New rifle! Ammo recommendations!

Just got a Ruger 6.5 creedmoor 22” barrel, need ammo recommendations for white tail.

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I guess I should say anything out to 300 yds.

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Nice piece of hardware.

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Sorry, no recommendations, but you sure are making me jealous! :sunglasses:

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@PossumSlayer1 First, pull the action from the stock and use a heavy oil or gun and choke grease on all outside metal you cannot see. (I clean guns for people and this is one most forgotten areas, the bolt is another). Second, check all the screws, do not trust the factory. (remember the Monday and Friday thing). :roll_eyes:
Third, go to the ammo store and buy 5 to 6 boxes of different premium brand ammo and see which one shoots best in “your” rifle.
Deer are not that hard to kill so any accurate premium soft point ammo will work, shoot, shoot and shoot.
Have fun. :+1:

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You hunting on the plains?

I’m in Michigan and typically took two guns with me when deer opener was an annual event. A Remington 600 to carry in the bush and on drives (spent the most time beating bushes for the old timers who were set up on the rail road or two tracks… I bet @BRUCE26 knows that kind of hunt) and I brought a dialed in 25-06 and set up on the power lines or across the draws hoping for a 300 yard+ shot.

More often then not I would come home tired and shoot a deer out of the corn or beans next door with a slug. In fact they are out there right now.

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I am a big fan of the Hornaday SST (Super Shock Tip) line. It is their interlock round with a red polymer tip that drives expansion. Decent Ballistic Coefficent for a hunting round that will maximize the capabilities of the 6.5 CM. Good luck and have fun with it all.

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About the only thing I could find that wasn’t ridiculously priced was Federal Nontypical.

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That round is not bad at all. It is a good, solid hunting round.

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It’s zeroed in at three hundred yards now, got dark on us … gonna try 600 yards next week :grin:.
I’m in Tennessee there are some huge soybean fields down here.

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Just try not to miss the one that comes out at 50yds, seen that done. LOL. :roll_eyes:

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Been there done that! :joy:

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Haven’t we all. :rofl:

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A man will admit it :man_facepalming:t3:

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FIRST do what @BRUCE26 said paying special attention to torquing your rifle back into the stock, in steps, to somewhere north of 60+ in/lbs alternating between screws of course. Then scrubby the bore to new metal and leave it dry for range trip #1.

For a hunting gun I would buy 60 rounds of cheap read that “Crap” ammo and very carefully shoot no more than 5 shot strings. Get it on paper and stop screwing with the scope. Conceptually that will take less than 4 - 5 rounds. Put up a fresh target and shoot 5 shots SLOW fire like a minute between each. DO NOT TOUCH THE SCOPE. Put up a new target and do this again. Do it again. Do it again. You should be into your second box of ammo.

Clean the bore with OIL not ANY type of copper solvent. Patch until dry.

Begin again. You will notice a point of impact shift that will slowly come back to where you stopped at the first iteration. You should also note an appreciable decrease in group size going forward.

When you get to the last 10 rounds STOP, let the rifle rest and make ONE adjustment to your scope (either windage OR elevation) to get you nearer to point of aim / point of impact (POA / POI). Fire ONE round. Did the adjustment you made to the scope correspond to what you are seeing on paper? If so make the second adjustment on the OTHER dial. Did that work? If so continue on until you are hitting about 1 - 1 1/2" ABOVE your point of aim. If at all possible save 3 - 4 rounds for the next range trip.

The most important round out of a hunting (or any other) rifle is the first one. So you want to know where the last round you fired with said ammo hit, then you can expect the next round to go in the same place. If you have the same ammo from the previous shoot you can verify your cold bore shot.

THIS IS THE HARD PART

DO NOT under ANY circumstances touch the bore of the rifle when you go home. No bore snakes, not patches, no cleaning NOTHING. Clean the face of the bolt, wipe it down, do what ever to the outside but DO NOT TOUCH the BORE.

Now decide on what you want to hunt with and go buy 2 boxes of it, if possible buy the same MFG’r as the crap ammo you have already shot through the gun, they generally use the same jacket material from top end to bottom end. This is important because a different jacket will fly differently out of some bores. (I can shoot Berger or Hornandy out of my stick interchangeably but stuff a Sierra in there and it goes all wonky for a while.)

Take your left over rounds from Range Day #1 and fire them into the same type target you were using previously with the same POA, you should have the same POI.

Put up a new target, open BOTH boxes of ammo and take a round from one and shoot it. Wait a minute and take a round from the other box and shoot it. HOPEFULLY they land in the same spot even though it may not be the same spot as the crap ammo. Make adjustments to your scope using the single change method as above while using “Right Box” “Left Box” alternating boolits. If the Force is with you the boolits will all be going into the same hole.

STOP at 20 rounds fired if all is well cool and Scooby with the gang. You now have 20 rounds for hunting season and a rifle that is zero’d for those rounds.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT CLEAN THE BORE!!!

Your rifle has a bore life of about 2,000 - 2,500 rounds. Those rounds go fast when you are not paying attention or when you hot feed it. After the 70 ish rounds you fired your bore is seasoned and stable and as long as you keep out of the bore it will remain cold bore shot accurate with the same ammo for about 700 rounds.

When accuracy starts to fall off, NOW you can clean the bore.

If for some reason you HAVE to clean the bore after the above you can expect to expend 50+ rounds to get it back to where you were before you cleaned it.

Cheers,

Craig6

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In 6.5mm caliber, you would have to look hard to find a better deer bullet than the Nosler Partition of 140 grain weight. I reload all of my hunting ammo, I haven’t used “store-bought” hunting ammo since the mid-1970s.

My most recent local deer fell to this bullet from a Ruger 77R in 6.5 x 55.

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I absolutely recommend you get some ammo. Not much of a hunt without it!

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For white tail I use 125 grain Nosler Partitions in my 6.5 Creedmoor. Very accurate and deadly out to 350 yards.

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