I have been thinking of about a 6.5 and the 6.5 creedmoor class cartridge is what I'm thinking. Just not sure if I want a 6.5 lapua, creedmoor, or 260ai. The reasons are barel life, recoil and even with the 6.5-284 you are going to find your accuracy node around 2850 with the 140 class bullets. Also less powder with the other three is going to save you money. Only a small amount but still...
Some people find a node around 2950 with the 6.5-284 but, barrel life and even more of a factor brass life suffers
As for the 100 fps advantage of 2950 vs 2850 which is about 4" at 1000 yds in a 10mph wind, its really minute for the most part. Yeah it's four inches but, on average even a beginner can see a 5mph change which takes away that 4" advanta.so that makes it only 2 inches and beginners are going to get better and that brings us to the hard part, a 2.5 mph change which is the hard one to judge and then you gain roughly 1" with 2950fps over 2850 . I can agree that two inches and even 1" is enough to gain some points but, from my experience that is only going to be a one to three points per string and you might not even see that. I'd rather have longer barrel life, brass life and even more importantly, easier to control recoil. Managing recoil is the most important, I think. More recoil makes it harder to be consistent. I've lost enough points to shooter induced vertical to lose matches. It sucks looking back thinking I could have won that one so I go for the easiest to control rifle, especially with newer Shooters.
