Favorite 6.5 Cartridge

[Tikka Lover]

6.5 WSM !! Or equivilent. Go big or go home, barrels are cheap.

 

[CRaTxn]

6.5 WSM !! Or equivilent. Go big or go home, barrels are cheap.

Hum, barrels for my German Blaser are almost $1200…barrels for my Savage LRH are $449. Oh and there is sales tax and shipping maybe even insurance. Most of the world have gunsmithing fees attached to their barrel changes. Maybe Obama is subsidizing your LE department or you get things wholesale and do your own smithing or something like that but to my frugal German heritage those numbers represent sizable investments much less the value of man hours and cost of components to work up a new load. No to a lot of us …we disagree with "barrels are cheap" but we are glad we live in a country where you are free to feel that way for your financial situation.
And Hummer barrels are even more expensive cause you gotta go thru several SoSo barrels to get one…no Overbore may be fun but I think NOT cheap.

 

[Tikka Lover]

Wow, overreact much? New custom rifle, $4000 +. New SS barrel from any of the good barrel makers, $325. Chamber, thread and crown $200. Comparativly speaking, $500 is very cheap as apposed to $4k for another rifle. Referring to Rem 700 type barrels of course.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

I agree, barrels can be replaced but they are not cheap. To replace my Broughton 6.5 WSM will run close to $800 including smithing. That's not cheap and will cost about$.70 for every pull of the trigger. But I want the speed and that's what it costs. Hopefully the nitriding process will increase the barrel life and decrease the cost.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

Wow, overreact much? New custom rifle, $4000 +. New SS barrel from any of the good barrel makers, $325. Chamber, thread and crown $200. Comparativly speaking, $500 is very cheap as apposed to $4k for another rifle. Referring to Rem 700 type barrels of course.

Better recheck your prices. Depending on length, a new match grade barrel is going to run about $450 give or take including shipping. By the time all the smiling is done including removal, install brake threading and install I owe my Smith about another$350. And that's without flutes.

 

[Tikka Lover]

If someone is charging you $450 for a non fluted SS barrel they are adding a large margin to it. The prices are on their websites, it's not a secret: Brux - $300, Bartlien - $325, Krieger - $315, Broughton is more at $385

Again, comparitivly speaking, a new barrel is much cheaper than a new rifle.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

26" Boughton $370, 32" $415, shipping about $35

 

[Cold Trigger Finger]

I was just on the Brux site a few days ago and I thot I saw the price at 444$ . Maybe that was for a threaded and chambered Savage barrel. I shined it on as they didn't have the Creedmoor listed as a reamer they have. Too much brush and timber here in the Interior for me to pick a barrel burner. And 4k$ is a lot of money. For some of us anyway. But then we need lots of stuff to access good hunting areas like airplanes . New snow machines. Tundra buggies ect.ect. .
Loosing a high dollar rifle thru the ice on a river or when a skiff turns over trying to get on or off a beach is more than painful.

 

[CRaTxn]

My real point is that with the wonderful laser range finders, premium VLD bullets for retained energy, hand held ballistic computers much less the G7 combo rangefinder/computer... the extra 100-200fps has a large marginal use-life cost or put another way the law-of-diminishing returns doesn't justify the shortened throat life…that and the aggravating BS of redeveloping a load, optics mating, range time , smithing time, drive time to and from, hunt opportunities lost waiting for all this stuff…well…maybe just opting for a 30" tube rather than a 26" would be a better trade off rationally IF you still think you "have-the-need-for-speed". Now, granted who wants to be rational about everything. So drive an electric car that gets 120mpg [ with a total range of 40-170 miles at 65mph ] or shoot your elephant with a 600 Nitro double gun that weighs 14 lbs and still generates 122 foot pounds of retina detaching recoil [ hint, don't mount a scope ]. Maybe having a fancier car, a bigger boat or a faster LRH rifle will "make you different/special" and provide inner self confidence. I am pleased if barrel cost is not a factor for your financial situation…just don't assume the rest of us aren't taking money away in larger and larger proportions from other things to stay involved in LRHg.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

Oh yeah, I have the need for speed. Next 6.5 rifle will likely be off the 300 Dakota. Sure hope the Nitride works as advertised Once Ive collected a few OR rigs, they probably won't see more than a couple hundred rounds a year if that.

 

[Tikkamike]

I say Sack Up and go 6.5 WSM. efficient case, lots of speed... whats not to love? pretty sure none of us have this hobby because its cheap. once your action is BP'd a new tube wouldnt be a huge deal. little expensive but not as much as a whole new rifle. and gives you an opportunity to change things you didnt like about it the first time around. if you are looking for cheap stick with your grandpa's 03'

 

[CRaTxn]

Yep, a very astute suggestion, I didn't think the source capable of such insight. Grandfather's '03 or the .30-06 case necked down to 6.5 is……….either the .256 Newton[ perhaps the best overall ] the ancestor of the wonderful 6.5-06 or the 6.5-06AI . A CHEAP man like me could buy a $4,000 used custom .30-06 rig and rebarrel it to one of these for half the cost. The 06 brass is so common and CHEAP you could actually practice with the gun.
Thanks, glad you thought of that, had you already built a 6.5 Gibbs ?

 

[Tikkamike]

Yep, a very astute suggestion, I didn't think the source capable of such insight. Grandfather's '03 or the .30-06 case necked down to 6.5 is……….either the .256 Newton[ perhaps the best overall ] the ancestor of the wonderful 6.5-06 or the 6.5-06AI . A CHEAP man like me could buy a $4,000 used custom .30-06 rig and rebarrel it to one of these for half the cost. The 06 brass is so common and CHEAP you could actually practice with the gun.
Thanks, glad you thought of that, had you already built a 6.5 Gibbs ?

Did someone call you cheap, or did something I said hit a nerve? You are probably thinking you are clever but you really just made an *** out of yourself. All I said was that if cost is such a big concern why not shoot an old hand me down with cheap easy to find ammo. Didnt mean to activate your defense mechanism or your small man syndrome or whatever it is! I apologize its just a friendly debate with some good natured ribbing that wasnt even directed at you as an individual but for anyone who didnt like my suggestion of the 6.5wsm.

 

[CRaTxn]

CHEAP…you don't know from CHEAP..I'm a German-American Ex-USAF and retired airline pilot…we're so cheap we pick up hulls at the Sporting Clays Shoots. I'm so CHEAP I drove the same old Dodge Ramcharger two decades just to use the money I saved for a half dozen safaris to Africa. I'm so cheap that after the second or third time I gave away the house, the IRA and BMW I started buying cubic zirconia wedding sets and marrying older women hoping I'd inherit HER money. I am so CHEAP I worry Geo Sorros will buy the French Consortium that own most of the rifle & ammo companies and will quit making brass for reloaders and we will have to scrounge for the old stuff already out there. No, all I want you to realize is that a lot of guys are being squeezed by this Socialist regime and want good things that last without a lot of barrel replacement. When I was your age I was an equipment freak too. I even drove a Corvette for a short time but it like my magnum .375s were a little over the top plus my German Shorthaired Pointer kept jumping out when he sniffed some French poodle in heat to go visit.