03-31-2017, 07:25 PM
I am a member of so many: Marshall Amplifier forum, Shovelhead Forum, Scar 17 Forum... and you all. This one is a totally awesome community. I have learned so much here and spend WAY to much time reading EVERYTHING. Remembering that I live in California, and now we are relegated to registering everything including Swiss army knives as assault weapons, and having those with more than 10 tools declared as high capacity army knives and therefore a nuisance to society... :p Be that as it may, I have taken all your load data to heart and done quite well with Hornady brass and Amax bullets. My best load is with CME powder at a consistent 1/4" groups at 100 yards. I bought an AA 24" Overwatch upper when they were on sale at Midway, (and actually in stock, so that is a double bonus), and then eventually built up an AA lower with a Geiselle totally adjustable match trigger. DANGEROUS for the uninitiated. The first time you touch that thing it goes off! Love that. No flinchy I call it. Then bolted on a Vortex Viper 4x16x50. I can finally reach out and touch something! Makes for a pretty heavy tool to field while hunting though. My Scar weighs a LOT less!
So we have recently been bestowed with yet another issue out here on the left coast, non-lead bullets for hunting. I began reviewing the different offerings and came up with some great vids about the lead in the meat, and that was all I needed, laws be damned. Turns out what's good for the California Condor and other carrion consumers, is good for the hunter as well! Not to mention the absolute devastating performance of copper bullets... IF you get them to push out to the recommended velocity. There is a great thread about this on here, thank you very much Rick O'Shay: http://www.65grendel.com/forum/archive/i...13324.html and great references to the bullet manufacturers that I had never heard of... http://www.gscustomusa.com/264086HV234.html Definitely going to try these, as these guys have a VERY scientific approach to design and I love that. Besides, research is just plain fun!
Meanwhile, I got one of those little sample packets with various bullets in them for my Scar in .308 and tested them all including Barnes TTX and the Nosler E-Tip. I worked up a load for E-Tip and actually took a Russian Boar for the first boar hunt of my life with an E-tip at 150 yards on the run. I didn't lead it enough and blew both hams into sausage basically. At least there was no worry of eating lead in that sausage. The TTX bullets MUST be pushed so fast that they are not really an effective bullet as per the discussion by Mr. O'Shay for 6.5, as the effective range is nil. (Also a very informative and scientific approach to the kind of info I NEED. So, finding the E-Tips in 6.5 has been challenging, having waited for 18 months for them to be made, and then getting the email that Midway finally got them, and then they were already GONE!!! I did manage to buy out another supplier and yet a third, so I have 9 boxes, since it will require firing a few to work out a load, right??? I did discover the Precision Arms AA labeled offering of this bullet in Lapua brass, with "proprietary components" as in secret recipe, and I don't like paying a bunch of money for something that may or may not shoot well, and as we all know here, you can dial in a perfect load for YOUR gun, so....
I began yesterday with the Lapua brass that many of you have so diligently recommended for number of reloads, etc. so I just knuckled down and sprung for it. I tried IMR 8208 XBR and got favorable pressure signs with the maximum load and CCI 450 and Federal 205 primers, however, lousy grouping. Bummer. Like REALLY lousy. 3"! I then realized today that I used the maximum COL, and not the tested COL. Silly me! Not sure how I missed THAT... As per the procedure on the GS Custom website, I will now adjust COL for accuracy, NOT the powder charge, and then the powder charge as well to fine tune. I will post the results here.
As many of you already know, this cartridge can really be the all-around round due to the performance in a Modern Sport Rifle, which is the California friendly name for an AR, etc... (I'm moving to Nevada!) So, finding the perfect hunting load that doesn't poison the meat, and able to reach out to stupid yardage, and potentially get sniper grade accuracy serves many applications, including devastating terminal performance on would be poachers that come with mal intent. (The ever present ubiquitous Zombie Meth Monkey armed with stolen a weapon, and yes, we have those here in Cali, and my GF has run them off with her .357 Python. Seems they actually shy away from lead whizzing inches overhead... One well placed round stops the Zombie from firing randomly in our direction and causes them to flee...) We also have bears here, but being wild trash bears, we have been lucky so far to be able to scare them off with only a glance, or at worst, a warning shot, and not leaving trash around, EVER.... Be that as it may, and though not recommended, if you had to shoot a charging bear with a copper 6.5, you might likely have a chance, and any of those are scenarios that we regularly face here in the wild wild west.
So we have recently been bestowed with yet another issue out here on the left coast, non-lead bullets for hunting. I began reviewing the different offerings and came up with some great vids about the lead in the meat, and that was all I needed, laws be damned. Turns out what's good for the California Condor and other carrion consumers, is good for the hunter as well! Not to mention the absolute devastating performance of copper bullets... IF you get them to push out to the recommended velocity. There is a great thread about this on here, thank you very much Rick O'Shay: http://www.65grendel.com/forum/archive/i...13324.html and great references to the bullet manufacturers that I had never heard of... http://www.gscustomusa.com/264086HV234.html Definitely going to try these, as these guys have a VERY scientific approach to design and I love that. Besides, research is just plain fun!
Meanwhile, I got one of those little sample packets with various bullets in them for my Scar in .308 and tested them all including Barnes TTX and the Nosler E-Tip. I worked up a load for E-Tip and actually took a Russian Boar for the first boar hunt of my life with an E-tip at 150 yards on the run. I didn't lead it enough and blew both hams into sausage basically. At least there was no worry of eating lead in that sausage. The TTX bullets MUST be pushed so fast that they are not really an effective bullet as per the discussion by Mr. O'Shay for 6.5, as the effective range is nil. (Also a very informative and scientific approach to the kind of info I NEED. So, finding the E-Tips in 6.5 has been challenging, having waited for 18 months for them to be made, and then getting the email that Midway finally got them, and then they were already GONE!!! I did manage to buy out another supplier and yet a third, so I have 9 boxes, since it will require firing a few to work out a load, right??? I did discover the Precision Arms AA labeled offering of this bullet in Lapua brass, with "proprietary components" as in secret recipe, and I don't like paying a bunch of money for something that may or may not shoot well, and as we all know here, you can dial in a perfect load for YOUR gun, so....
I began yesterday with the Lapua brass that many of you have so diligently recommended for number of reloads, etc. so I just knuckled down and sprung for it. I tried IMR 8208 XBR and got favorable pressure signs with the maximum load and CCI 450 and Federal 205 primers, however, lousy grouping. Bummer. Like REALLY lousy. 3"! I then realized today that I used the maximum COL, and not the tested COL. Silly me! Not sure how I missed THAT... As per the procedure on the GS Custom website, I will now adjust COL for accuracy, NOT the powder charge, and then the powder charge as well to fine tune. I will post the results here.
As many of you already know, this cartridge can really be the all-around round due to the performance in a Modern Sport Rifle, which is the California friendly name for an AR, etc... (I'm moving to Nevada!) So, finding the perfect hunting load that doesn't poison the meat, and able to reach out to stupid yardage, and potentially get sniper grade accuracy serves many applications, including devastating terminal performance on would be poachers that come with mal intent. (The ever present ubiquitous Zombie Meth Monkey armed with stolen a weapon, and yes, we have those here in Cali, and my GF has run them off with her .357 Python. Seems they actually shy away from lead whizzing inches overhead... One well placed round stops the Zombie from firing randomly in our direction and causes them to flee...) We also have bears here, but being wild trash bears, we have been lucky so far to be able to scare them off with only a glance, or at worst, a warning shot, and not leaving trash around, EVER.... Be that as it may, and though not recommended, if you had to shoot a charging bear with a copper 6.5, you might likely have a chance, and any of those are scenarios that we regularly face here in the wild wild west.