16.5 Inch 6mm Creedmoor Performance - The Perfect Youth Hunting Rifle?

Hi All,

Wanted to kick off a thread here as I dig into a new project I have started for a youth whitetail hunting rifle that I had put together for my 9yr old son.

A little bit of background here, I was very intrigued several years ago when Gunwerks launched their "Co Pilot" concept with a specially made Manners Compact stock and a 16-18" Proof barrel chambered in 6mm Creedmoor. I couldnt afford their eye-bleeding MSRP on that package, but I set out looking for a way to replicate this on my own at a more reasonable price. My son had only just started shooting his 22lr at the time, but I wanted something powerful enough for him to hunt with here (central TX) and it needed to be suppressed. Fast forward a few years later and he's ready to start hunting with me so about a year ago I started planning what I wanted to put together for him.

I had danced around caliber for a long time, going back and forth between the 6.5 Creedmoor and 308 win which I had tons of experience with. A friend I shoot with has had amazing results with his own chopped down 243win so that was in the running as well. I've always been an avid reader of Rifleshooter.com so when he posted his "velocity vs barrel length" article around the same time for the 6mm Creedmoor I realized this would be a really good option for my build. His results showed a retained velocity of almost 2900fps with a 105gr projectile which with some quick math showed me I could easily hunt out to 500yds with. Recoil was a big concern for me as my own personal experience as a kid led to me having a really nasty flinch until my early twenties. My son has shot my 6.5 CM match rifle and my 308 AR10 so he's way ahead of where I was at his age, but I still wanted something that was going to be easy shooting. The 6mm checks all of these boxes.

I was able to find a Rem 700 inlet Manners MCS-CS on Sniper's Hide for a good price so I snagged that and a Hawkins M5 DBM since a floorplate wouldnt fit on the stock. I already had a scope (VX5HD 3-15x44) and rings (Iota Nomad ZL) on hand so I had everything I needed except for a host rifle.

With stock and caliber decided I moved onto host rifles. I had initially thought of finding a factory rifle and having the barrel cut down, but ran into issues finding good options already chambered in 6mm Creedmoor. Heavy barrel 243's were more than plentiful and cheap, but most had a twist rate too slow to shoot the 103gr ELD-X I had settled on as my desired bullet so I finally decided to have a Bergara B14 Woodsman that I had lying around, and had been considering selling, re-barreled instead. I ordered a Krieger 1:7.5 twist M24 blank from Bugholes and then contacted a local smith, Mark Pharr and Walker Polan of Tumbleweeds Custom Rifles just north of me in Round Rock Texas to have it all put together. I initially told him 18inches but then almost immediately decided to have him go all the way back to the NFA minimum of 16.5 inches instead when I dropped the parts off. A little over 4 months later and the final product is in the pictures below.

I took the rifle out this weekend to zero, and break in the barrel per Krieger's recommendations. I then shot 5 rounds over the chrono to get rough velocity numbers. Accuracy is outstanding with the best group of the day printing 0.16 MOA over 5 shots after a minor scope adjustment from rough zero! I only have about 30rds through the gun and judging by the SD my bet is the barrel still needs a bit more break in as this has been my experience with new rifles in the past, SD will usually cut in half after about 100 or so rds. Still, I'm really happy with where I am from a velocity standpoint at 2738 fps which is only about 40fps per inch lost going down to the 16.5 inch, and should be more than adequate for white-tail and hogs out to 400yds or more.

This is all preliminary and I plan to update this thread with velocity and performance data as I gather it. Enjoy for now, and ask away if you have any questions about the setup!



To put the size in perspective this is compared to my full-size match rifle; 24" Sendero contour in a McMillan A5 and a Dead Air Sandman-S with E-Brake mounted.

Awesome! It's been super cool watching this come together over the last year or so. Really looking forward to seeing how it does in the coming weeks. Where do you think you ended up cost wise vs. that Co-Pilot?

Tyler Kee said:

Awesome! It's been super cool watching this come together over the last year or so. Really looking forward to seeing how it does in the coming weeks. Where do you think you ended up cost wise vs. that Co-Pilot?

Click to expand...

Good question... I was able to save some money on this because I had some of the parts on hand (I bought the Bergara donor rifle used a few years ago) and then used the money from selling a Manners T6A take off from another rifle to offset most of the cost of the stock. The only "new" parts I had to pay out of pocket for were the barrel blank and bottom metal.

Excluding the cost of the donor rifle and optics I'm in this project about $2,200
- Smith work: $785 (includes chamber/install barrel, true receiver face and lap lugs, bed action to stock, thread barrel and time suppressor mount, and cerakote receiver/bead blast barrel)
- Stock: $900
- Bottom Metal: $200
- Barrel blank: $360 (the co-pilot used a Proof CF barrel so this would have been $300 more to be a true copy of that gun)

The Gunwerks Co-Pilot MSRP was something like $14k all in without the suppressor (rifle, optics, ammo and whatever else they give you as part of their "package")... so I save a little bit over that

Update: 12/08/2020

Took 3 trips to the ranch (and a much needed change in weather) to get first kill with the rifle, but here we are finally. I also opened up a new lot# of ammo so decided to re-verify zero and update chrono numbers now that I have ~70rds through the gun.

I am glad that I did as I avg velocity has increased almost 100 fps from when the barrel was new! now getting 2831fps avg. The SD and ES suggest that the barrel probably still isnt fully broken in (most Hornady factory ammo shoots low teens for me with an ES in the 30-40 range). I will clean it at the end of hunting season and re-shoot again with the next lot# of ammo that I have on hand. I am VERY happy with this speed though considering my barrel is about 10-12 inches shorter than the typical guns you see this round chambered in. I cant wait to start handloading once I work through my factory ammo.


Now for the important part, this is a sample of one but I am so far very pleased with the performance of this little round (Hornady 103gr ELD-X Precision Hunter factory Ammo). Shot a medium sized spike, distance was 110yds laser indicated with the deer quartering away pretty sharply (waited for him to move broadside but something spooked him and he turned to look and I didnt want to miss the opportunity if he ran). Impact was just behind the right front shoulder, bullet was found about 2-3" into the neck muscle on the opposite side after breaking one of the ribs at the top of the chest cavity. Front half of lung was jellied and tore off the top of the heart. Deer went down immediately, briefly tried to get back up and then kicked for about 15 seconds before expiring. Cant ask for much better than that!


This is the largest piece of the bullet that I recovered, bullet opened up well past the interlock ring and shed the core, there were a few pieces of jacket and core on the impact side but for the most part the image below is almost the entire jacket and base of the bullet, fully confident I would have gotten an exit on a broadside shot. There was blood everywhere on the ground so I dont think tracking would have been an issue had he run a little.


More to come!

Very nice gun. I was running the 103 eldx out my my 6 dasher hunting gun with a 22" Benchmark at 2910 FPS. They shot really good, but seemed explosive to me. Only one pronghorn at 300 yds though. Now I'm out of bullets but have 400 of the 105 Berger hunting I'll develop a load for. I bet your gun is a pleasure to shoot. Great job on the build.

Hey Tex. I ran across your build while looking to build something very similar for my son. How does this rifle balance? It's a challenging balancing act to make sure that you don't put too much weight out front while figuring out which contour of barrel to use without making it too heavy for them to carry. About how much does your rifle weigh?

Thanks for taking the time to post all this!

Daniel Parker said:

Hey Tex. I ran across your build while looking to build something very similar for my son. How does this rifle balance? It's a challenging balancing act to make sure that you don't put too much weight out front while figuring out which contour of barrel to use without making it too heavy for them to carry. About how much does your rifle weigh?

Thanks for taking the time to post all this!

Click to expand...

I'll try and remember to weigh it the next time I have it out of the safe, but if I had to guess it's probably in the neighborhood of 9 pounds or so, definitely lighter than my 16" AR10 but it's still a little chonky. I like that though because it tames that last little bit of recoil on this round pretty nicely… it's still a bit jumpier than my 21lbs match rifle, but the kid shoots it almost as well as his 22.

It balances really well though, right in front of the mag well with the can on the end. NPOA is pretty much neutral if I throw it on to my GameChanger bag out of a blind window or off a fence rail. Maybe have to apply a slight amount of forward pressure on the butt to keep it level. If you went fluted or carbon fiber it would shave some weight but I think the balance would suffer, would require way too much input with your shoulder to keep it level which would mean recoil control will also suffer.

Thanks for the input Tex!

I built a 16" 6mm Creedmoor for my son to use when he's older (he's five). After I built it, I found out he's left eye dominant. I built it on a RH Savage 11. So Now I need to source a LH action for him. Also, I think I need to invest in a suppressor for it.

My daughter is right handed but left eye dominant. She shoots just fine right handed with her left eye closed. Suppressed is the only way. I don't have a 16" 6creed yet (next on the list) but I do have a 16" .243 for the kids and it is the loudest rifle I have by far. Even suppressed.

Both those cases (243 especially) are overbore and are in the "magnum" class for the bore diameter, so logically they would be louder because they'll have a much higher muzzle pressure. A 16" 243 running H1000 would have a muzzle pressure of almost 16k PSI, but a 26"
barrel wouldn't crack 10k PSI. A 30-06 would run ~10% less pressure compared to a 243 at any given muzzle length because of the larger bore size. Suppressor effectiveness would also be impacted by the size of the opening - if you aren't running a 6mm cap then there could be a 2-6 dB difference between the 6mm bullet going through and a bullet the caliber of the opening going through.

I just threw together an 18" 6 Creed for the wife and kids to shoot. Those compact stocks are great!

whhood said:

My daughter is right handed but left eye dominant. She shoots just fine right handed with her left eye closed. Suppressed is the only way. I don't have a 16" 6creed yet (next on the list) but I do have a 16" .243 for the kids and it is the loudest rifle I have by far. Even suppressed.

Click to expand...

Yes, this, there's really no reason to go this short if you aren't going to run a can. Unsuppressed I'd go with a longer barrel in a lighter profile to save weight and keep some performance.

As far as sound, with my TBAC Ultra7 its very pleasant to shoot. At the shooters ear it's quieter than the same can on my 6.5 Grendel AR, to bystanders the Grendel is quieter (right in the verge of being noticeable so probably 2-3dB) but the 6CM is still very comfortable to the shooter and bystanders.

The 6Creedmoor is a lot more efficient than the 243 so it's reasonable to expect it to be quieter (and lose leas velocity) in a short suppressed setup. If the 6GT had been a little more mainstream when I had this built I'd probably be running that… for what it's worth

Tex_Hunter said:

The 6Creedmoor is a lot more efficient than the 243

Click to expand...

I think it's funny that I'm fully on board with the 6.5 CM (have multiple of them) over the 260 Rem, but I have yet to get a 6 CM and have multiple 243s, including an AI. Weird how logic gets overridden sometimes