IMR 4350 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

The 6.5 Creedmoor cartridge draws a lot of flak on the Internet. I suspect most of the folks who go negative do so with no real experience. I have two 6.5 Creedmoor rifles, and both do very well for me. Will they magically overcome a shooting skills deficit? No. Are there other cartridges out there that can do as well? Sure. But the 6.5 Creedmoor, in my opinion, does what it is supposed to, and that’s provide accuracy with modest recoil. I’m a believer.

I had my two Creedmoors on the range a few days ago, a Browning X-Bolt and a Ruger No. 1 (you’ve seen them on these pages recently). Both are elegant rifles and each has what I would call exhibition grade wood. The Browning has a curly maple stock and the Ruger has fancy walnut. Both are factory rifles, and other than mounting scopes on each, both are unmodified guns.

Which one is prettier? It’s a tie in my opinion. Good wood, to me, is one of the best parts of having a fine rifle, and both these 6.5 Creedmoors answer the mail in that regard. The wood seems to be alive on each, changing depending on the viewing angle and how the light hits it. This sensitivity to light orientation is probably more pronounced with the maple-stocked Browning. The curl runs from front to rear and top to bottom on both sides (this rifle has an unusually highly-figured stock). When photographed from the front (as I did in the photo below), the figure on the Browning is more subdued.

When photographed from the rear, though (as you can see below), the Browning’s curl really pops. The Ruger’s fancy walnut looks good from any angle.

The Browning is a bolt action rifle based on the Paul Mauser design (as are nearly all bolt action rifles) and it holds five rounds (four in the magazine and one in the chamber). You can buy extra magazines and carry them with four more rounds ready to go in each (you know, in case your deer starts returning fire). The Ruger is a falling block action and it is a single shot. I prefer that and I admit it is a bit of snobbery on my part; I like to think I only need one shot. On the rifle range, I only load one round at a time. Come to think of it, on a hunt I also only load one round at a time. California’s magazine restrictions are irrelevant to me; to my way of thinking if you need a 30-round magazine you aren’t much of a shot.

As much as I love Ruger No. 1 rifles, I prefer the scope location on a bolt action rifle better. A telescopic sight on a bolt action is in a more natural position. The Ruger No. 1 positions the scope further forward, and even when I mount the scope as far to the rear as it will go, it requires an unnatural amount of forward stretch to get the correct eye relief. You can get Ruger scope rings with a rearward setback to overcome this problem, but they look goofy and they add more weight to the rifle.

The Ruger is a heavier rifle. Part of that is the slender and shorter barrel on the Browning. Walnut is lighter than maple, but the Ruger barreled action is heavier that the Browning X-Bolt barreled action. Browning’s specs put the maple X-Bolt at 6 1/2 pounds; a Ruger No. 1B (this rifle’s configuration) is listed as 8 1/4 lbs. On the rifle range the Ruger’s heft doesn’t bother me. If I was carrying a rifle all day on pig hunt, I’d prefer the lighter Browning. The Browning feels almost dainty compared to the No. 1.

I mounted inexpensive scopes on both rifles. The Browning has a Vortex 4×12 scope and the Ruger has a 3×9 Redfield. The optics are equally bright on both. The Vortex has indistinct indexing on its windage and elevation click adjustments; the Redfield turret is snappy and allows counting clicks by feel alone as you make them. The Redfield Revenge is discontinued (the Redfield company is no more), but it is a good scope. I prefer the Redfield to the Vortex.

Both rifles are accurate at right around minute of angle, and both will occasionally get down in the 0.6-inch group neighborhood. The Ruger didn’t like the Speer 140 grain jacketed soft point bullet with 41.0 grains of IMR 4350, although I’ve used it before with a lighter charge of that same powder and achieved sub-minute-of-angle groups. Rifles have their preferences. With a load dialed for each rifle, the accuracy of both rifles is comparable.

I tried a few loads in both rifles recently with IMR 4350 and Varget powder, and I also tried neck-sized-only ammo in the Browning. Here are the results:

If there’s an advantage to neck sizing fired cases in the Browning, it’s not obvious to me. I’m going to full length resize the brass from this point forward, which will allow me to use my reloaded ammo in either rifle.

When I bumped the IMR 4350 charge up to 41.0 grains, accuracy deteriorated from previous sessions. The Browning likes 40.7 grains (or maybe a little less); the Ruger did better with the Speer 140 grain jacketed softpoints at 39.5 grains of IMR 4350.

What’s next? I found Berger Bullets load data for IMR 7828 SSC propellant. That’s a slower burning propellant ordinarily used in magnum cartridges, but I like the fact that it fills the case (which should make for a more accurate load) and I thought I would give it a try. I have 20 rounds loaded and I’ll test this combo later this week. Stay tuned, and you’ll read about it here on the ExNotes blog.

More Tales of the Gun!

Our recent Browning 6.5 Creedmoor story!

Our recent Ruger No. 1 Creedmoor story!

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Yeah, I’ve become a 6.5 Creedmoor believer. This is a superior cartridge and accuracy seems to just come naturally with it.

The rifle you see above is a maple-stocked Browning X-Bolt. It’s from a limited run and it sure is good looking. I bought it from a small shop in in Lamar, Colorado, when I was there on a recent secret mission. The dealer wouldn’t ship it to California so it had to go the long way around: Lamar, Colorado, to Raleigh, North Carolina, to Riverside, California, and then finally to me after I waited the obligatory 10-day cooling off period (I have to be the coolest guy in California; I’ve cooled off so many times). California has extra requirements for shipping guns to FFL holders here and the dealer in Colorado didn’t want to mess with our nutty requirements. The reshipper guy in North Carolina makes a living doing this (who says government can’t stimulate trade?). It’s crazy, but that’s our leftist Utopia here in the Golden State. I sometimes wonder if our firearms regs have ever actually prevented a crime.

Anyway, to leave the politics behind, a couple of weeks ago when I was on the range a good friend gave me a box of once-fired 6.5 Creedmoor brass another shooter had left behind. That was a sign, and I figured I’d reload it for the first range session with the new Browning.

Speer, Hornady, and Nosler 6.5mm bullets.

I already had stocked up on 6.5 Creedmoor bullets. I am probably on every reloading retailer’s email list and I get a dozen advertising emails every day. With components being in short supply nationally, if I see anything I might use I pick it up. Like the maple Browning you see above, the time to buy something that’s hard to get is when you see it (to quote Mike Wolfe).

That’s the Speer 140-grain jacketed softpoint on the left, the Hornady 140-grain jacketed boattail hollowpoint in the middle, and the Nosler 140-grain jacketed boattail hollowpoint on the right. The Nosler has a longer boattail than the Hornady, and the ogive is blunter.

From everything I’ve read and my limited experience loading for a Ruger 6.5 Creedmoor No. 1 (see my recent blog on the 6.5 Creedmoor Ruger No. 1), IMR 4350 propellant is the secret sauce for accuracy with this cartridge. I had some under the reloading bench and it got the nod for this load session.

That’s how I keep track of what I’m loading at the bench. I’ll transfer that information to a reloading label that goes on the rifle ammo container.

IMR 4350 is an extruded stick powder, and it doesn’t meter consistently through the powder dispenser. I use an RCBS trickler I’ve had for 50 years. The idea is that you drop a charge into a loading pan, it goes on the scale, and then you trickle in extra powder (a particle or two) at a time with the trickler to arrive at the exact weight.

An old and well worn RCBS powder trickler. It works well and although it sounds slow, it goes pretty quickly.

I have a set of Lee dies I use for the 6.5 Creedmoor. It’s Lee’s “ultimate” four-die set, which includes a full length resizing die and decapper, a neck-size-only die and decapper, the bullet seating die (which includes a roll crimping feature), and a factory crimp die. Lee dies are inexpensive and they work well. Their customer service is superb, too. I full length resized this batch and I didn’t crimp. I’ll experiment with that later. For this load, I just wanted to get pointed in the right direction. The refinements will come later (if they are needed).

The Lee 6.5 Creedmoor die set. Lee dies include the shell holder; most other manufacturers’ die sets do not. Lee makes good gear.

After charging the primed cases with IMR 4350, I seated the bullets. The long, heavy-for-caliber bullets and the relatively short 6.5 Creedmoor brass make for cartridges that look like hypodermic needles. It’s good looking ammo.

So how did the new 6.5 Creedmoor do? It was very cold and very windy when I went to the range. I had hoped for more pictures of the Browning in the daylight but it was so windy I didn’t want to chance the photos (I was afraid the wind would knock the rifle out of its Caldwell rest). There was only one other shooter out there; most folks were probably staying warm at home. I shot at 100 yards and the wind notwithstanding, this puppy can shoot. Here are the results from my first box of reloaded ammo…there are a few erratic groups, but they were due to me and the wind.

Here’s what the best groups looked like:

The Browning likes the 140 grain Hornady jacketed hollowpoint boattail bullets, which is good because I have a couple of boxes of those. Going up to 40.7 grains of IMR 4350 helped a bit. After I fired these rounds, I could chamber a fired case without it sticking, so I am going to load another 20 cartridges that I will neck size only.

The scope I bought for this rifle is a Vortex 4×12 (it’s made in China). This was the first time I used a Vortex. The optics are very clear. Because of the wind and the cold temperatures I didn’t try to adjust the parallax; I just set the parallax adjustment at 100 yards and shot (I’ll adjust the parallax next time, assuming the weather cooperates). The Vortex click adjustments for windage and elevation are not as tactilely distinct as they are on a Leupold or a Weaver. The clicks are squishy and I had to look at the turret graduations to keep track. Eh, it’s a $170 scope. You get what you pay for. Sometimes.

The recoil on the 6.5 Creedmore is moderate; maybe a little less than a .308. The Browning has a removable muzzle brake, and that helps.

The maple Browning (especially this one) really stands out. There were three rangemasters and one other shooter on the range the day I shot it. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at the rifle. They thought it was a custom gun. This Browning X-Bolt is a beautiful firearm. And it shoots, too.

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