So another caliber will calm them down for a more accurate shot? You should delete your post, fast.

140 gr

There are some very good hunters who depend on the 6.5 and are very succesfull. Then there are others. RK54 certanly isn't the Lone ranger in the South Texas crowd. The only thing worse than finding a paid hunter's trophy two weeks later in a tank is not finding it all.

One of the best hunters I have had the pleasure of hunting with relies repeatedly on the 6.5, but there is something about who the 6.5 appeals to.

It would be hard to prove my theory, so it's only my opinion that it is not the caliber, but poor shot placement or bullet selection that is the cause of unrecovered deer. It only seems that it is the caliber because it's desirable for many reasons and subsequently popular and hunted with in large margins. A lot of deer are shot with it. If we knew how many deer were unrecovered per hunter before/after the 6.5 Creedmoor came about, I could state this as fact.

I can state as a fact, it will put a very large, heavily muscled, dense animal on the ground immediately. Dropped like a sack of feed, 180 yards,129 gr. SST, 6.5 Creedmoor. Right bullet, placed properly. Doesn't matter what the caliber, these two factors need to be present.
Any hunter that intentionally shoots an animal with the intent of killing it by causing it to "bleed out" isn't going about it properly.

Only smith, that’s a huge one ! Congrats

Like any weapon, used effectively it is deadly

I generally use my 6.5CM for banging steel, and on rare occasions use it for hunting (In the last 5 years, it was used on 1 deer and 1 pig). The gun is heavy, long, and generally unwieldy in the stand, and walking with it just sucks. I might just have to hunt with it all year this year just to make a point.

I’ve been playing this caliber and bullet game for a long time; probably longer than most of the members here have been alive. That doesn’t make me an expert; but do have some experiences. Been loading my own for over 40 years and have my own range to play with. Yep, I’m old.

I have a safe full of different calibers and have killed everything from rabbits and deer to elk and buffalo. Hunted most of the Western states and Africa. I now only hunt my own land South of Bowie. It’s thickly wooded and hilly.

Bought my wife a 222 and she never lost a deer. My grandson also started with the triple deuce and never lost anything. I have lost 4 or 5 whitetails on my own land that I know well. I now only shoot a 30-30 or 30-06. I believe that some dead deer keep running. IDK how. It happens. You’re gonna lose some.

Mine is anything but. It's a T3 Lite in a Bell and Carlson Medalist with bottom metal from high Desert Rifle Works. Probably the lightest, handiest and most comfortable hunting rifle I own. I deer hunt with a .308, my preference. There's nothing about the 6.5 Creedmoor that gives it a greater propensity to wound deer than any other caliber.

I agree. I don't hunt with my 6.5cm, but not because the caliber is a bad hunting caliber. I don't hunt with it because the gun is not set up for hunting. Heavy a$$ barrel that I can shoot 20 times in a row without it heating up and stringing shots. I shot a 20 round string just yesterday and the barrel was just warm. Try that with a thin barrel profile, and I'd burn my hand.

I think some of you guys are busy defending what ISN’T the problem. The caliber is fine, but I’m willing to guess that many newby hunters choose the 6.5CM because they’ve read that it’s everybody’s choice now, and those newbies are not among the state’s great shooters or hunters. Maybe better said, the 6.5 CM is often a tool in the hands of folks that aren’t good with tools.

If you’ve been hunting for many years, you know or have known guys that ‘aren’t good with the tools’. I sure know a couple.

It’s the “Indian” not the “arrow”. My then 10 yo daughter, didn’t have an issue with the 6.5 creed at 100yds. Shooting it her first time ever, no range time to speak of. One shot, DRT ……. no reason to wait for blood to pool out. It don’t mess up her shoulder mount either. All of my kids and myself included have never tracked a whitetail or mule deer with the 6.5 creed. As with any caliber, it’s the person pulling the trigger that’s generally the issue, not knowing their own limitations or inadequacies.





To the OPs question, bullet weight isn’t something I factor into shooting a trophy animal with based on if it messes up the taxidermy. Only time that would be a consideration is if I were hunting fur bearing animals.

Most of the hunters we had in camps (160'ish) over 15 years showed up over scoped, over-gunned, and under-practiced. People shoot lighter recoiling cartridges better and more accurately than heavy recoilers, so I'll take a guy with a medium (6mm-7mm) cartridge every time over a hunter who's scared to death of his equipment. .243's, 6.5mm, and 7mm08's are killing machines in the right hands with the right bullets.

I flat out disagree with this statement. I'm no guide and I don't have dozens of shot opportunities with a 6.5 CM, but my boys use the caliber on hogs and WT. Every shot that my kids have made contact with using that caliber have resulted in kills very close to the point of impact. That's just our personal experience.

DRT is a result of bullet placement, 90-95% of the time. I can gutshoot a deer with a 300gr .375 H&H and it won't be DRT; I can shoot high shoulder with a .223 62gr Fed Fusion and the deer won't move.

5 seems like a high number of muleys all to be shot with the same cartridge in a given year. I'm not saying I don't believe you, I'd just like to know if the same bullet was used on all of them, and if it was lack of an exit wound that led to your problems. Where was the bullet placement on the five shots? Assuming all were large bucks?

I've shot ~30-35 TX whitetails with a 6.5 CM now; 143gr ELD-X 50-350 yards. I typically shoot heart-lung region. I've seen no blood trail a few times; sometimes it took a few yards. Sometimes they went straight down, even if not high-shoulder. In most cases, there was a really good blood trail to follow.

This was 3 yds from impact, doe ran across the road and made it about 40 yards total.



Three shots, three deer that morning. Two of these were DRT despite lung shots.

Some nilgai outfitters request a 30 caliber or more. When speaking with them, I talk about my 270 - something which they don't like until they learn I've killed a dozen or more with it. It's not the gun; it's some of the folks attracted to it thinking they can over-compensate for their lack of hunting acumen and practice.

If you have all the cool stuff you gotta be good at it.

Gear Queers, Tactifools................

yep ... totally agree

Agree

Just add a little

6.5 bullets have been killing critters from mice to elephants for well over 120 years. If you want a blood trail use a bullet that will put 2 holes in the critter entrance and exit no mater what the cartridge is. I have never used a 6.5 Creedmoor and see no need for me to get one. 6.5X54, 6.5 Grendel, 6.5-284 and 264 WinMag serve me well with 2 smaller and 2 larger than the Creedmoor but all kill critters very well. a critter will bleed a lot more through 2 holes than one and exits are usually larger than entrance holes.

Bang flop is usually a CNS hit, though sometimes it can be just a double lung hit if the lungs are deflated when the bullet strikes but cannot count on that shot often.

This is going to sound absurd to some of ya’ll, and I am not a fan of any cartridge with “creedmoor” in the name because I am suspicious of anything as aggressively marketed as 6.5 Creedmoor. Also I am not an expert by any means. But the honest to goodness truth is that the 6.5 creedmoor is probably going to replace the .308.

When I was 19 looking for a deer rifle the .308 was the number one reccomendation by most people for that good first rifle, reasonable recoil lots of killing power, and common.

Now we got the 6.5 Creedmoor, a near ballistic twin to the 6.5 Swede and ammo and rifles literally everywhere you can buy a rifle.

I still would rather have a .308, it is easily a better cartridge to me inside 300 yards. But just in case it gets treated like 30-30 did come next shortage, might want to have a 6.5 creedmoor too.

Gotta face facts. 6.5 creedmoor is enough gun and good factory loads abound.

Not an expert but I have a Creed and Swede. I hand load. It is my personal experience that the Swede is more effective

If you mean it’s more effective at killing a deer or hog, the same bullet at the same velocity from either caliber does the same damage. Neither should be superior to the other.

I don't think you are going to have to worry. Although the 6.5 CM is very popular, It won't overtake the .308 for a VERY long time...if ever. I believe that the .308 is behind only the .223/5.56 in popularity, and is still way ahead of the 6.5 creedmoor.

Edit: I pulled this from backfire.com (the only place I found recent info).

"Rifle Cartridge Popularity Ranked By Ammo Sales
Here are the most popular rifle cartridges as ranked by online ammo sales. This data is from 2022, so it’s a little dated.

22LR
223 Remington
6.5 Creedmoor
300 Blackout
450 Bushmaster
308 Winchester
30-06 Springfield
300 Win Mag
6.5 PRC
7mm Rem Mag
22-250
7mm-08"

So, the .308 has already been overtaken by the 6.5CM, 300blk, and 450 Bushmaster?

During the 2020-21 ammo shortage, the one caliber that always seemed to be in stock was the 450 Bushmaster. I don't know if that meant it didn't sell well because nobody actually used that caliber or that all the 450 Bushmaster owners were completely stocked up. At any rate, it was ALWAYS available.

I'd guess that during 2020 and 2021, since it was the only ammo available, that was the rifle that lot of people bought. Just so they could get ammo for it. Now that they have the gun, that's the ammo that they buy.