6.5x55 Quickload Data

Keithite: Experiment until you fall over the knee of the curve, then retro-adjust.
SAAMIite: Determine where that knee is before you hit it, and you kneedn't fall over it in the first place.

Both work.
But you have to have your equipment together for the SAAMIite method -- often an expensive venture.
The Keithite technique requires you have your act togther -- oft times even more priceless a commodity
 
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I have never found the need or urge to push my loads anywhere close to max pressures by either subjective or objective means. I can understand those that want to experiment and push the envelop out of curiosity. But for me a bullet going a couple of 100 fps slower still does everything I need. If I need faster or more energy then I have guns with other cartridges to do that.

Thus, I take the "6 yr old with a load manual" approach and have plenty of fun and learning without ever getting close to max pressure. I do look for pressure signs in brass for safety checks but find no reason myself to push my loads to where I purposely induce pressure signs. There is still a lot to play with within the SAAMI limits. And I plan to pass my guns on to my grandchildren to enjoy, and get as many loads as I can out of my brass.
 
Clark,

With due respect to Prof. Stamm (which is why I noted the division isn't all that clean) but in defense of Mr. Davis, I think all he meant by objective vs. subjective was having a machine make the limit determination rather than a person. I put the lack of cleanliness in the division in because the machines can be a screw up, too, as the copper crushers manage to demonstrate with some regularity. Also, where do you put something like watching a chronograph for non-monotonic velocity increase with charge weight in that list? It's a machine giving numerical output, but it's not trying to measure peak pressure directly.

I also watch the "subjective" signs. One is a fool not to look at everything. I keep a list of them on the fist page of this thread. If you look at the last half dozen posts in the last two pages of the thread, I quote a paragraph of Davis' view and Denton Bramwell gives his, which is different reasoning. (This is just for those interested in following the arguments any further.)
 
Modern 6.5x55 brass is normally made from the same blank stock used to make 30-06 or 308, so thickness isn't much of an issue. If you spend the money for Lapua or Norma, well it really isn't an issue.

A modern Savage will handle a case rupture event in a much safer fashion than an m96 Swedish Mauser, the real reason for folks being worried about pressure in the 6.5x55. The m96 lacks some of the safety features of the m98, chief of which is flange on the "bolt safety shroud" that directs gas away from the shooters face.

The Savage has the bolt collar that provides a relatively nice seal into the chamber area, and the chamber area has dual gas ports for venting the result of a ruptured case.

So, while I don't really care to load something so hot that it causes a case rupture, I load up to accuracy and as long as the primer looks good keep shooting that load in my rifle.

Jimro
 
Good point on accuracy being a final arbiter. I like to limit pressure to avoid burning barrels out in under a few thousand rounds, but if it isn't shooting accurately I'll never put that volume through it in the first place. If I had to choose between running on the warm side for accuracy, but eating the barrel out earlier, I'd live with that. Also, it's pretty hard for a gun to shoot accurately if it's being unduly stressed, so accuracy is a kind of safe-pressure sign in that regard.
 
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Ackley did not test the 94,96, or 38 Swedish Mausers in his book in the 60's when he tested Surplus action with overloads.

So I went out and bought one of each for destructive testing.
The question is, use the American brass that is made on small base equipment, or the larger European brass?
 
I can't see any reason to leave extra room for heads to grow. I bought a bunch of S&B factory loads cheap the same day I got my surplus Swede, and have been running those cases in it ever since. If I were starting with an American gun with .473" bolt face I wanted to rebarrel in 6.5×55, though, I'd do some measuring before deciding on brass, or reamer, or bolt face modification.
 
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