In which your Humble Scribe stirs the pot …

Some time in the past I clicked the ‘Like’ button on a Facebook article from Outdoor Life magazine. This has resulted in posts from them popping up fairly regularly in my feed, and — for the most part I find them to be eminently readable.

I have always enjoyed the dead-tree Outdoor Life magazine that they’ve published for decades, and the on-line version is a decent read — a little click-baity, somewhat shallower, and definitely shorter than the old articles, but for something that has to be published on the Internet, with its 15-second attention span, their articles are better than most.

When it comes to their rifle cartridge lists, though, I’ve got an issue — no matter what the rifle cartridge list is about, you can be sure of two things:

A — The 6.5 Creedmoor is going to be on there. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think the 6.5 Creed is a damned decent round, but it isn’t really a ‘do-all’ round, and it is starting to get a little repetitive seeing it on ‘Top Ten’ list for everything from varmints, to deer, to antelope, to elk, to Zeta Reticulans. It’s a good cartridge, but sometimes its performance envelope is being stretched more than a little; and

B — The 7mm-08 isn’t going to be there. And that’s a damned shame. The 7mm-08 is the closest thing Americans can get mass-market to my beloved 7x57mm Mauser, and in the hunting envelope where the 6.5 Creedmoor shines, the 7mm-08 is just as capable — if maybe a little more. Granted, the 7mm has a little more recoil thump, but this is offset by a little more whack downrange.

Now, I realize that the 6.5 Creedmoor is the new hotness, and everyone is trying it on everything under the sun, but can we get a little love for one of the classics?

LawDog

Postcards From Foolz
Pfagh, on the lot of them

21 thoughts on “In which your Humble Scribe stirs the pot …”

  1. Snorts in 30 GOVT 06, how dare you not jump on the newest ‘hotness’ bandwagon! You should discard all those ‘obsolete’ things that have worked for generations of hunters and go spend all your money to adapt to the the latest and greatest!!! 😉

  2. Aww man, creedmoor is for “I shoot 0.25” troops all the time” crowd!!

    1. “I shoot 0.25″ troops all the time”
      that’s a little hard on the enlisted wee folk

  3. Is this where I mention that the only centerfire rifles I currently own are in .303 British and 7.62×39? 🙂

    And speaking of obsolete cartridges, in the background info for the ‘Republic of Texas Navy’ series, when Texas modernized their small arms (after having observers on most fronts in WW1), they militarized the then-new .300 Savage. Their rifle is a shortened 1917 Enfield (they bought the Remington Eddystone tooling when that factory was closed) with a 15 round box magazine.

  4. I use .300 Win Mag for basically everything bigger than ground squirrels. I got a good pile of ammo cheap and there’s no kill like overkill.

  5. It’s kinda funny, but I heard of the 6.5 Creedmoor long before I heard of the 7mm-08.

    I only heard about the 7mm-08 when one particular poster on a single forum posted how he used it, his granddaughter used it, and his granddaughter’s partner was now using it, and he was going to have to keep all three fed.

    And then I started occasionally seeing it. It sounds like something I might have liked to try, back a decade or two. At this point, I think my days of adding new calibers is through. I already have too many to keep fed. Well, at least till I retire. This working thing keeps getting in the way of the important shootie things.

  6. I’ve got 2 centerfire rifles – not counting the mistake of a 7.7 Arisaka, whose ammo or brass is unobtainium – a Marlin 336 in .35 Rem., and an Israeli K98k in 7.62 Nato. The .35 is a great little lever gun, and being able to load .357 pistol bullets in it makes it versatile, but not at 2 to 3 bucks a round for loaded ammo, I’ve been hoarding the 4 boxes of brass I’ve had since I was 20 (now aged 70!) Thank God the .308 is still popular…

  7. I am convinced that every 6.5CM should come with a tube of leg-wax and a pin-on man-bun.

    It’s ok, but it’s not *that* good, as becomes obvious when most of the rave reviews refuse to compare bullet with bullet and barrel with barrel.

    Oh, and I’d prefer the .275 Rigby over the 7mm any day. But only to be contumacious. (And before anyone gets hot under the collar, *I know.*)

    1. What my usual gun forum needs is a good .275 Rigby vs 7mm Mauser debate. If I can recruit 3 more co-conspirators to start it with me, I bet we can troll in quite a few victims.

      1. Don’t forget the famous wildcat, the .300 Whelen. Made by necking down a .35 Whelen to .30 caliber.

  8. Stir the pot indeed. Hah! Well played. Mind if I join y’all? I’ll just set my Captain Obvious hat over here.

    The 6.5 Creedmoor round (along with some others) was inspired by a desire to shoot paper targets on square ranges efficiently with moderate recoil at distance (out to 1000 yards). At this it is superb. Obviously there is some crossover into other uses. And here we are. Caveat–have I ever owned or shot a 6.5 Creedmoor? No.

    Bonafide’s–Started handloading in 1977. First two rifle rounds were .223 and 45-70. Earned my NRA Highpower Rifle Master rating in 1990. Back in those days, military surplus brass was still cheap–once fired 5.56 for $30/1000. Many intriguing cartridges came and went, but by then I was (literally) waist deep in components for 30-06, 308, and 5.56, so just stuck with them.

    Just turned 70 this week, so my competition days are long behind me. Not to say I don’t still keep my hand in (read the comments too)–

    https://lonestarparson.blogspot.com/2020/10/shoot.html

  9. .22 up to squirrel, 5.56 up to ‘yotes, .308 for anything bigger. ‘Nuff said. Only other rifles I own are either PCCs or my Mosin-Nagant in 7.62x54R. Which has iron sights, a pitted barrel, very stout recoil, and reliably shoots groups over a foot in diameter.

    1. “. . .groups over a foot in diameter.”

      *SNORT*

      That’s similar to me shooting skeet.

      I can shoot at 25 clay pigeons using the straight-away house, off of either shoulder, and miss 17 from each side. I’m that good.

  10. I have a 7mm Mauser from my Grandfather, and it’s a nice shooting little rifle. A sporterized Mauser, I believe. Great shooting little rifle, but the blank looks I get asking about ammo for it. It’s pretty much ordering online for any luck. Still need to pick up something in .308.

  11. 7×57 may not be promoted by all the magazines and trendy web sites, but it’s hardly obsolete. The local Walmart has it on the shelf.

    It might be 131 years old, but it ain’t dead yet.

  12. The 6.5 CM is to the 6.5 Swede as the 7mm-08 is to 7mm Mauser.

    I do have a Creedmor, but do have a Swede and it’s my favorite.

  13. Hey, ya’ll. Another +1 for the 7X57. I have a unicorn; its the SAFN-49 in 7X57. Shoots great.

    BTW, JohninMD, I’ve successfully made 7 MM Arisaka brass by reforming ’06 brass. It seemed to work OK but I only loaded the cases a time or two, IIRC.

    If KevinM will say which web forum it is, I’ll happily join in on the .275 Rigby debate…

  14. Might as well toss in my “$.02”
    The 6.5 Creedmore is a good cartridge. It started with people necking down the 308 to 6.5, to take advantage of the much higher BC 140gr 6.5mm bullets that were available, for longer range target shooting. Remington eventually blessed this with a factory loading called .260 Remington.
    The 6.5-’08 (Remington doesn’t get to name it because they adopted it) suffers from a few deficiencies. It is a tad overbore and inefficient and is therefore finicky to get good performance out of. The 308 Win is beautifully balanced (as Col. Cooper noted, it “does more with less than just about anything else out there”) and putting lighter bullets in the same case results in a progressively less efficient cartridge. Please note the difference in powder burned vs performance between the .243 Win and the 6mm BR, same parent case different length, as a more extreme example of what I am talking about.
    Anyway, the 6.5 Creedmore is a tuning of the 6.5-08 to the same efficiency as the 308 Win, with an Ackley style shoulder to further improve efficiency as a nod to the idea that it is a bolt gun cartridge not designed for use in automatic rifles. If you want to shoot 6.5 in a short action, then it is THE cartridge as far as I’m concerned, and there is a lot to recommend it.
    However, I don’t hunt with a 6.5 Creed because most of my shots are 200 yards and less and the 308 does a better job at that with a 165gr bullet. If I’m reaching out further then I want something with more velocity for downrange performance, not a smaller more efficient bullet.
    6.5 Creedmore is a niche cartridge, good for antelope and for punching paper and maybe midrange sniping, but I would insist on a different cartridge for anything else.
    The 7mm-’08 is a compromise option between those two that can still do the hunting at 300 and a reasonable job at accuracy at midrange and doesn’t get nearly as much love as it deserves.

  15. Hmmm…..

    I’m not convinced that “efficiency” is being properly measured and/or understood.

    The desired outcome of shooting is to put an appropriate-sized hole in the target of your choice. All measures of efficiency must be calculated in respect of that outcome, and arguing over miniscule differences in powder charge when it is just one of many factors, leads to spurious conclusions.

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