The lesser charge is a flatter, close group load. Overall Practicality: For the experienced Long Range hunter, I think this is a great caliber to consider. If you are looking for exceptional, hard-hitting, flat performance, you might want to consider the .300 PRC. Length: 7" or 9". Barrel Life: Because of the smaller powder volume and lower MVs, you can expect to see about 3,000 rounds out of your barrel. The round easily has enough energy to kill whitetail deer at 300 yards. and MV do. Most modern shooters are very familiar with the AR-15 design. Most of the calculators out there show larger drop rates then your table. Your email address will not be published. They will also fit any .308 Winchester bolt face; meaning that to obtain a 6.5CM, all you need to do is swap a barrel, making this cartridge extremely modular across bolt and gas guns. I personally find it MUCH easier to handload very accurate .30-06 loads than very accurate .308 loads in typical budget hunting rifles. Using Berger 140gr VLD projectiles G1: 0.593 G7: 0.304, Muzzle: 2,266 ft-lbs 500m: 1,174 ft-lbs 1,000m: 535 ft-lbs 1,500m: 296 ft-lbs. 1,000m: 1,287 ft-lbs. throwing a 55-gr. Taking the original .300 Ruger Compact Magnum and necking down to accept the 6.5CM projectiles, Hornady could fire the same projectiles as the 6.5CM but with 250 fps added MV. It hits hard and flies flat and straight. All in all, this caliber is excellent for those of you who do not have the time, money, or training to dive into 1000m+ shooting. Thinking that its deficiencies compared to newer calibers are mainly its moderate BC bullets due to cartridge length, I thought I might try reloading long with something like the 225gr ELDM. I had read other raving reviews about the 6.5 Creedmoor but I really didnt expect it to be the top choice of an experienced marine who had used the .308. Ammo Availability: .243 Winchester is still a viable option for most East Coast White Tails and Mid-West Prairie Dogs. With a muzzle brake and/or suppressor, the recoil is definitely manageable. But after finally diving into the 6.5, its clear why it has become so popular. Is it possible to show those on your web site list? The flattest-shooting cartridges usually have Nosler or Weatherby in their name, and the top three flat-shooting cartridges were created by those respected companies. And that my friend required outstanding composition and masterful communication skills, not to mention the aforementioned qualifications. Drift: 56 inches. Availability in stores could be troublesome unless shopping at a Cabelas/Bass Pro Shop. The wildly overbore 6.5-300 Weatherby Magnum wins or places near the top of the flat-shooter podium at most ranges to at least 1,000 yards. You still need excellent range finding equipment and preferably have tested drops in your rifle in case your bullets have exaggerated BC claims. Barrel Life: You can expect roughly 1,500 rounds. Great info but my 7mm rem mag with Nosler 120 grain BT (.417bc) @ 3600fps has anything on this chart beat pretty soundly. Good points, which are all things Ive considered. The big 7mm will recoil more, but you will do better in windy conditions. Its use today is limited to medium to big-game hunting; bolt action only. the 270 Wby is tough to beat with a 130 gr bullet started at 3400-3500 fps. Other than that, the projectiles will always be available. The average price per round is $1.75. I prefer larger calibers for elk, but the .270 is perfectly adequate for elk, and I have personally used it for elk all the way to 400 yards with no problems. The top-end stuff certainly has its gatekeepers. This is one of the flattest shooting bullets available on the market, with a plethora of different size bullets available that range from . BUCK DOYLE Preferred Caliber For 500 To 1,000 Yards And Beyond: .260 Remington (130-grain Berger AR Hybrid OTM Tactical) 7 . This caliber is one of the most popular and widely used centerfire cartridges in the world. Flattest-Shooting Cartridges Ever Backfire 641K subscribers Subscribe 4.2K 173K views 1 year ago The flattest shooting rifle cartridges are listed in this video to help shooters determine. MVs range from 2,500 fps (130gr projectile) to 2,880 fps (90gr projectile). The possibilities are endless with the .223. Therefore the .17 Remington is the round for you. Thanks. Whats not to love? If you are inexperienced, youre in luckbecause todays Long Range shooting community is being flooded by great, streamlined, low-recoiling cartridges. To be fair to the 30-378, itmurders everything else for flatness way out there, staying feet above most other cartridges and carrying enough energy to take a deer at just over 1000 yards. This round is special just like the other 6.5mm projectiles in its class. However, I cant jump fully on board until more bolt action options are available. I see another wildcat come to the limelight. All in all, dont get TOO hung up on MVs. A pencil barrel and light-weight wooden stock, the .308 can feel pretty sharp. Either way it is flexible for your mission. The .300 Norma Magnum comes to us from the .338 Norma Magnum, necked down to accept a .30 cal projectile. 1,500m: 610 ft-lbs. It offers exceptional accuracy and a decent range for shooters who do not have Long Range facilities available. My background comes from the military sniper community where our gear was never the best. The .260 also made a name in the hunting community as well, so finding it on the shelves is no problem. I would guess that every Walmart in the United States carries .243 Winchester. LR performance is very impressive. They will also fit any .308 Winchester bolt face; meaning that to obtain a 6.5CM, all you need to do is swap a barrel, making this cartridge extremely modular across bolt and gas guns. Ammo Availability: The 6.5 Grendel can be found on almost all online ammo retailers. 26 Nosler, the . Taking a quick look at how the 22 CM compares to some other cartridges will shine a light on its potential. This basically means the opening of the case where the bullet is seated, is tightened from 6.8mm to 5.7mm. You have more knowledge in your non-dominant pinky than I have. Recoil Condition: Now getting up into the .30 cal plus magnum rounds, the recoil will be noticeably greater than the .308 Winchester. Tikka rifles are excellent shooters. So, if you want to go long, there are some clear choices here. This is the allure and benefit of a flat shooting bullet. A 100 yard miscalculation short or long will vary your hit by a vertical of 2.3-2.9 feet, enough to completely miss or wound the deer. Recoil Condition: A line can be drawn in the sand between the .30 cal class projectiles and the .338 and larger. .338 Lapua is readily available online. Meantime, lets enjoy our deeper dive into flat shooting hunting cartridges (hand carried and shoulder fired. However, for less bullet size, you can get a much better performing Long Range caliberand for a lot less money too. It was designed from the ground up in 2005 by an ammunition manufacturer, Lapua, to take on the 300-1,000 yard competition world. 1,500m: 426 ft-lbs. Below, is an example of a Range Card computed by the Applied Ballistics software. The .300 PRC delivers phenomenal Long Range performance. Cross-Platform Use: .300 PRC is strictly a bolt action caliber at the moment. The .338 Lapua Magnum offers very impressive external and terminal ballistic performancebut at a steep cost. You are looking at the 1,500 to 2,000 round mark for consistent accuracy. What a cool story herethe Norma Magnum comes to us as an improvement on the Lapua Magnum. So having the mission flexibility to own a heavy, long-barreled bolt gun AND a lightweight, semi-auto gas gun that fires the same familiar roundis priceless. My point is, I would sacrifice picking that absolute top-performing round because it most likely will cost you resources that could be used on training or trigger time. But isnt that what makes it awesome? That said, there is very little factory ammo available, and performance is stated to be between the 6.5 Creedmoor and 6.5 PRC, though having loaded for and shot multiple rifles chambered in all these, I can honestly say the 6.5284 Norma is generally AT LEAST the equal of the 6.5 PRC. Shooting any of these calibers across any number of platforms will show that each round feels differently depending on the set-up. Many people found it informative, but some of the hunters wanted to know if you have any statistics available on the calibers as listed above. Pronghorn hunters have driven the search for flatter shooting cartridges for a long time. Basically, whatever Gx model is used, will be the standard bullet profile shape to compare off of. When the Remington 700 and similar actions start chambering in .224, I think the caliber will be a viable option for more experienced re-loaders who are seeking a low-recoiling 1,000-yard build. JOHN BUOL Preferred Caliber For 500 To 1,000 Yards And Beyond: 5.56mm NATO. . Its really tough to spot impacts with that much recoil, and thats becoming increasingly important for shooters. The drops are listed in feet for the really long range shots, so theyre pretty close to your numbers. Mag. Ive posted your article on my wildlife and hunting group on FB. Remaining Energy: Muzzle: 4,029 ft-lbs. With low recoil and flat trajectories, the .260 is another great option for someone interested in Long Range shooting. (Well that largely depends on the shooter). No other caliber on this list can perform more universally across multiple systems than the .308. The .223 is extremely limited in range compared to the other cartridges due to attributes such as the deficiency of mass in the projectile, making the .223 perform poorly in high wind conditions and lack the energy retention to be a great Long Range cartridge. Take the .308 Winchester at 500 for comparison, The level of confidence of a first-round hit at that range is extremely high. This means we can first determine the fastest cartridge in each caliber, then compare it against the fastest in others. .223 Remington/5.56mm, .224 Valkyrie, .243 Winchester, 6mm Creedmoor, 6.5mm Grendel. All same bullets for each of the numbers that are then averaged. Thanks, 26 Nosler 127 gr LRX 3602 Ft./Sec. It's a solid contender for the best deer caliber out to 500 yards. Recoil Condition: Very similar to the Lapua Magnum. Without a muzzle brake or suppressor, the .338 Lapua Magnum offers a challenging recoil experience. Right now, there is no loaded ammo and barely any brass available from Alpha and GAP. At 300 yards it has dropped around 13 inches, and at 500 yards it's just under 60 inches (5 feet). Also because of how popular and available it is, the 6.5 comes in around $0.75 to $1.25 per round, making it very affordable to shoot compared to other high-performing LR calibers. Bolt gun fans are especially in luck because as of right now, the PRC is very limited in the gas-gun world. For someone considering PRS matches, this rifle is not for you. This caliber thrived in the late 20th Century and has since stayed for a reason. 26 Nosler. Real-world shooting of this round is even more impressive. The ballistics coefficient of the bullet (a formula which considers the mass, diameter, and aerodynamic drag of a bullet to understand its ability to fight wind and continue on its path) greatly impacts time of flight because it keeps the bullet from slowing down due to inefficiency of flight. Unlike the previous cartridges, this is the first one that has no parent case. Ammo Availability: This cartridge has been around for a while. Cross-Platform Use: Any bolt gun can be custom chambered to any SAAMI cartridgebut the keyword is custom. Thank you for the time it took to work all this data up in an easy to absorb article, where are you getting your information for the bullet drop? Also, I used something called G1 B.C. cartridges. By the way, while the 6.5-300 has been on the market just five years, Roy was shooting it in the mid-20th century. I've heard the .243 has less drop at 1000 yds than the .308 and it is also less effected by wind. Initial Thoughts: This cartridge is an interesting case of innovation to solve a fairly difficult problem. The goal was to standardize a wildcat cartridge that married the .338 Winchester Magnum and the .375 H&H Magnum. We all have scores of 5.56 mags laying aroundwhy not beef up that system? This can get expensive so choosing my first is very important. (Essentially, you don't have to arc the 300 Win Mag's bullet trajectory in order to strike a target up . What a gentleman. Still not in the magnum range so no worries. 80% more. Also, experience firing large bore calibers is advised. No one can deny how terrific a .300 WM performs at extended range. History: Winchester designed the .300 WSM in 2001 with the idea of a hybrid. When the Remington 700 and similar actions start chambering in .224, I think the caliber will be a viable option for more experienced re-loaders who are seeking a low-recoiling 1,000-yard build. wins again with just 218.5 inches of drop, the 27 Nosler moves into second place with its 150-grain bullet falling only 225.8 inches. Wont do that again. The .260 isnt too informationally unavailable to offer a great learning caliber to the average new shooter. Expect to see about 2,500 round barrel life. Although I dont see this being an entry-level caliber, it could very well lead to a goal for new shooters. One of the most complex and widely debated topics within the modern firearms community is caliber selection for long-range shooting. The .284 Winchester (7MM) is very popular with bench rest shooters. Trajectory is flat. Very modular across nearly any rifle system. Of the large calibers is the 50 BMG the best choice based on ammo cost and availability vs the Chey Tacs and Barrett. Recoil Condition: Getting into the magnum calibers, recoil is going to be noticeably more than the .308 Winchester. For some reason it pushed Noslers 125-gr. Remington 870 Vs. Mossberg 590: Which Pump Shotgun Is Truly Better. This should be recommended reading for all shooters learning to shoot long range shots. This last factor will doom the cartridge, in and of itself if no one else picks up the torch for brass production (which isnt likely). It has flipped positions with the 6.5, losing by a mere 1.4-inches. This site contains affiliate links. Remaining Energy: Muzzle: 4,677 ft-lbs. These cartridges all drop less than 255 at 1,000 yards. For the average shooter looking to get into Long Range shooting, turn away and run to the smaller guys. 218 in. 28 Nosler, the . Velocity, drop, energy and the use of bullets with their own factors which create their ballistic coefficients all should be considered. This old timer remains a phenomenon, flat-shooting and effective. 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