The Orphaned 6.5 Remington Magnum
THE 6.5 Remington Magnum was one of a pair of original belted short magnums, made by simply necking down its sibling.350 Remington Magnum to get a companion calibre for the short, handy Model 600 carbine. Designed to deliver performance similar to the.270 Winchester, it wasn’t explained how that could be achieved in a 18-1/2 inch barrel.
The two reasons for choosing the 6.5mm calibre; first Remington didn’t want to duplicate a calibre already chambered for in their standard Model 700 rifles and, secondly, 6.5mm was the smallest diameter bullet that could be used efficiently in that size case.
The concept was sound enough, but the cartridge was before its time, and the rifle limited its performance so that it never achieved wider popularity. Maybe the published ballistics of a 120gn bullet at 3030fps from a 470mm barrel didn’t raise much excitement.
Later, when Remington chambered the 6.5 Rem. mag. in the Model 700 with 600mm barrel, increasing the muzzle velocity of a 120gn bullet to 3220fps and adding a 100gn bullet at 3450 fps, the round aroused little interest. Then, it seems that American hunters were no more keen on the 6.5 Rem. Mag. than they were on the more powerful.264 Win. Mag. which preceded it by
