14.5inch 6.5 Creedmoor Bolt Action Build

The use case for a short 6.5 Creedmoor Bolt Action Rifle.

How far do you want to shoot, and how big of an animal do you want to be able to take down? These are the first questions a bowler should ask themselves when evaluating what they need in a bowling rifle. Recently, Walter has been taking moral inventories and pondering this very question with most of his rifles. Walter's friends over at USASOC say that if a bowler can make hits out to 1,000, then they are doing their job well. A wise bowler once said that "shooting out to 1000 yards is a science; shooting past that becomes an art.”

In the spirit of Jeff Cooper's Scout Rifle concept, Walter wanted a rifle that was as short and handy as possible, supersonic out past 1000 yards, capable of taking down an elk out to 400 yards, and fun to shoot. To meet this criteria with a traditional cartridge like 308, a bowler would need a 24-inch barrel and some pissing hot rednecks made by a vet on disability with an eye patch and a few digits missing thanks to some catastrophic failures of said rounds. What can be built in this category in 2024?

It was for the sake of this supposed "science" that Walter bought a Howa 1500 barreled action in 6.5 Creedmoor and lopped the barrel down to 14.5 and pinned and welded a muzzle device on it. Walter’s frugal ass bought a blemished carbon stock from Stocky’s, some bottom metal for ACIS mags, and a Horus 5-20 with a Tremor 5 reticle on it in Vortex Rings. To tie the build together and make it more comfortable to shoot, Walter topped off the rifle with a leather cartridge carrier and comb. As pictured, with a mag of ammo and a sling, the rifle weighs in at 10 pounds, 4 ounces with a can. 

This week, Walter headed out to Onward Research HQ to bowl with Mike and brought along the 14.5 6.5 to see how it liked the winds of western Idaho. Shooting both Hornady ELDM’s and AAC 140 SMK’s, Walter and Mike shot a few hundred rounds through the rifle out to 1000 yards and got data on velocity from a Garmin and True Ballistics/Utah Airguns radar-based chronograph. The rifle grouped under 1 MOA and averaged 2448 FPS with the Hornady ammo, a mere 250 FPS slower than Walter’s beloved 24-inch Bergara. That gives Walter a hard time,  just like the days of R&R in Saigon 68’ when he’d sneak away to a bordello with a pocket full of doxycycline.