Opinion on 6mm Remington

[longshooter99]

Hi all, just looking for any info or experience on the 6mm Remington, I've got a Mauser action that it would fit into great. I've got just a few questions.

First, besides buying 6mm brass, how easy is it to form brass from either the 7mm Mauser or .257 Roberts?

Second, does it have much of an advantage over .243 Win? Sure, the 6mm Rem has more capacity but the .243 obviously has availability. I'm looking for a varmint/coyote gun that might occasionally see use on deer.

Third, if it's not much better than the .243, should I just skip over it and go to the 6mm-06? I've got plenty of .270 brass laying around that needs using.

As always, thanks guys!

 

[rcmodel]

The performance is about the same.

But the longer neck and slightly greater powder capacity is an advantage for a reloader.

The disadvantage is hard to find brass, or extra steps to make it out of something else with the wrong headstamp on it.

The 6mm-06 is WAY over-bore capacity for the small bore and will burn out barrels faster then you can sight them in and work up loads.

Don't go there unless you own a barrel company.

rc

 

[RugerOldArmy]

6.5-06 would be a fun cartridge though!

...with all of the expected issues. A-Square Dies and such are available. You'd have to form the brass.

Great bullets though, in 6.5mm.

I never had a 6mm Rem. The American Rifleman had a really interesting article about reloading for 6mm Rem, about 5 years back. .243 gets you to almost the same performance.

http://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledgebase/.256+Newton+and+6.5-06.html

 

[longshooter99]

RC, I was curious as to how bad a barrel burner the 6mm Rem could be as I know both the 6mm-06 and hot 243 loads are know to toast barrels.

Ruger, I seriously contemplated the 6.5-06 thought the main reason I scratched that one off the list is because I already have 2 .270 wins and a 6.5 Swedish. How well do the short action (308 family) feed from an old military Mauser?

 

[beefyz]

I had always wanted a 6MM. Finally got one about 4 yrs ago when Remington made a 2K special run of them; only to discover that they made them with defective bolts ( with helpful diagnosis by RC ). Four yrs ago brass was a bit tight but when I found a distributor had just received a shipment I bought 1K, enough for my lifetime. With the amount of shooting I do, and over the last years, have even found once fired so that I could sell off some of the new. Its out there, at shows etc, but now you may have to look a bit harder. The .243 was just marketed much better by Win when it came out in the late '50s ( .243 vs .244) I believe and was given higher velocities to also make it look more attractive. With the initial success of the .243, it was hard for the now re-born 6mm to catch up. Ballistically, they are almost identical with the 6mm being a bit more flatter shooting. The 6mm is at its best when handloaded and then in the proper hands it can usually out perform the .243. Of late .243 brass has been hard to find, at least out by me.
A .257 always intrigued me, but brass for that is virtually non-existant.

 

[Stony]

I've owned several 6mm's over the years and don't have anything negative to say about them. I started out with a Browning single shot years ago shooting little hp bullets for varmits and ended up years later with a Rem 700 shooting deer and hogs with 100 grainers. It is an excellent antelope cartridge in my opinion also. You can always find enough brass around to keep one going and with handloads you can do much better than a .243. I don't know about using that shorter cartridge for your intended conversion, but nothing wrong with the caliber.

 

[morcey2]

RC, I was curious as to how bad a barrel burner the 6mm Rem could be as I know both the 6mm-06 and hot 243 loads are know to toast barrels.

Ruger, I seriously contemplated the 6.5-06 thought the main reason I scratched that one off the list is because I already have 2 .270 wins and a 6.5 Swedish. How well do the short action (308 family) feed from an old military Mauser?

I believe that the 6mm rem isn't as hard on throats or barrels compared to the 243 and 6mm-06 because of the length of the neck and the shoulder angle. I'm still in the process of building one on a 1909 Argentine receiver for coyotes, target, and occasional deer/antelope.

I already have brass from a couple of odd sources. I picked up two boxes of Federal Premium with 100 gr NP on clearance for $9/box when they were discontinued a couple of years ago. My other brass is about 200 "once fired" cases that were for sale at a LGS last year. I've winnowed those down to about 80 that look really good.

As for feeding a 308-based cartridge from a standard length Mauser, lots of people have done it. Something else to consider is that the loaded 6mm rem cartridge will probably be as short as or shorter than a loaded 308 or 7mm-08. Lots of people have converted military Mausers to the shorter cases with quite a bit of success.

Matt

 

[Lloyd Smale]

my first bolt action rifle was a rem classic in 6mm that I bought used in 1976 for a 150 bucks. That rifle has claimed many deer for me and was a camp gun for 10 years and was used by all my nephews and brother in law to kill deer. then my dad claimed it for 10 years and killed a truck load of deer with it. Now my daughter has it and shes killed a couple with it already. Guns still a tack driver and in all those deer not one was lost. Brass is an easy one pass through the 6mm die with 257 Roberts brass if you cant find 6mm. Tell you the truth, that old 6mm has killed probably 3/4s of those deer with 100grain factory rem corelocks. Gun shot them into 3/4s of an inch for 5 shots and with everyone and there brother using it it seemed easier just to use factory ammo then try to keep loading for it.