Anyone saying that +Peak is not needed for 6.5 CM is also implying that any larger 6.5mm cartridge (6.5 PRC, 6.5 RPM, 6.5-300) is also irrelevant.
Yes. That is ultimately my position.
A 16" 6.5cm with a 147eldm at 2500', firing at typical western elevations, will stay above 2000' out to perhaps 550-600 yards depending on exact environmental conditions. And you can do that with a 16" bolt gun with handloads. The 2660' I get from a 20" is, honestly, perhaps a bit superfluous.
I do not think more than 5% of western hunters can take advantage of field performance better than that.
I do still own a .280ai that I never shoot and I do still own a .45-70 and multiple bigger muzzleloaders that I hunt with during the appropriate season, but I do not personally believe the typical hunter, or even the guys from the middle of the bell curve of shooter ability all the way up to the last maybe 10% of the curve, 'need' more.
Of course, I happily agree that it's a free country and people can and should shoot whatever they want without worrying about what other people do. I'll also happily concede that less wind drift would be nice. And I'll happily concede that there are shooters with more skill than me, and some fairly small handful of them might be able to take ethical shots past that 600 yard mark, and there's certainly an argument that some of those guys can take advantage of more 'power' than a 6.5cm offers in a short length barrel.
But if we boil that down to generalities, yeah, a standard pressure 6.5cm is all you 'need'.
Every review I've seen has noted that the recoil increase going from standard 6.5CM ammo to 6.5CM + Peak ammo was negligble. Certain of these reviews said that 6.5CM + Peak recoil was far less than 6.5 PRC
This is generally going to be true and an unavoidable consequence of physics.
The smaller the case, the less powder it'll take to hit a given speed (speed, not pressure) and the lower powder charge means less total weight of bullet and expanding gas (aka 'ejecta mass').
Basically if you have two different caliber rifles that each weigh 10 pounds and one has a bullet plus powder charge of, say, 200 grains, and the other has a bullet plus powder charge of 210 grains (like a 6.5cm with a 153 and 47 grains of powder vs a 6.5prc with a 153 and 57 grains, just making numbers up)......the latter, even if they produce the same speed, will have 5% more recoil than the former.