I've shot a fair amount of 6.5 x 55 and I like it a great deal. Most people do. As a previous poster mentioned, it shoots nice and flat and it retains a lot of energy a long way out there -- loooong bullets, low drag, high stability, great sectional density -- making it unusually effective as a game-getter as well as a target round. The 6.5 calibers are beating the pants off the .30s in the target world these days.
There are problems, the most significant being that rifles as good as the round are hard to find in the U.S. There are still plenty of Swedish military surplus Mausers knocking around, most of them in good shape and relatively inexpensive, so that end of the spectrum is covered quite nicely, but quality hunting rifles are rare and true target guns are very rare indeed. Winchester and Ruger both made a few hunters, Steyr made a handful, and now and again you run across an older Tikka or Sako from the pre-Beretta days. Currently, the only people making 6.5 Swede hunting rifles are Howa (the 1500), Tikka (T3) and CZ (the 550). They're all OK, and the CZs are great, in my opinion at least. A CZ 550 American in 6.5 x 55 would suit me just fine as an all-around hunting rifle, but you're not going to be able to walk into any old gun store and buy one off the shelf. Another possibility is a sporterized military gun like the Kimber mentioned above or a Bubba special you might find at a gun show. There's also a small number of current production Ruger Number 1 single-shots out there.
Ammo is another difficulty. Federal makes the best American 6.5 x 55 hunting ammo, and it will do, but neither it nor any other US brand is loaded up to the round's potential. The European stuff is, but it's expensive, sometimes horribly so. Again, there's a well-hidden solution, in this case the Wolf Gold line of hunting ammo marketed by the Russians but made by Prvi Partizan in I forget where exactly. That's good stuff, and they make full metal Jacket ammo too -- but there again, it's usually mail order or nothing. I get around this by reloading, as most 6.5 Swede fans do.
Right now I have only one gun in 6.5 x 55, a military Mauser 96 set up by the Swedes in the 1950s as a target rifle, but at various times I've had a Winchester 70 Featherweight, a Ruger 77, a Tikka Master Sporter target rifle, a few standard military 96s and 38s, and one of those high-tech Steyrs from a few years ago. I still haven't had a CZ. Hmm.....
Hope this helps.
