Long story short, I have a fairly good stash of 6mm (.243") bullets in lighter weights (70 to 80 gr HPs) and I'm loosing my .243 Win. rifle (going to my godson), so I'm trying to decide whether to replace it with a .243 Win. or maybe a 6mm Creedmore. I know the Creedmore excels with the heavier, longer bullets, but how does the 6mm Creedmore twist rate handle the 58-75 gr. varmint bullets?
As long as you're not over-spinning the bullets so they come apart, it handles them the same as the 243win. A little less case capacity, but a little more efficiency, we end up about the same speed, or at least within 50fps of the 243win.
Hornady lists their 58 V-max as suitable for a 1:7.7" twist 6creedmoor at 3900fps, it might tolerate faster twist, but that's the fastest they show that bullet spinning for any cartridge in the book (Hornady Xth edition), which is 364.7krpm... Spinning pretty damned fast.
If you're already set up to load 243win, then you won't notice much difference, other than the cost of entry to get new dies, and if you swap to small primer brass, you'll need a new stash of small rifle primers. Otherwise, you're just cutting a couple grains of the same powders off of the 243win load data when using the 6mm creed case.
Personally, I converted all of my 243wins over to 6 creedmoor - after having the 243win stand tall as my favorite long range shooting and hunting cartridge for a couple of decades, including varminting and predator calling. The 6 creed is easier to tune, has better barrel life, a faster and more versatile factory twist, easier access to fantastic small primer brass, and does everything I ever customized the 243win and 243AI to do, without as much hassle. But for sub-100grn bullets, they're really like 50yr old twins which grew up in different careers - they're kinda the same, but kinda not, and you have to know what you're looking at to tell which is which.
But yeah, I converted all of my 243win's over to 6 creeds.
). Now to find one. I'm not looking to build anything, just looking for a basic bolt-gun someone traded in on their dream LRP rifle in 6mm-something (other than Creedmore). I'm kicking myself for not pulling the trigger on a used Ruger Predator in 6 Creed I found at the local Cabela's about 5 years ago for $299, IIRC
. Oh well, a new search will ensue.
