bruce drake
05-12-2012, 11:09 AM
So I have a spare 260 Remington Large Ring Barrel (the one I buggered the chamber up a few months ago) and I decided that it wasn't going to waste the barrel so I had a friend with a lathe trim the end back .250" and recut a new shoulder on the barrel as well (it still has 4 complete threads) to rechamber it for the shorter 6.5 Creedmoor.
So yesterday while I was waiting for the movers to come do the site survey of the house for the move to Kansas I was in the garage puttering around putting things to order and I saw the barrel just laying there on the shelf with the other spare barrels and I figured the only way I was going to move forward with the project was if I actually spun on it on an action.
So out comes the barrel and out comes the Yugo 48 Action that it will be going on (the same one I originally had setup for the 260 Rem project) and I proceeded to spin the old 8mm Mauser barrel off (anyone need a nearly new Large Ring Yugo 48 Mauser 8mm Mauser barrel?) and cranked on the 6.5 barrel. I have a barrel wrench and barrel vice mounted on my work bench so swapping barrels is just a matter of time getting it setup properly.
Afterwards, I knew the chamber was close to the proper 6.5 creedmore dimensions already but I wanted to do a quick check but I didn't have the dies yet (dies and brass are due in next week from Brownells. - FFL Collector discount dropped 10% off the price of Midway's and Midsouth's ) so I then took a 22-250 case out of a box on the shelf and then necked it up with a 260 Rem sizer die and then seated a 120gr Hornady A-Max with the 260 Rem seater die to make a 6.5x250 dummy (the 260 Rem dies did nothing to the shoulder angle of the original 22-250 case). So I then placed the 6.5x250 cartridge into the magazine of the assembled Mauser and cycled the bolt to feed the dummy case into the chamber. The bolt would not close on the cartridge (which I expected, but I figured I'd see if it headspaced immediately - a proverbial luck of the draw sometimes) but the bolt is only a couple of thousandths off from headspacing as the bolt stops at about the 12:30 position so the remaining bit will be shaved out of the chamber later this week to allow the bolt to fully close at the 3 o'clock setting. Of course this was taking eyeball measurements with the modified 6.5x250 case which has a different shoulder angle than the 6.5 Creedmore (its also about .008 of an inch shorter than the Creedmoor) but since the 22-250 is one of the parent cases of the 6.5 Creedmoor it should be pretty close.
The 6.5 Creedmoor was designed to operate in AR10s and Short Action rifles so the shorter cartridge length should operate well in this rechambered barrel. Most of the production rifles in this chamber have 1-8 twist barrels but this barrel is set at 1-9 from the original setup for 260 Rem but it should operate just fine with the same bullet weight range as the 260 Rem (90-140gr). My personal 6.5 mold is a Lymans 266469 at 140gr but I also have a Herters 257 caliber 90gr mold (thanks to TwoTrees for the mold) that someone had recut two of the driving bands to .266 at sometime in the past that throws a 105gr boolit out as well to experiment with.
Cycling and loading the 6.5x250 dummy cases in another Yugo 48 8mm Mauser that I have showed no problems with the feeding from the magazine into the chamber so I expect that once the rifle is headspaced it should be a light, trim woods/target rifle. I have a Lyman 57 rear sight and Springfield 03A3 front sight mounted on the Creedmoor rifle and barrel so it should be a nice rifle to play with on Kansas ranges and woods.
Of course I realized afterwards I should probably have been taking pictures of the rifle and for the forum, but I'll try to make up for that when the rental reamer and gauges show up next week.
Bruce
So yesterday while I was waiting for the movers to come do the site survey of the house for the move to Kansas I was in the garage puttering around putting things to order and I saw the barrel just laying there on the shelf with the other spare barrels and I figured the only way I was going to move forward with the project was if I actually spun on it on an action.
So out comes the barrel and out comes the Yugo 48 Action that it will be going on (the same one I originally had setup for the 260 Rem project) and I proceeded to spin the old 8mm Mauser barrel off (anyone need a nearly new Large Ring Yugo 48 Mauser 8mm Mauser barrel?) and cranked on the 6.5 barrel. I have a barrel wrench and barrel vice mounted on my work bench so swapping barrels is just a matter of time getting it setup properly.
Afterwards, I knew the chamber was close to the proper 6.5 creedmore dimensions already but I wanted to do a quick check but I didn't have the dies yet (dies and brass are due in next week from Brownells. - FFL Collector discount dropped 10% off the price of Midway's and Midsouth's ) so I then took a 22-250 case out of a box on the shelf and then necked it up with a 260 Rem sizer die and then seated a 120gr Hornady A-Max with the 260 Rem seater die to make a 6.5x250 dummy (the 260 Rem dies did nothing to the shoulder angle of the original 22-250 case). So I then placed the 6.5x250 cartridge into the magazine of the assembled Mauser and cycled the bolt to feed the dummy case into the chamber. The bolt would not close on the cartridge (which I expected, but I figured I'd see if it headspaced immediately - a proverbial luck of the draw sometimes) but the bolt is only a couple of thousandths off from headspacing as the bolt stops at about the 12:30 position so the remaining bit will be shaved out of the chamber later this week to allow the bolt to fully close at the 3 o'clock setting. Of course this was taking eyeball measurements with the modified 6.5x250 case which has a different shoulder angle than the 6.5 Creedmore (its also about .008 of an inch shorter than the Creedmoor) but since the 22-250 is one of the parent cases of the 6.5 Creedmoor it should be pretty close.
The 6.5 Creedmoor was designed to operate in AR10s and Short Action rifles so the shorter cartridge length should operate well in this rechambered barrel. Most of the production rifles in this chamber have 1-8 twist barrels but this barrel is set at 1-9 from the original setup for 260 Rem but it should operate just fine with the same bullet weight range as the 260 Rem (90-140gr). My personal 6.5 mold is a Lymans 266469 at 140gr but I also have a Herters 257 caliber 90gr mold (thanks to TwoTrees for the mold) that someone had recut two of the driving bands to .266 at sometime in the past that throws a 105gr boolit out as well to experiment with.
Cycling and loading the 6.5x250 dummy cases in another Yugo 48 8mm Mauser that I have showed no problems with the feeding from the magazine into the chamber so I expect that once the rifle is headspaced it should be a light, trim woods/target rifle. I have a Lyman 57 rear sight and Springfield 03A3 front sight mounted on the Creedmoor rifle and barrel so it should be a nice rifle to play with on Kansas ranges and woods.
Of course I realized afterwards I should probably have been taking pictures of the rifle and for the forum, but I'll try to make up for that when the rental reamer and gauges show up next week.
Bruce