50 years ago, if you walked into a gun store and asked for a hunting rifle, more often than not the man behind the counter would hand you a .30-06. It was the go-to choice, wildly recognized by hunters and sportsmen as the best option on the market for general hunting and long-range marksmanship. It was capable of hits at up to a thousand yards and had enough energy to harvest nearly any game in the continental U.S. What more could you ask for?
Then, the .308 Winchester came along, offering slightly less power in exchange for less recoil and smaller, lighter action. The .30-06 went the way of the dinosaur, although it never quite disappeared, and .308 became the new hunting standard.
Now, 6.5 Creedmoor has come.
What is 6.5 Creedmoor?
6.5 Creedmoor is a centerfire rifle cartridge developed for improved long-range performance compared to the reigning cartridges of the time. The goal was to improve range and hit probability without pushing the cartridge into magnum territory, which would require a long-action receiver and would make adaptation into semi-auto platforms difficult.
The new round evolved out of the .30 Thompson Center, which itself was developed specifically as a replacement for .308 Winchester. 6.5 Creedmoor took the core case dimensions of the .30 TC but necked the cartridge down to fit popular .264 caliber bullets.
The result was a cartridge that was quite similar to the .308 Winchester in size and could utilize the same short-action receivers but offered a flatter trajectory, greater wind resistance, and softer recoil.
Ballistics Data for 6.5 Creedmoor
6.5mm rounds in general are well-known and much loved for their high ballistic coefficients. The Creedmoor specifically offers significantly higher ballistic coefficients than .308 Winchester can reach.
Ballistic coefficient matters because it is essentially a measure of how much the bullet is affected by the friction of the air when in flight. A higher ballistic coefficient means less drag, both from the bullet flying through the air and from crosswinds. Ultimately, this results in a bullet that retains its velocity longer, creating a flatter drop profile.
What this means for the user is that you’ll have to hold over or dial less for distance than you would with other, lower-BC rounds. While this may sound like a small detail, it’s actually quite significant; reduced drop means a larger margin of error for your range calls, making it easier to get hits on targets at unknown distances. For those who practice exclusively on a static range with targets at known distances, the difference is fairly minimal, but for practical applications in the field, such as hunting, it matters a lot.
The same is true of wind resistance; the high ballistic coefficient of the 6.5 Creedmoor, combined with its fairly high muzzle velocity, means that it is less affected by wind than other common hunting rounds. This, again, allows for a greater margin of error in your wind calls.
Lastly, the high ballistic coefficient and sectional density help 6.5 Creedmoor retain its velocity longer. This means that while 6.5 Creedmoor and other rounds may start at similar muzzle velocities, 6.5 Creedmoor will outperform lower-BC rounds at longer distances. This is most pronounced at ranges in excess of 600-800 yards, depending on the exact cartridge and load.
This retained velocity translated into greater energy on target and terminal effect. While the difference is minimal at hunting ranges, it can make spotting hits at extended ranges on steel targets significantly easier.
6.5 Creedmoor for Hunting
While 6.5 Creedmoor does offer superior ballistics to many other common hunting rounds, the truth is, it typically makes little difference for hunting. Most shots on medium-sized game such as whitetail deer occur at relatively moderate ranges, but most of the 6.5 Creedmoor’s advantages don’t really start to show themselves until after 500 yards or so.
For instance, while 6.5 Creedmoor has superior wind resistance than something like .308 Winchester, at 200 yards or less, moderate winds are going to push the average bullet less than 3 inches—which is rarely enough to turn a good shot into a bad one. At shorter distances, the effect is even less pronounced.
The same is true for ballistic drop. At average hunting instances, we’re only talking about a few inches of drop with nearly any supersonic centerfire round. While 6.5 Creedmoor might have marginally less drop at these ranges, it’s not going to be enough to matter on a target the size of a deer’s vitals.
Where 6.5 Creedmoor does pull ahead of the pack for hunting is in recoil. 6.5 offers significantly softer recoil than most similar cartridges, which for many users translates into less flinch when firing and more accurate shots.
Even for the recoil-tolerant, though, it can be beneficial. Felt recoil tends to have an inverse relationship with rifle weight; as weight goes down, felt recoil goes up. Because 6.5 Creedmoor starts with less recoil than a round like .308 Winchester, you can opt for a lighter rifle that will be easier to carry for long periods in the woods while still maintaining the same level of felt recoil.
6.5 Creedmoor’s low-recoil and excellent ballistics are both big reasons why they are some of the best rifles for hunting whitetail deer in Texas.
6.5 Creedmoor for Long-Range Precision
Long-range precision is where the 6.5 Creedmoor truly shines—that’s what it was made for, after all.
The superior ballistic coefficient, flatter trajectory, greater wind resistance, and light recoil all translate into a round that is simply easier to land hits with. 6.5 Creedmoor is significantly more forgiving of wind and range calls than older rounds such as .308 Winchester.
Greater energy retention also makes it easier to spot your hits at extended ranges; because 6.5 Creedmoor will retain more of its velocity and energy at very long ranges, when the round lands, you’ll see a more pronounced terminal effect on a steel gong or a larger dust cloud from the dirt. It does, unfortunately, produce a marginally smaller hole in a paper target, though, so those hits may actually be harder to spot than if you had used a .30-caliber rifle.
On the balance, though, 6.5 Creedmoor is one of the best rounds available for long-range precision.
6.5 Creedmoor Rifle Options
When it comes to the rifle itself, 6.5 Creedmoor users have a plethora of options. While we can’t cover the minute differences between every make and model, we can take a look at the pros and cons of the two major categories of rifles: bolt-action and semi-auto/AR-10.
Bolt-Action
The most common iteration of 6.5 Creedmoor, bolt-action rifles are lightweight, reliable, and tend to be a bit easier to shoot accurately, partially due to their shorter lock time. They also tend to be a bit cheaper than semi-autos.
The primary drawback to a 6.5 Creedmoor bolt-action is, of course, rate of fire. No matter how skilled the user, follow-up shots are never going to be as fast with a bolt-action as they are with a semi-automatic.
6.5 Creedmoor bolt-action rifles are popular for both hunting and long-range precision. In both pursuits, rate of fire tends to be a low priority, while accuracy is highly prized. 6.5 Creedmoor hunting rifles will trend towards lighter weights to make them more comfortable to carry in the field, while long-range rifles will be heavier to help soak up what little recoil 6.5 Creedmoor provides.
AR-10/Semi-Auto
Technically the only 6.5 Creedmoor AR-10 rifles are those made by Armalite, but, any large-frame AR tends to get called by that moniker. If you’re after a 6.5 semi-automatic, though, you needn’t limit yourself solely to the AR platform. 6.5 Creedmoor is sufficiently popular that it is now available in several other semi-auto models, including the iconic SCAR 17.
A full breakdown of the pros and cons of those two platforms can be found in our article on AR-10 vs SCAR.
While semi-auto 6.5 Creedmoor’s can be optimized for long-range precision, as can be seen in our Artemis 6.5 Creedmoor precision rifle build, they really shine as jack-of-all-trades rifles. Their low recoil makes them easier to run fast than .308s, while their exceptional ballistics give them greater range. This does unfortunately come at the cost of barrel life and ammo affordability, but for those that can stomach the price, a semi-auto 6.5 Creedmoor can handle everything from 5 yards to a thousand—or possibly more.
Of course, if you’d rather not choose between calibers, large-frame ARs make it easy to have it both ways. As with AR-15s, it’s easy to keep both .308 and 6.5 Creedmoor upper receivers and swap them between a single lower at will.
6.5 Creedmoor vs. .308 Winchester
As we’ve covered, 6.5 Creedmoor is ballistically superior to .308 Winchester in most respects. It drops less, cuts through wind better, and recoils softer. However, in the battle of 6.5 Creedmoor vs .308 Winchester, while ballistics are important, they aren’t everything.
.308 Winchester surpasses 6.5 Creedmoor in a few key areas. The first is barrel life. While 6.5 Creedmoor isn’t what we would consider a barrel-burner, .308 Winchester barrels will on average outlive 6.5 Creedmoor ones by several thousand rounds at least. For a hunting rifle, this matters little—it’s a rare hunter who puts enough rounds through his rifle to burn out even a single barrel—but for long-range precision or PRS competition, frequent barrel replacements can start to add up.
However, this drawback can be ameliorated, though not avoided, by building a 6.5 Creedmoor AR-10. AR-10 barrels are quite easy to change, saving you the need to engage the services of a gunsmith, and tend to be cheaper than most bolt-action barrels.
Similarly, 6.5 Creedmoor ammo tends to be somewhat more expensive than .308 Winchester. While the difference between the two has narrowed in recent years as 6.5 Creedmoor has gained market share, it is still noticeable. Again, a few extra cents per round is negligible for the average hunter, but if you buy your ammunition by the case instead of by the box, the difference is worth considering.
This drawback can also be mitigated, though, by handloading ammunition. 6.5 Creedmoor reloading components are negligibly, if at all, more expensive than their .308 counterparts.
Conclusion
6.5 Creedmoor is a flat-shooting, soft-recoiling round that’s tailor-made for long-range precision. While fully capable as a hunting round, it shines brightest at truly long ranges where its superior ballistic coefficient has the greatest impact.
Whether you opt for a bolt-action or a semi-auto, top your gun with the best rifle scope for 6.5 Creedmoor you can find and you’ll quickly see why 6.5 Creedmoor is rapidly coming to dominate the market.
