6x45 thoughts?

[underthebridge]

I’m very taken with the S&L legacy.
It ticks many of my boxes but I don’t know much, or in fact
anything about this cartridge.
With my club I’d like to shoot out to 600
I want to hunt muntjac and roe, with the occasional
Fallow, there are lots of 6mm bullets that look up to the job but
Will I be able to get above 100gr so I can shoot reds in Scotland?
Or should I just get at 6.5 and put this rather obscure
Choice to one side?

[Laurie]

Are you talking about the 6mm-223? If so, it is a wildcat job so you've got to check in advance about chamber reamer and die availability.

For range use, you could no doubt shoot to 600 yards, but there are very many ballistically superior sixes and 6.5s that are better suited to the task. A 6mm BR Norma shooting 105s will pee all over this cartridge for instance, the 6mm Creedmoor or for that matter the good old-fashioned 243 Win even more so.

For field use, Scottish Roe and English Muntjac / CWD only. Loaded up to the gills with very hot loads giving short case life, it's a struggle to achieve MVs producing 1,500 ft/lb from a 24-inch barrel with 85gn bullets. The US Cor-Bon 'boutique ammunition producer' does some loads. They run at a nominal 1,400 ft/lb or so.

If you had the custom rifle / new barrel throated out long (with COALs at around 2.5-inches instead of the usual 223-Rem 2.25", you could load 100s, but this is too small a case to get full velocities from them. QuickLOAD suggests 2,700 fps is just 'on' with maximum pressure loads of hot double-based powders such as CFE223 or a compressed load of Alliant Re15.

In the USA, it is only rarely encountered nowadays, but is a much loved combined varmint / small whitetail cartridge amongst owners, also usable on pronghorn antelope providing very long shots aren't needed. It has quite a long history, the series having started with the 6mm-222 in the 1950s then progressing through the 222 Rem Magnum case (6X47mm) which was the 100/200 yard benchrest competition cartridge until the PPCs swept it away. Girls and slightly built ladies love the trio for their light recoil and superb accuracy. Barrel life is excellent, so it's one of these cartridges that lets rifles get a fair bit of range use in but are still there for the field when needed.

With our Deer Acts, its utility is severely circumscribed here though.

[Duey]

If your looking to go hunting for Fallow and Red deer then you would be better suited with a 7mm caliber as a minimum really, as this would double up as a very good range caliber, something along the line of
7-08
failing that there is nothing wrong with the good old, boring, 308, that will do everything that you need

[underthebridge]

Thanks guys