Suddenly everybody wants one…and most manufacturers produce them!
In my 40-year career in this business, I’ve seen a lot of cartridges come and go. The introduction of a new cartridge is usually accompanied by serious marketing efforts, but they don’t always work, and success seems a bit random even though most cartridges work as advertised. I’ve seen a fair number of good cartridges do poorly right out of the starting gate, and I’ve seen cartridges enjoy immense popularity even though they’re similar to good cartridges that are already on the market. The 6.5mm Creedmoor is an anomaly, though—I don’t recall seeing a cartridge that sort of rolls along for a full decade and then skyrockets into popularity.
With a long, aerodynamic bullet the Creedmoor case pretty well maxes out a 7.62×51 (.308 Winchester) AR-10 magazine—but it fits and it feeds!
Range Limits: Longer Than Ever, But Still Not Unlimited
(Craig Boddington)
In recent years I’ve done more long-range shooting than ever before. Ringing steel with relative ease at a thousand yards is not only fun, but also a huge confidence builder.
Years ago I did a lot of prairie dog shooting, which provides a fantastic opportunity for field practice. The target is tiny, and it doesn’t take much wind to blow the bullet clear off the mound, let alone off the varmint. And since prairie dog country is rarely calm, this is a great way to learn to read wind. If you can consistently hit prairie dogs at a couple hundred yards, big-game animals will pose little challenge at considerably longer distances.
In years gone by Boddington did a lot of prairie dog shooting. The target is small and the high plains are usually windy; he rates shooting small varmints in open country as some of the very best training for field shooting at distance.
I view range practice similarly. In a range setting, if you can ring steel consistently at 800, 900, or 1000 yards you will gain a lot of invaluable confidence in yourself and your equipment. Shooting targets at extreme range prepares you for field shooting at longer ranges, and shooting at actual distances is the only way to accomplish this. “Extending your range envelope” is a phrase I like. However, I don’t believe ringing steel at long range enables one to ethically shoot at game at similar distances.
