The Tikka 6.5 Creedmoor Reloading Thread

[KitShickers]

Hello all.

I just placed an order for my first Tikka rifle. It is a Lite 24" chambered in 6.5 Creedmore. I've done quite a bit of searching on various forums for load data on this specific rifle, but it is always mixed in with other data. I figure this is a pretty popular rifle on this forum, and it might be useful to have a specific thread about loading for it. Im fairly new to reloading, so I admit it is a bit selfish, but I think it would help a lot of other newbies too. So, If you don't mind please share your data! I would like to see it all. Powder charge, bullet, velocity, COAL, Jump to the lands, group size, standard deviation, pics of groups, etc. If there is already a thread like this that I missed, please let me know. If not, lets make this the best load data thread for this rifle on the internet! Who's with me?

 

[Tahoe1305]

Reposting what I sent in a PM to OP. The tikkas run long in the throat which is awesome for a hand loader and awful for factory. My opinion why most are coming up shy of factory published speeds by 50-100fps. If you can load long you will make up for it and then some.

First I would say measure the throat on it using a Hornady (or similar) OAL gauge. This will tell you how long you can load your round. The chamber should limit over the magazine. My mag is 2.975”. For my gun currently the lands are at 2.940” OAL. The real measurement you need is using a comparator (again Hornady) that measures case to ogive for land spacing consistency (it will be different values than the lengths I’m giving). My hunting load is 48Gr of Superformace and 143 ELDX At 2.935” and it’s right at 2875 using a magnetospeed. During load dev I got up to 2950 but started seeing pressure at that speed. Once I switched powder lots to my current I saw a drop of about 50fps. That load shoots just under 1/2” groups (3 shot, barrel heats up to quick for 5 shot). My buddy has same gun and used RL26 and got the same velocities but he didn’t push the pressure. I can’t find RL26 but once I do I’ll give that a try and suspect to do a bit better. Obviously start lower than 48Gr. Book says 44.7 max load. Again that is at SAMMI 2.825” not 2.935”. Here an article about loading long that I used.

Cartridge OAL — How It Affects Pressure, Velocity, and Accuracy « Daily Bulletin
Effects Of Cartridge Over All Length (COAL) And Cartridge Base To Ogive (CBTO) – Part 1 by Bryan Litz for Berger Bullets. Many shooters are not aware of the dramatic effects that bullet seating depth can have on the pressure and velocity generated by a rifle cartridge. Cartridge Overall Length...

bulletin.accurateshooter.com

Hope that helps, let me know if you have questions and obviously be safe and good luck.

 

[KitShickers]

Reposting what I sent in a PM to OP. The tikkas run long in the throat which is awesome for a hand loader and awful for factory. My opinion why most are coming up shy of factory published speeds by 50-100fps. If you can load long you will make up for it and then some.

First I would say measure the throat on it using a Hornady (or similar) OAL gauge. This will tell you how long you can load your round. The chamber should limit over the magazine. My mag is 2.975”. For my gun currently the lands are at 2.940” OAL. The real measurement you need is using a comparator (again Hornady) that measures case to ogive for land spacing consistency (it will be different values than the lengths I’m giving). My hunting load is 48Gr of Superformace and 143 ELDX At 2.935” and it’s right at 2875 using a magnetospeed. During load dev I got up to 2950 but started seeing pressure at that speed. Once I switched powder lots to my current I saw a drop of about 50fps. That load shoots just under 1/2” groups (3 shot, barrel heats up to quick for 5 shot). My buddy has same gun and used RL26 and got the same velocities but he didn’t push the pressure. I can’t find RL26 but once I do I’ll give that a try and suspect to do a bit better. Obviously start lower than 48Gr. Book says 44.7 max load. Again that is at SAMMI 2.825” not 2.935”. Here an article about loading long that I used.

Cartridge OAL — How It Affects Pressure, Velocity, and Accuracy « Daily Bulletin
Effects Of Cartridge Over All Length (COAL) And Cartridge Base To Ogive (CBTO) – Part 1 by Bryan Litz for Berger Bullets. Many shooters are not aware of the dramatic effects that bullet seating depth can have on the pressure and velocity generated by a rifle cartridge. Cartridge Overall Length...

bulletin.accurateshooter.com

Hope that helps, let me know if you have questions and obviously be safe and good luck.

Excellent post. Exactly the kind of info I wanted to see. Please post after you try RL26. 2850--2900 with ELD-X is exactly what Im looking for.

 

[MT257]

How bout any 130 grain loads. I bought the same rifle this past weekend and am looking for any input. I’ve read multiple other threads on finding the lands. I bought that comparator and will be a learning curve as I’ve never used one in the past 20 years.

 

[fatbacks]

I have a tikka tac a1 in 6.5 CM. Running 143 eld x in Lapua brass with H4350. I couldn’t really find a load it didn’t like. Everything shot under 1 MOA and my final load shoots about .4 MOA all day long.


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[Tahoe1305]

I haven’t done as complete of a load workup with measuring OAL and reached peak pressure yet like I have with 143s, but looking at old data it appears I got 3030fps with 129 ABLR and 48.5 Superformance (new lot of powder took 49.2 to replicate). Those were at 2.925” OAL.

Btw all of these are using starline SRP brass and magnum primers (CCI) on first or second reload.

I haven’t shot game with the 129s but have 4 animals down (goat, deer, sheep) with 143 and have been very impressed with terminal performance.

Start low (-3 or so is what I’d recommend) all of these my old lot of Superformace was showing same velocities in both weights at ~1 gr less so there is enough variation out there from lot to lot to cause pressure issues.

Keep in mind when we load this long we are a bit off SAAMI so it’s experimental land.

 

[DudeBro]

Please post after you try RL26. 2850--2900 with ELD-X is exactly what Im looking for.

Here is my data using RL26.

T3X Superlite
Lapua cases
CCI 450 primers
ELD-X 143 gr
Measured CBTO using Hornady OAL gauge w/ Sinclair insert: 2.247 (loaded at 2.237)
Measured CBTO using Hornady OAL gauge w/ Hornady insert: 2.285 (loaded at 2.275)
48.3 gr of RL26 (compressed)
average of 2905 fps @ 74 degrees
1 MOA 5 shot group @ 100 yds

IMO COAL matters less than CBTO. For me, COAL only matters to the extent the loaded round will fit in the magazine. Otherwise, variations in bullet length will effect COAL and cause CBTO inconsistencies.

I started with 46 and worked up to 48.5 in .5 increments. 48.5 was max case capacity.

I really like using the 6.5 Guys' load dev analysis spreadsheet. https://www.65guys.com/load-development-analysis/

 

[KitShickers]

Here is my data using RL26.

T3X Superlite
Lapua cases
CCI 450 primers
ELD-X 143 gr
Measured CBTO using Hornady OAL gauge w/ Sinclair insert: 2.247 (loaded at 2.237)
Measured CBTO using Hornady OAL gauge w/ Hornady insert: 2.285 (loaded at 2.275)
48.3 gr of RL26 (compressed)
average of 2905 fps @ 74 degrees
1 MOA 5 shot group @ 100 yds

IMO COAL matters less than CBTO. For me, COAL only matters to the extent the loaded round will fit in the magazine. Otherwise, variations in bullet length will effect COAL and cause CBTO inconsistencies.

I started with 46 and worked up to 48.5 in .5 increments. 48.5 was max case capacity.

I really like using the 6.5 Guys' load dev analysis spreadsheet. https://www.65guys.com/load-development-analysis/
[/QUOTE}

Thanks for the post. Have you noticed any velocity/accuracy differences between large and small rifle primers?

 

[KitShickers]

How bout any 130 grain loads. I bought the same rifle this past weekend and am looking for any input. I’ve read multiple other threads on finding the lands. I bought that comparator and will be a learning curve as I’ve never used one in the past 20 years.

I have a comparator too. Im no expert either, but there are some pretty good videos on Youtube on how to use one. Im very interested about the Accubond 130's too. I have about 300 of them, so I hope I can get them to shoot.

 

[KitShickers]

I have a tikka tac a1 in 6.5 CM. Running 143 eld x in Lapua brass with H4350. I couldn’t really find a load it didn’t like. Everything shot under 1 MOA and my final load shoots about .4 MOA all day long.


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Thats good to hear. Ive been reading obsessively about this gun for the last couple of weeks. I don't think Ive seen one case of an inaccurate gun. Im sure they are out there, but it seems like most of them flat out shoot.

 

[KitShickers]

I have a tikka tac a1 in 6.5 CM. Running 143 eld x in Lapua brass with H4350. I couldn’t really find a load it didn’t like. Everything shot under 1 MOA and my final load shoots about .4 MOA all day long.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What is your COAL, velocity, and group size?

 

[fatbacks]

I settled on 41.5 gr of H4350 for the first firing of the brass then went down to 41.3 gr after all the brass was fire formed. My COAL is 2.825". Average velocity is 2682 with low ES and SD. Just a caveat to all this.... I am a pretty rookie reloader.

Found this target from when I was doing load development last year:

 

[DudeBro]

Thanks for the post. Have you noticed any velocity/accuracy differences between large and small rifle primers?

Lapua cases don’t come in large primer, so I can’t say.

 

[Mulyhuntr]

T3X CTR 24": 147 eld-m, 41.5 H4350 or 42.1 RL16, Starline Brass, Federal Large rifle match primer. Both powders shoot little tiny groups with a 50fps edge to RL16.

T3X Superlite: 147 eld-m, 42.3 RL16, Peterson Brass, Federal Large Rifle match primer. ~2,750 fps

All of my tikkas seem to be pretty insensitive to seating depth, so my standard is 20 thou off the lands.

Peterson Brass is much nicer than Starline imo. I will be switching the CTR over to Peterson when the Starline is worn out.

 

[KitShickers]

T3X CTR 24": 147 eld-m, 41.5 H4350 or 42.1 RL16, Starline Brass, Federal Large rifle match primer. Both powders shoot little tiny groups with a 50fps edge to RL16.

T3X Superlite: 147 eld-m, 42.3 RL16, Peterson Brass, Federal Large Rifle match primer. ~2,750 fps

All of my tikkas seem to be pretty insensitive to seating depth, so my standard is 20 thou off the lands.

Peterson Brass is much nicer than Starline imo. I will be switching the CTR over to Peterson when the Starline is worn out.

What do you like about the brass? Does it last longer?

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I loaded up some 139g hammerheads with h380 and had pretty good success, Im not finished playing with that but it was making 1" groups.

 

[KitShickers]

I loaded up some 139g hammerheads with h380 and had pretty good success, Im not finished playing with that but it was making 1" groups.

What was your powder charge?

 

[thinhorn_AK]

What was your powder charge?

I used 39grains of the H380, federal small rifle primer and hornady brass. The bullets were hammer sledgehammer 139g. I was getting 3/4 inch groups right off the bat.

 

[Quicksilver]

Tikka lands are very long and you won’t have much bearing surface touching the neck in most Bullets. I’m running the 139 scenar in my tac a1 .010” off the lands and is hammering in the setup with h4350. 2725fps and 1/3moa accuracy. Have put sub half inch groups out to 800yds many times.

 

[TacoHunter]

Also interested in some of the results here. I just picked up a Tikka T3x lite and want to build a hunting load. I’m thinking of using a 140gr accubond


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