What's so Hot About the 6.5 Creedmoor?

L to R:   .308, 260 Remington, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5X47

 When I ponder the advent of a new cartridge I do so with skepticism. The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that a new cartridge calls for the production and sales of new guns that will fire these new ballistic marvels. A current example of this process is the rage over the “6.5 Creedmoor”. The very name of the round caught my attention. Creedmoor is a name I associate with antique weapons that were used on long range targets. However, when I compared the performance of the new-comer to the .260 Remington and 7mm-08, I found little difference.

Then I came across an article in Real Guns magazine that kind of lends credence to my Creedmoor theory. Here’s an excerpt:

                                                The Creedmoor Reference

 Product names often are established to trigger transference; the emotions associated with something in past memory, hopefully positive, carried over to something new, prior to acquiring any actual direct experience. A common example of this is when you meet someone for the first time and feel as though you've known them for a long time. Frequently this happens because the new acquaintance shares traits in common with a person you know, or had known, well.      Creedmoor was a great name to Hornady, the designer of the cartridge, to reference. It was the name of the rifle range opened by the National Rifle Association in 1873 on New York's Long Island. Creedmoor was host to the famous American - Irish long range rifle competition held in 1874. Of course, there is also the term "Creedmoor" applied to a rifle, which is shorthand for parameters defining rifles used for Creedmoor long range competition. I was surprised to learn that there was no "Creedmoor", only the family name "Creed", the people who once owned the range's site and the site's similarity to the moorland of Great Britain. The name "6.5 Creedmoor" instantly evokes a sense of tradition, imagery of long range shooting and expectations for a high degree of accuracy. Ruger chambered and defined a rifle fitting for those expectations.

 

 Some research revealed the acreage purchased from a farmer named Creed was in an area that could be described as a “moor”; thus, the name Creedmoor was give to the rifle club

 I always thought a Creedmoor was a specific make of rifle like a Sharps, but it turns out that that it is a class of long range, single shot rifles. Hornady Manufacturing’s marketing team apparently cashed in on this misnomer when they named their, not so unique, cartridge design. 

 

Sp why the big push for the 6.5 Creedmoor? I the “Slamfire” said it well on the Firing line Forum: …”gun writers are shills for the industry, paid to write promotional articles, all of which are geared to raise revenue in one way or another. They get fully paid “writer symposiums”, plant tours, and fully paid hunting trips. These hunting trips cost between $5000-$10000 dollars when you cost in time, food, hotel, guns, gear, and guides. So if in the articles you read, if you see some poor animal killed by a grinning gun writer you know the article was financed by an entity with big pockets.”

 We may be reaching a point where there are just too many cartridges available, but we need to be careful that the anti-gun folks don’t manipulate this statement to suggest there are too many guns. There ain’t no such thing as too many guns.