[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

I sometimes wonder if Stephen Hunter reads Higgins' weapons descriptions to gather information for his novels, ha ha!

Originally Posted by id10t

The 6.5mm caliber in general uses long skinny bullets with a great BC and will stay super sonic out to 1000 yards and a little further.

Yup. And, granted, we can do this with any diameter bullet. 220 to 250 grain bullets in .30 caliber, 300 grain bullets in .338 caliber, etc. are endowed with the same very high BC's of the popular 140 grain "VLD" and "secant ogive" bullets used in the 6.5's. The difference is recoil. Lots of recoil. And, since this is a target game, we really don't care how hard it hits, just that it hits. The military, of course, cares, so they continue to use the .30's and .338's. Interestingly, though, with new developments in bullet design for their .300 Winchester Magnums, they are dropping the .338 Lapua. No need for it, nor its recoil anymore.

Originally Posted by id10t

I don't have the $ to play at those ranges, nor do I have a range near by to do so on.

I used to have easy access to a local military 1,000 yard range, but that is long gone. Thus my interest in helping my buddy finish his range. It's about a five hour drive for me, so it's at least a several day commitment to make the most of it, but what the hell - I'm retired.

My next task is to make his range "Sharps friendly", so I don't have to invest in all of the fancy equipment to run a 6.5 Creedmoor properly. The glass is the most expensive part, with most of the scopes that are really suitable for this going anywhere from $3k and up. That's just too big of an investment with nowhere nearby to use it.

Originally Posted by id10t

But 22lr at 200 yards can get you close to the same experience at a fraction of the price.

At the height of my long range match shooting, a bunch of us purchased .22 caliber barrel liners from one Lee Shaver. Pretty cool stuff - it's simply a .22 caliber barrel about 20" long with half a dozen yellow foam ear plugs with holes punched through them that are slipped over it to keep it centered in either a .45 or .40 caliber bore. This is screwed into a hollow steel chamber plug that mimics a .45-70 or .40-65 shell casing, and the whole works is simply slipped into the barrel and chamber from the breech end. The actual .22 chamber is offset a bit in this thing, so the rifle's firing pin will strike the rim of the case. The whole setup is very well made and works quite well.

We used these for exactly what you describe - 200 yard shooting. We found that this does, in fact, present all of the same challenges that shooting suitable centerfires at long range presents. It proved to be great practice, and a lot of fun to boot.