A friend of mine hunted elk (moose) in Finland - - I am told they call moose "elk" there - - anyhow, a few years back, he put two rounds into his moose when he was stationed there. Don't know the details of his load, how far or how much tracking they had to do, the ranges he was hunting at, or anything else except that he did send me a photo of a dead moose. Of course, being in Finland, his 6.5 is a Sako, not a Husqvarna.

I reckon if you load a good bullet, spend some time exercising good field craft, and make a good shot, then an elk should end up going down. Not sure what kind of ranges you mean when you say cross-canyon shooting, but 350 yards might be a bit of a stretch for a reliable one-shot stop with a 6.5x55... I would be interested in hearing the opinions of others that have first hand experience with the cartridge as well.

 

6.5x55 on elk would be fine if your good at placing the bullet where you want or need, I have hunted elk my entire life and used the 25-06, 30-06, 300WM and the 338WM.... All of them worked fine within their limitations and I would not hesitate the use of any of them or the 6.5x55, but one thing to remember is that elk are much larger than whitetail or mule-deer and can be a bit more difficult to put down for good if something goes wrong. With lot of practice and knowing your rifle and bullet, which I would probably go 120 grains minimum in the 6.5x55. Not sure how long of a distance your shooting across a canyon but this is where the heavy hitter really work well.

 

Same answer regardless of caliber,,,how good a shot are you? 6.5X55 is a very good killer of game. It's balistics are between .243 and .308win. Again, the answer to your question, only you know.

I have used the 6.5X55 to shoot wild goat and pigs, and I believe it to be very good for that purpose, and I wouldn't hesitate to use it on deer up to Red at moderate range. For the shot on the game you describe above, I would think a minimum of 300 mag, and then, only in the hands of an expert rifleman.
Just my opinion, and we all know what that's worth.

Cheers,
Mark.

 

Oz, you have a very good opinions in my book. The reason I said in my last post, where the heavy hitters really work well, what I mean by this is, well heavy hitters like in the 300 and 338 Winchester magnums. If I think back to when I shot elk with the 25-06 all my shots were under 100 yards with 117 grain bullets, 30-06 I don't think any of the shots were under 200 and not over 230 yards with 180 grain bullets. I have only killed one elk with the 300 mag and it was over 200 yards but the bulk of my elk have been with the 338 mag and I have shot anywhere from 10 yards to 500+ yards with many different types of bullets and weights and my favorite is the Sierra 250 grain Spitzer boat tail Game Kings. The bull in my avatar was only a 202 yard shot and I used a Hornady 225 grain interlock and to be honest the bullets "2" failed even though they killed the bull and I was lucky to get him and this is because I broke his back twice, and he was still trying to drag himself away. Elk especially bulls can be one tough animal with a will to live another season. Don't use a rifle that will do the job when things goes right, use a rifle that will do the job when things go wrong.

 

Ditto with Janott- use enough gun for that 350 yd shot. The 6.5x55 is a great cartridge but there are far better choices. In Europe the usual hunting load for the 6.5 is a long 160 grain bullet. Most rifles have a fast twist and prefer heavy bullets. Even so- I think its marginal for Elk and especially at that range. I have a 6.5 myself- by Mauser. It likes every bullet I've tried in it.

M

 

At that range, a 300gr X bullet launched at about 2800+ fps from a .416 Remington magnum aimed at the chest will result in an instant kill on elk. :biggrin:

I'm not so confident with the 6.5x55 at that range. A tough beast with incredible stamina, a wounded elk will run all day and over the next mountain range. Good luck tracking it through the timber. But the 6.5x55 is one classy caliber, tho. :flute:

 

A couple things you really have going for you with a 6.5x55 is that the ballistic coefficient and sectional density of the heavier rounds really helps make up for what it may lack in diameter. It will retain velocity over a longer distance because those bullets over 140 gr. get pretty long and efficient throught the air. Also once tehy reach their target, the smaller frontal area with all that weight behind it, tends to penetrate a lot deeper than larger calibers in the same bullet weight. Double lunging an elk at 300-350 yds is definitely doable with the 6.5. It might be a bit better in a more modern action where you could run some even warmer loads in it, butthe real beauty of the round is that is it very efficient even at moderate velocities.

Again, shot placement is king, but the round is capable.

 

I have to agree with Doc. I am understanding the Huskvarna is an ex military rifle. It is surprising what can be done with the 6.5x55, I myself have shot red Deer although we must by law use a minimum of 7mm these days. (no exception) Red deer is roughly the same size as elk, I used a 160gr RWS and the shot was over 250 yards (just). People do not realise that with such a high BC and SD the 160gr pill will just burrow through the target. I actually shoot 600 yard comp with the 6.5x55 and also 1000 yard comp with it as well albeit with 140gr HPBT bullets. Just don't under estimate the caliber. As has been pointed out it is used quite regularly in the Scandanavian countries.
My 2 cents worth.

 

6.5x55, If it were me with my experience on elk, I wouldn't unless it was a .264 in the Winchester magnum for across canyon shots. 6.5 is a good caliber but more capable being pushed much harder. This is the reason most rifle cartridges were stretched out and in some cases turned in to belted magnums, is for those extra long shots. The heavier bullets do have a higher BC and this is best for faster traveling bullets but the BC really drops off if you start with the lighter bullets and I believe it tops off in the .264 at 140 grains before dropping again. Rifles have a happy medium in bullets either being to light or to heavy.

 

My first serious deer rifle was a 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser that had been nicely sporterized by Kimber. It had the original barrel it left Sweden with.

It would shoot very well with most any 140 grain load I tried. It did well with 130's like Hornady's Light Magnum. It didn't do so hot with 120 grains.

I took a number of deer with it. Recoil was mild compared to other rifles, with what seemed like very good penetration and killing ability.

I've never even seen an elk up close. I'd go with Janott as he's hunted them a lot. He's a pretty straight shooter.

When they use this caliber in Europe, they tend for heavy bullets and closer shots, not unlike our .30-30 with 170's, except it's a 6.5 with a 140 or 160. The bullet drops a bit more than a .270, a bit less than a .30-30 in this respect.

A lighter bullet isn't really what you would want in this caliber; it earned it's stripes on the bigger stuff using the heavies, which don't shoot as flat.

It's an easy cartridge to reload, recoil is mild, and it IS a good round. I'm just not seeing it as a long range elk round.

 

I took my daughter elk hunting this year and she used my 7x57 and this is a bit bigger than the 6.5x55 but very similar in ballistics's and although it is a very good elk cartridge I would not want to use it much past 200/250 max yards and we were using the 140 grain bullets and they really start to drop past 200 yards just like most other rifles and some go to 300 before they start a more rapid decent to earth. The OP "Littlemarlin" wondered if the 6.5x55 would drop the bull of his dreams at say 350 yards if it was standing perpendicular, well if it were me and I saw a big bull that far away and I had a 6.5x55 in my hands I would be getting a lot closer and not chance wounding and loosing the bull. But I myself would probably be hunting with my 338 Winchester magnum shooting Sierra 250 grain SBT bullets at 2800FPS and zeroed at 15 yards it would drop 2" at 350 yards and have over 2900 energy foot pounds, and the results would be elk in the freezer DRT.:biggrin:

 

My very first hunting rifle was a 6.5x55 Husqvarna that my Dad sporterized for me in 1959. In 1963, I swapped it for a guitar in Alexander, Maine and Dad gave me my sporterized Persian Carbine I have written so much about in these pages. Curious about the history of your Swede, Lilmarlin.

I shot a cow elk a few years ago with a cast bullet from a 32Spl around 150 yards. Know your rifle and place your shots. Practice, practice, practice. The old timers were making some fabulous shots long before our time with a lot less power than most of us take to the field today. They shot what they had and filled the pantries. The 338 and other mags are better long distance rounds but not the only way to go.

Jeff
NRA Life

 

Only if your willing to practice a lot and know your distance.

 

EXACTLY!

Jeff
NRA Life

 

One-hundred-ten years after creation, the 6.5x55 is still the standard Scandinavian round for competitive shooting and is, perhaps, the most popular hunting cartridges in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The reasons for the popularity of this cartidge are obvious: Moderate velocity and a long, heavy bullet generate mild recoil with unusually deep penetration. These are often decisive factors toward good shooting, a quick kill and thereby a successful hunt.

Most consider the 6.5x55, using properly constructed bullets, to be fully adequate for all Scandinavian game, from blackcock to moose. The fact that, annually, 6.5x55 rifles in the hands of competent hunters account for tens of thousands of moose in Norway and Sweden supports this contention.

6,5x55 Swedish Mauser | Norma Precision - ammunition

 

We never hear about the one's that got away or were lost.:hmmmm:

 

Well you know that if ONE person shoots an animal with a certain caliber they are now the expert of that caliber. That being said....I have hunted deer and elk with the 6.5x55. I hunt deer with 120gr bullet and with elk 140 grain... I have shot a couple of elk with this caliber.... 1 at about 50 yards and the other about 100 yards... With the load that I handload...about 2350 ft/lbs at muzzle..... Colorado DOW would like 1500 lbs at impact to cleanly kill elk. I know old timers shot them with a whole lot smaller loads... I shot one with a 35 rem. at 120 yards.... way under 1500 ft/lbs.. and had pass thru........ But at shoot one at 300-350 yards with an 6.5x55??? I (speaking just for Alvan) would pass on that one..... Alvan

 

Under perfect conditions and ranges less than 200 yards, and a shooter that is very familiar with his rifle, I would say yes to the 6.5x55. But......as we all know, when hunting there are very few times when conditions are prefect. That's where the problems start popping up with a small caliber rifle on big game.
I have shot several elk including a 394" bull elk and if I was looking at the bull of my dreams across a canyon at 350 yards the little 6.5x55 would not be my caliber of choice. If you are serious about elk hunting.......look for something with enough punch to take that elk of a life time when conditions are not perfect.

 

"a 394" bull elk"

That's a BIG elk! Congrats. :beerglass:

Shot my bull elk with a 7mm using a 175 grain bullet - penetration was complete. Death was quick. The 7mm isn't much bigger diameter than a 6.5mm. The 6.5 wouldn't be my first choice, but yeah, I'd hunt elk with it.

Regards, Guy

 

Those little .264 bullets of 140 and up penitrate very good. I have a Sweed but only killed deer with it. Always goes thru even south to north shots all pass thru. 350 yds is a long way on elk. I would sneak up closer, that is what hunting is all about.

 

I have shot large bodied whitetail with 139 grainers out of 6.5x55, they are not as big as an elk, but with a little bigger slug and a good placement it should be doable.

 

I started elk hunting when I was 18. At the time, I dated a girl who had already killed six elk before we had met. She did it with a Mannlicher-Schoenauer carbine in 6.5mm Mannlicher. I saw her kill two more elk with that rifle. One was shot at around 150 yards and it just laid down on its broken shoulder and died. The other was shot at a tick over 250 yards and it ran about 75 yards after being double-lunged by the little 6.5mm.

Before her untimely death at the hands of an intoxicated driver, she had taken 8 elk, 4 caribou, 12 deer, 1 moose, and a sample of African plains game including two eland, all with her little Mannlicher.

The Swedish version, I think, has a tad more ooomph than the 6.5mm M/S round.

Would I bring a 6.5mm to elk camp? If I had a rifle I liked and shot well that happened to be chambered for it, to elk camp it would come. But then, I've only killed 16 of them, with four falling to .495" patched round balls from my caplock .50 Great Plains Rifle, and about a half-dozen dying very dead after a poke in the lungs with 170 grain Core Lokts from my 336, so I'm not inclined to think I need a medium bore magnum because I haven't need one in the past. I've killed a few with a .270, and the most powerful gun I've ever taken to elk camp was a .30-'06. Also, in the sixteen seasons that I actively pursued elk, the longest shot I ever took on one was about 250 yards, and that was with a .270. One shot, one kill. I don't think the results would have been different if I were packing a 6.5mm Swede instead. I'm pretty sure I could have killed every elk I've taken with one if I would have happened to have one in my hands at the time.

T-C

 

The Swede is completely fine for Elk, I would shoot it out to 250 yards or so but as always its more fun to try to get a little closer. One of the best calibers out there for sure.
Back home in Sweden they hunt everything up to huge moose with this caliber without any problem, because of how excellent the bullet is in this caliber it penetrates way way more than you would think.

 

T-C thats a sad story. S.

 

T-C thats a sad story. S.

Yes, indeed. It is even sadder than you think. When she was 14, the girl that I mentioned lost her mother to a traffic collission caused by an intoxicated driver. When she met the same fate, her father swallowed the barrels of an A y A No. 2 and killed himself. I guess the grief was more than he could bear.

I wrote all about it in an short story called "San Gabriel Days" that ran in California Fly Fisher. That story is how I got in to the outdoors journalism business. She always said that she believed that I could make it as a writer. I never would have thought that she would provide the story that made it happen. There isn't anything I wouldn't give if giving it could bring her back.

That girl taught me how to fly fish. Her dad bought my first fly rod for me -a U.S. made Fenwick "World Class" that I still own and fish with, some 30 years later. I learned fly tying from her, too. And my first elk hunt was with her. We traveled to Colorado to a place her dad told me about. It was a "glory hole" but I've never really been able to go back there since she died. Someday, maybe....

But we were quite the pair. We both thought it was fate that brought us together, with her being the 6.5 mm Mannlicher totin' "Poor Old Momma" to my Griffin and Howe Springfield totin' wannabe Hemingway self. Her father was one of the wealthiest men I've ever known personally, and probably one of the most generous and compaasionate souls I've ever met. He could afford to buy nice ordinance and to him, a 6.5 mm Mannlicher was a proper rifle for a young sportswoman. The only reason I had a Griffin and Howe Springfield is becuase I acquired it through the widow of my pediatirc dentist. They were childless and they knew I liked to hunt, so when the Doc passed away, his wife asked me if I'd like to have his rifle. He hunted every year and had taken game on five contitnents, but he only owned that one rifle. He had a Parker VHE shotgun, a Smith and Wesson .22 target revolver, and the Griffin and Howe. She thought about giving the Griffin and Howe to me, but figured I'd be inclined to treat it the way Doc did if I paid her "a little something" for it. The "little something" we agreed to was $250.00, which was the street price of a new Ruger M-77 at the time, if you caught one on sale in my area. I paid for the rifle in installments, as I didn't really even have the $250.00 to spend. But I got to take the rifle and use it while I paid for it. I met my Mannlicher totin' sweetheart shortly after that -about two or three weeks after I got the Springfield. I met her on a cycling path. She was in to bicycle racing, as I was at the time, and she actually passed me when I was out on a training ride. Anyhow, I caught up to her later. Some guy had got on her rear wheel and was drafting off of her and he caused her to crash and left her there with a mangled rear wheel and a gash in her thigh from the chainring. I stopped to help her, and that's how we met. When I found out that she was a fly fisher and hunter and had been to Africa twice, I could'nt help but fall in love.

I've spent the last thirty years missing her every single day. I suppose I always will.

T-C

 

Thanks for sharing T-C. It's a hard story to read. S.

 

AMEN! But it is those stories that shape our character and steer our lives - and the lives of those we come in contact with. You have just brought her to life, for sharing with us. Thus, she lives on. As long as those of us who remain continue to share the stories of those having crossed our paths, they all live on and become known to others. It's tough sometimes, when those parties mean so much to us, but oh what a feeling to know you've made someone's life just a little better from having heard about ............

Thank you, T-C, that was a fine job of sharing.

Jeff
NRA Life

 

sp

They all do live on! , I lost my late wife and mother one month apart, my father a few years later. But they all live on, as long as we think of them and remember