6.5 Rem mag...what happened to it?

Remington seems to have a habit of coming up with a fine cartridge (6mm vs. 243 Win) but then matching that cartridge in the wrong firearm- wrong barrel twist or barrel length.
According to the theory the Rem 6.5 mag is significantly faster than the Swede and since foot pounds is highly based on velocity it ought to be better. The bullet ought to be very good.
On the reloading- most of us reload for every rifle we have anyway so that isn't that big an issue.
 
I'm not sure the Model 7 action could stand the pressure of a magnum type round
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Maybe you aren't sure, but I, and Remington are absolutely positive it can!

Original rifles it was chambered in had obnoxious recoil.
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If you think the 6.5Mag is bad, DO NOT SHOOT A .350!

I have model 600 series rifles in .222, .243, 6mm, .308, & .350 Mag. The only one still on my want list is the 6.5mm.

The only "lack of delivery, or lack of performance" the Rem short mags had was in comparison to larger cased magnum rounds, fired out of longer barrels.

Even out of the 600 carbines, they deliver more than standard rounds, from the same rifles.

The 600, and those short mags failed commercially, only because they were well ahead of the public's acceptance. The buying public was, at the time, magnum crazy, and "magnums" had belts. And if it was a magnum, but didn't measure up against the .264, 7mm and .300s, it wasn't really a magnum, so why bother? That was the attitude common enough to doom them, commercially. And for the 6.5mm in particular, the US has never been a big market for any 6.5mm caliber. Only the Swede, and then almost never outside of one of the milsurp swede rifles.

Savy shooters, know how good that bore size can be, but most simply don't bother to learn.
 
Friends of mine had a .350. It was brutal with full bore ammo.
He loaded it down to between .35 Rem and. 350 and had a great deer cartridge and gun.
 
44, I have 2 .350 Rem mags. There was a reason for it to recoil because it was a dangerous game rifle. The 6.5 was obnoxious for no good reason.
 
It was marketed to be a guide rifle, including brown bear guides. It was marketed as a bear hunting rifle. I was not referring to Nyati or Elephants. I do not think anything under .375 is marketed to use on them.
 
I've never seen any advertisements marketing it specifically as a guide rifle, just couching it in terms of being suitable for any North American game. But I can see how and why it would have been popular with the Alaska crowd. Much cheaper and easier to obtain than another great Alaska favorite, the .348 Winchester.

You can see a scan of a period advertisement here in the first post:

http://www.marlinowners.com/forum/rifles/146346-blast-past-350-remington-magnum-rides-again.html

Granted, it is a powerful cartridge, but as I noted, Remington's choice of bullets (their primary load was 200 grs) would not have been my first (or even close to first) choice if I were using it against brown bear.

The entire thread I linked above is a pretty interesting read from some people who have extensive experience with the round.
 
Remington seems to have a habit of coming up with a fine cartridge (6mm vs. 243 Win) but then matching that cartridge in the wrong firearm- wrong barrel twist or barrel length.
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The Remington marketing department couldn't sell a bucket of water to a man whose pants were on fire.

You're absolutely right, there's usually some clinker in their choice of twist, bullet weight, styling, something.

According to the theory the Rem 6.5 mag is significantly faster than the Swede
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It should be a bit better. The primary advantage is that it provides these bit better ballistics in a short action. A lot of people still don't get this and a lot more of them didn't get it when the cartridge first came out.

IIRC, the 6.5X55 Swedish was not well known in the US back in 1964. It didn't become popular until the flood of surplus Swedish Mausers arrived in the late 80's. I don't think it was a significant cause of the 6.5 RM's demise.
 
"The Remington marketing department couldn't sell a bucket of water to a man whose pants were on fire."

Well, I'm not sure that I would go that far.

Most companies have had their fair share of "failure" cartridges.

Most of Remington's seem to have come from, as noted, the wrong kind of pairings. The .244/6mm is a particularly good example, as is the 8mm Rem. Mag.

But Remington has also had some real winners...

.223 Remington, .22-250, .25-06, the .35 Remington has held on for decades, but probably their crowning achievement cartridge wise is the 7mm Magnum.
 
The .350 Rem Mag is, essentially the same punch as a .35 Whelen. Now, shoot this out of a carbine that is, on average a couple pounds lighter than the usual rifle in .35 Whelen and its going to have substantially more felt recoil.

Today, I think that a "new" model 600, or a model 7 in .350 with a muzzle brake would be a very good gun, if you could get past the .350 being a moribund round.

Another factor that worked against the 6.5mag was that from a carbine, you don't get as much of the long range performance, which is the big advantage of the 6.5mm bore size.

People were expecting it to be like the .264 Win Mag (26" barrel and all) for performance, and it just simply wasn't.

Add in that is was a proprietary cartridge, with no one but Remington making brass or ammo, no other makers chambering guns for it, it was an uphill struggle from day one, and it simply didn't make it.

a local store had about 10 boxes of 6.5mm Rem Mag ammo the last time I checked. $70 each!:eek:
 
I'm just working off my memory- I might be wrong...but I thought the Rem6mm was slightly better with heavier bullets than the .243 Win but the rate of twist in the rifles was off for best accuracy with the heavier bullet. I think the .280 was slightly better than the .270 Win. but just didn't sell.
The m700 is thought of as a good rifle but Remington misses the boat at times on follow up or marketing, or with the old M700 Trigger.
That said, my 30-06 bolt is a Rem 700.
 
"I might be wrong...but I thought the Rem6mm was slightly better with heavier bullets than the .243 Win but the rate of twist in the rifles was off for best accuracy with the heavier bullet."

The .244 Remington was originally offered as a varmint cartridge only, and had light weight bullets matched to a slower twist rifling.

Hunters saw the .244 as a multipurpose catridge for game up to deer sized animals, but Remington didn't offer the heavier bullets, and hwen they tried handloading, stabilization and accuracy were anssue.

Winchester correctly perceived the desires of hunters, and offered the .243 in a configuration suitable for light bullets for varmint hunting and heavier bullets (up to 115 grains, IIRC) for deer.

It took Remington several years to recognize that they made a mistake (rectified by bringing out the 6mm).
 
Remington made several such mistakes. The .280, the .350 magnum, and one could also say the .222 magnum as well. It seems that they just misjudged what they could accomplish, over and over.
 
The .280 and .350 weren't particularly popular, although the .280 has developed something of a following over the years, just as the 6mm has.

.222 Magnum was moderately popular. Remington originally developed it as a possible military cartridge (the outcome of which was the .223).

It appealed to varmint hunters who wanted the extra range and flatter trajectory that the higher velocity gave. It sold well from its introduction in 1958 until about 1963/64, when Remington introduced the .223 as a commercial version of the Army's new round.

Given the boost by the Army's acceptance, performance that was pretty close to the .222 Mag., and the rapid availability of surplus and wholesale brass and bullets, it was a given that the .223 was going to smoke the .222 Mag and, to a degree, the .222.

A friend's father had a .222 Rem Mag chambered in I think a BSA bolt action that he bought new in the late 1950s or early 1960s. He used it (and still does, I suspect) as a ground hog gun on his farm.
 
"Mike, the only50 thing I have ever shot in my 350's is 250 grain Speer Hot Core spitzer."

Which I don't believe was available until some years after the .350 hit the ground with a resounding thud.

Remington did offer a 250-gr. bullet option starting about 1968, I believe, but apparently velocity was not all that good and people weren't crazy about it because it wasn't offered all that long.

People handloading 250s and heavier quickly found out the same thing -- that those bullets had to be seated progressively deeper in the case to clear the action, impinging on powder space and unnecessarily.

Near the bottom of this page is a good illustration of what I'm talking about:

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth...cs/3167507/all/35_Whelen_310_Woodleigh_16_Twi

The first three are 310-gr. Woodleigh bullets, the last one loaded in the .350 is a 300-gr. Barnes.

That's excessive, but it's illustrative.

But, there's another thing at play here that I've not mentioned...

For whatever reason, American shooters have just never really embraced .35 caliber cartridges.

The most successful .35-cal rifle cartridges are the .35 Remington, which has had a dedicated following as a deer and bear gun, and the .351 Winchester Self Loading, and its biggest user group was police.

The .356 and .358 Winchester rounds never really caught on, nor did the .35 Whelen.

The .35 Winchester Self Loading, the predecessor of the .351, was one of the most dismal failures that Winchester every put out.

The .35 Winchester, in the Model 1895, had a relatively short life, and the .358 Norma Magnum and .35 Newton were flashes in the pan.

Personally I never understood it because the .35 is a good candidate for an all around caliber for most North American hunting.
 
But Remington has also had some real winners...

.223 Remington, .22-250, .25-06, the .35 Remington has held on for decades, but probably their crowning achievement cartridge wise is the 7mm Magnum.
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Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while. ;)

While Remington has developed some winners, they have more than their share of losers, usually for some simple and silly reason.

A good example is the 260 Remington. On paper this would be an ideal deer cartridge. But Remington in its infantile wisdom decided that the default bullet weight should be 140 grains. If it had been 120 grains the 260 would have had a clearly defined niche between the 243 at 100 grains and the 7mm-08 at 140 grains. But no, that would have been far too sensible. Therefore there was no clear difference between the 260 and the established 7mm-08, the 260 never got traction and is all but dead.

Wrong bullet, wrong twist, wrong something.

Another example: the Remington Express combo. There's a big market for first time shotgun buyers for one shotgun that does it all - HD and hunting. Mossberg sells boatloads of shotguns with 18" and 28" two barrel sets. Remington does too - as an exclusive to Cabelas, probably because Cabelas suggested it to them before it dawned on them that this might be a good idea.

Don't get me started on the 710 / 770. :rolleyes:
 
"While Remington has developed some winners, they have more than their share of losers, usually for some simple and silly reason."

I've already covered that.

Every company has winners, every company has losers. Hopefully the winners generally out number the losers, or at least are big enough winners to counteract one or more losers, or that company won't be around. .

Winchester has had more than its fair share of losers, too.

.32 WSL. .35 WSL. .35 Winchester. .225 Winchester (boy that one was a COLOSSAL blunder on Winchester's part).

Others include the .38-56, the .40-82, etc...

Even some of the WSM cartridges are looking as if they're going to be market failures.
 
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