6.5x55 short barrel, high velocity

[Oropi]

Sharing my experience with the 6.5x55 swede.

I have a tikka t3 I bought in 2016 and originally ran factory ammo with poor results. Slow and didn’t have my preference of projectiles. Rifle was all original apart from stock and Supressor.

I started reloading with RL 26 and was getting 2900+ fps with 143gr

Rifle was heavy and hard to lug around the mountains so I went down a path to shorten it. Before I shortened the barrel I was told I needed atleast 20” of barrel for the Swede.

Current load was 2830 fps with 140gr using H4350.

I swapped it to the factory plastic stock and cut the barrel to 15.5”

Same load and velocity dropped to 2610 fps, had to get a stainless steel first baffle as the aluminium wasn’t going to handle the muzzle blast with the extra unburnt powder.

Still shoots well under an inch for 5 shots and is a lot nicer to lug around in my opinion

 

[Huntinmechanic]

Interesting setup! It looks super handy and very packable. What is the carry weight? I love the Swede. I've been loading mine really light. I'm only getting 2700fps with 127 LRX out of a 22" barrel on a Kimber 84L action. I'm sure I can turn that up quite a bit, but it shoots well and kills well. Hunted with it the first time this year and result were DRT.

 

[WI-Carcosa]

2900 fps is impressive! Thanks for the insight on the RL26. I have a Swede T3 cut to 19” and getting around 2700fps with a hot load of n560. The shorter barrel is intriguing!

 

[Ozarkansas]

As someone who dropped off their tikka 6.5x55 to get cut to 18” this week, this is great to read. That velocity is smoking, is it a compressed load? What brass are you using?

I tried to get some Barnes LRX bullets going as fast as possible with R26 a few years ago and hit pressure signs at about 3100 FPS, so I guess 2900 FPS with a bullet that’s probably the same length and only slightly heavier makes sense.

 

[Ozarkansas]

I got out and tested some hotter loads today in my newly chopped/threaded tikka. Just single shot pressure checks for the most part. Here’s the notes I took:

“18” barrel 6.5x55 single shot pressure check w/ 140 Gold Dot & Staball 6.5:
Gr. : FPS
47.5: 2640 (3x shots)
48.5: 2662
49.0: 2744
49.5: 2771
50.0: 2782
-primers started flattening on 49.0 and up, no ejector marks or visible damage to brass”.

Disregard the bullet at 12 o clock from the middle bullseye, that’s a .243. The 47.5 gr loads were all aimed at the middle bullseye and the ladder was aimed at the left bull. Obviously I need to adjust the scope and shoot some bigger groups but this is a great start.