07-10-2023, 06:04 AM
Bassfish, there are 2 powders for 6.5 CM - H4350 and everything else. You'll find plenty of people on the internet who have gotten another powder to work, but you won't find many who haven't gotten H4350 to work. Its extremely temp insensitive and also gives near top velocities. You'll have to pay up for it a little, but it is consistently available at Powder Valley. I've tried a bunch of the others, but have simply wasted a bunch of components and barrel life and come back to H4350.
If you want to minimize the components you use, go with small rifle primer CM brass and forget about large primers. Primers are the one thing we all keep the deepest stock on. I shoot a 6.5 CM gas gun for PRS and am still only using LRP's because I have about 3k left over from when I stocked deep the last time the primer market eased . It pains me that my current brass is starting to loosen and that I'm going to buy more LRP brass to use them up in the near future, but if primers were 4 cents apiece like they used to be, I'd stick them in a corner of my closet and use Fed AR Match primers like I use in all of my small frames (ARC, Grendel, 223 and 6x45).
Search the web and you'll see they actually give you slightly better SD's and velocity, but more importantly, longer primer pocket life (due to more metal surrounding the pocket). The one beef against SRPs in 6.5 CM is potential ignition problems in the cold, but I don't think you'll find anyone using H4350 reporting that as a problem unless you're spending the night with them in a tent in freezing temperatures. Using a ball powder could be a different story. All in all, though, if you're looking to minimize your "reloading SKUs", that woud be the direction to go in.
If you want to minimize the components you use, go with small rifle primer CM brass and forget about large primers. Primers are the one thing we all keep the deepest stock on. I shoot a 6.5 CM gas gun for PRS and am still only using LRP's because I have about 3k left over from when I stocked deep the last time the primer market eased . It pains me that my current brass is starting to loosen and that I'm going to buy more LRP brass to use them up in the near future, but if primers were 4 cents apiece like they used to be, I'd stick them in a corner of my closet and use Fed AR Match primers like I use in all of my small frames (ARC, Grendel, 223 and 6x45).
Search the web and you'll see they actually give you slightly better SD's and velocity, but more importantly, longer primer pocket life (due to more metal surrounding the pocket). The one beef against SRPs in 6.5 CM is potential ignition problems in the cold, but I don't think you'll find anyone using H4350 reporting that as a problem unless you're spending the night with them in a tent in freezing temperatures. Using a ball powder could be a different story. All in all, though, if you're looking to minimize your "reloading SKUs", that woud be the direction to go in.
#FJB