Editor’s Introductory Note: The following is a guest article authored by John McAdams, the founder of The Big Game Hunting Blog and hosts The Big Game Hunting Podcast. He kindly wrote it for SurvivalBlog, at my request. I recommend bookmarking both his blog and his podcast. Great stuff.
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With the continued popularity of the 6.5 Creedmoor cartridge, it’s only natural that some people are considering equipping themselves with a rifle chambered in the cartridge for use in a When The Schumer Hits The Fan (WTSHTF) situation. Countless hunters and shooters have embraced the 6.5 Creedmoor in recent years, but many others are understandably skeptical about making the switch over to the relatively new cartridge.
The 6.5 Creedmoor is a well-designed cartridge that does indeed offer certain advantages to the user when compared to some of the other more popular and more well-established centerfire rifle cartridges. That said, it’s not perfect either. In this article, I’m going to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the 6.5 Creedmoor so you can make a well informed decision on whether or not you should be using it in a survival situation.
First, we’ll start off with a short history of the 6.5 Creedmoor as well as what it was originally designed for.
The venerable .308 Winchester was an incredibly popular choice among competitive shooters for many years. More recently, Dave Emary and Dennis DeMille of Hornady Manufacturing and Creedmoor Sports set about developing a new cartridge that would outperform the .308 Winchester in that application. Their goal was a mass-produced and extremely accurate cartridge that had less recoil, a flatter trajectory, more resistance to wind drift than the .308 Winchester.
Formally released in 2007, the new 6.5 Creedmoor used a .30 Thompson Center case necked down to 6.5mm (.264”). The new cartridge was specifically designed with a long neck and with a relatively large powder capacity that enables it to successfully use extremely aerodynamic bullets without intruding into the powder column. Additionally, even when using very long, high ballistic coefficient (BC) bullets, the cartridge also fits in a short action magazine just like the .308 Winchester.Continue reading“6.5 Creedmoor for Survival? by John McAdams”