This one might get Zee excited..

[mitdr774]

This has been an idea I have been kicking around since the previous forum. I was going to go through with this project with the resident forum gunsmith, however he has been slammed (that should tell me enough about his work) and the project has been "delayed". I will embark on another project with him another time when he is not so busy, and I think I already have an idea what it will be. Due to applying for Colorado pronghorn season soon, I wanted to get this project going so that it could hopefully be all set in time if my dad and I draw. The .243 project was a warm up way to convince myself I could do this.

According to UPS tracking my prefit barrel will be arriving at my door on Wednesday. This is several months ahead of planned, but I am okay with that. Im my pursuit of odd ball stuff and wanting a somewhat hot rodded 6.5mm I decided to finally go through with a 6.5-06. I order a prefit from McGowen barrels and went with a 26" finished length, 1-7.5 twist, chromoly barrel with a #4 Douglas contour. This will be going on a donor R700 SPS that was purchased specifically to be a donor. I still need to look at getting a trigger for it as well as deciding if Im going to stick with a factory stock for now, or use a Bell and Carlson stock.

Last year I ran a bag of Sig .270 brass through a 6.5-06 die and now have 50 pieces of brass just waiting to be used. I also have some Starline .270 brass but that may be for a different -06 project if I decide the 6.5 isnt harsh enough on the barrel. Based on some quick measurements of the sized brass it doesnt look like I will have to do any neck reaming. That will have to be confirmed once I have the barrel though.

I dont know what Remington torques their barrels down to, but they for sure will not come apart on accident. I am almost glad I pulled the barrel off before thinking of shooting the donor as I found packaging material jammed up in the locking lug area when I pulled the barrel off. This is also one of the oiliest rifles I have had my hands on, and I own several CZ rifles with a reputation of leaking oil for years. Maybe new Remington dunks the blued barreled actions in a drum of oil to neutralize the bluing salts??

I will update with pictures when there is actual progress to report on.

Zee, I may need some guidance through the load sorting process. Im not sure how much I trust Quick Load at the moment due to some really far off predictions with my .30-06 in the past.

[Jay]

Cool. McGowan got that barrel to you fast. Maybe mine was a little too oddball. Looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

[Jay]

Also, at least you got a tracking number. They never sent me one. Got home from work, my barrel was there..

[mitdr774]

I was expecting to wait at least another 2 months and after what you told me I was expecting to just find it on the porch someday. I am hoping the barrel shoots well. I have no reason to doubt it will, but I do have some crap luck sometimes. My R700-AAC .300 BO would start to keyhole at 50 yards with anything over about 125gr. Forget about the 208gr A-Max load. It wasnt even close to flying stable. That became a .223.

[Jay]

My only experience with McGowan so far has been very good. I’ve been able to get 1/4” groups on multiple occasions with the 20 Practical. Just haven’t got the speed I want yet. I’m betting yours will shoot.

[mitdr774]

I have heard a lot of good things about their barrels. Im assuming it will be good. In all honestly its a hunting rifle. While I will always want the tightest groups possible I am okay with 1" at 100 yards if thats all I can get. With a few exceptions I have just about always been able to get 1" or less.

[mitdr774]

Well Mr. UPS man dropped off a package today.

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[Zee]

My loads are off the reservation. Not recommended.

[mitdr774]

I understand your loads are off the reservation. Its recommendations more along the lines of powders to use and things to look out for that I am looking for.

I do plan to try and use 130gr CX bullets in this rifle if they will shoot well enough. While I am sure that InterLock bullets will survive at velocities I should be able to push without going off the reservation, it will probably be near their upper end of usable impact velocity without just coming apart.

[Zee]

I tried:
H4831
Retumbo
H4350

I believe I settled on H4350 for speed and accuracy. Retumbo gave better speed but not the 1/2” or less accuracy I wanted.

[Zee]

The only bullets I’ve used in it are 140gr A-Max.

[mitdr774]

Thank you for the powder suggestions.

[mitdr774]

The barrel is on, stock barrel channel opened up some, and bedding compound is setting. I ended up using the Bell and Carlson stock since I didnt want to have to hog out the Remington stock to get the barrel to fit the channel. It does look a little goofy with a 26" barrel, but im okay with it. I need to decide if IM going to keep the factory trigger or replace it and then dig out some bases and rings. I have a 4-12x40 scope sitting on top a cabinet just waiting for a rifle to go on.

[Wambli Ska]

Good progress! I love where you’re going with this one

[mitdr774]

I ordered a Timney 512-V2 trigger for the rifle. I will probably set it around 3 pounds like I did on the .243. I am looking forward to getting this one to a range.

[mitdr774]

Quick update. Pulled the metal back out of the stock, did some quick clean up, put the metal back in the stock (with the factory trigger for now), and grabbed my "spare" set of Leupold bases and rings so I could get a scope on it. As it currently sits it comes sin at 9lb 4oz. A touch on the heavy side, but that is expected with the Bell and Carlson stock.

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[Zee]

Looks good.

[mitdr774]

Hopefully it shoots good too. I hope to find out soonish.

[mitdr774]

I put a couple dummy rounds together today to. I decided to try out the 100gr Partition and the 129gr ABLR. These dummy rounds were to sort 0.020" off the lands. Keep in mind that these lengths do not leave a whole lot of bearing surface in the neck as you will be able to see in the picture. The R700 has a really long magazine box length.

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[Zee]

Sexy.

[mitdr774]

I may try loading up some at the max length to try, but I dont have high hopes. Then again one of my 6.5x55 rifles really like the 129gr IL with an overall length of 3.115 if I recall correctly. Thats only about 0.200" longer than book, but doesnt leave much left in the case. I like to try and have one caliber of bearing surface between the neck and bullet, but if it works fine with less and it performs better I will go with it. Maybe I might be able to seat the 142gr ABLR long and push it to book velocities for the 129 ABLR??

[mitdr774]

I decided to put together some loads with the 142gr and 150gr ABLR. I used the same load data for both since some of the other data I can find has very similar loadings between the two bullets in the same cartridge, and I'm seated to an OAL of 3.460 for the 142gr and 3.455 for the 150gr where the book OAL in 3.250. The same setting on the seating die resulted in a 0.005" difference in length. Since I have a decent supply of it I decided to go with IMR 4350 for these loads. The load density is well below optimum, but these are just test loads to get some baseline numbers and have cases to measure for actual case capacity. I am expecting great disappointment in the velocity department. Nosler has the max charge weight topping out at under 2900fps with the 142gr. There will be further experimenting with other powders that will hopefully produce higher velocities.


This is the 129gr at 0.020" off the lands and the 150gr at 3.455". With the 3.455" length I have almost one caliber of bearing surface between the bullet and case neck.

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[mitdr774]

Somehow I screwed up the pictures and editing...

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[mitdr774]

Finally got the 6.5-06 out to the range today. I took test loads with three different Nosler bullets. I tried the 100gr Partition, 142gr ABLR, and 150gr ABLR. The 100gr and 142gr were loaded to book loads and the 150gr was loaded the same as the 142gr. The 100gr loads were disappointment all around. Crap groups and crap velocity. The two ABLR bullets grouped much better, but velocity was well below anticipated. The top charge weight by the book was at about start charge velocity. I will say that the load density was well below what I would prefer. I either won't be using this powder in this cartridge, or I will need to go well above book charge weights. Having a bunch of fired brass now, I can check case capacity and run it through Quick Load.

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[Zee]

All that I’ve read and experienced is that the cartridge has exceptional accuracy potential.