of the Mauser line which have been on the market for well over a century can do the same too.

To me, the only real need is for cartridges to fill niches (and the magazine well) of the iconic AR platform which so dominates. So take all the advice here (much of it quite good btw) and spent your money on what really seems to work best for you.

I stayed with the 6.5 Swedish when I had the opportunity to get a 260 Remington and later, the 6.5 Creedmoor. Here's a visual comparison of the three, L-R, 260 Rem, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5x55 Swedish:



The other two just did not offer any meaningful improvement over what I already had in the 6.5 Swedish in a Remington 700, or loaded slightly less hot in my Swedish 94, 96, 38, and CG63 Mausers. For example, a 156 gr round nosed "flying pencil" from the 700 dropped the last black bear I shot right in his tracks.

Noah

[northny]

I*d go in the .243 direction. In the first (Obama and Sandy hook) shortage of ammo, the first things to disappear was the military cartridges. 5.56 223 7.62/308 and *06. At the same time, I could walk into almost any Walmart or gun shop and there was.243 ammo and bullets. It*s a popular cartridge for hunting, versatile in application deer to varmints, it will go out quite a ways (700 yards easily). Low recoiling, you can do a 100 round match in a t shirt comfortably.

Your *06 can do anything the .308 can.

I have and like the 7mm-08, but ammo not as easy to find even in good times. If you want a 7mm go with .270 win (basically a 7mm 06)

I compete with 6.5 creedmore, but it was really difficult to get ammo or components for a long time. If you want to seriously compete in PRS there are better choices, but club matches etc you will be fine. By the time you need a better caliber, you will likely need to rebarrel anyway. I probably have least expensive rifle/glass at the two matches I*ve done with my 6.5. And I*ve managed to get to middle of pack. So far I can*t blame my any of my misses on my rifle in 6.5. The longer stages are my strength

So unless you want to go 1000 yards I*d give .243 the nod over creedmore

I have taken multiple deer with both .243 and 6.5. They are fine, but I like the better blood trail I get from .30 caliber bullets ((or 45-70). If you want primarily deer rifle I*d go back to .270 Win or .308 ( I have except for real thick stuff then 45-70)

Not sure this helps, but I*m thinking what I want to build next and have no idea. I owned and sold 7mm Mag, don*t have need to go larger ( thinking about it, I traded the 7mm mag with my best fried for his .243 Win varmint barrel)