243 Win, 6mm Creedmoor, or ???

maverick2

Handloader
Dec 22, 2013
347
28
I just ordered a 6mm bore barrel to drop onto a Savage 99 to use for whitetail, wolves, coyotes, and varmints. I went with a heavy contour (Sendero profile) carbon fiber barrel to retain the light weight and handling of the 99 while dramatically increasing barrel stiffness (and hopefully accuracy). Barrel is going to be 22" long and have a 1/8 twist. Should have it in hand in 2-3 weeks, at which time I need to hand it over to my gunsmith and tell him which caliber to chamber it to. I'm currently leaning toward the 6 mm Creedmoor, but thought I'd throw the question out here to get feedback. Thoughts?

-- Mark
 
The little 6mm Creedmoor sounds perfect. I'm not sure what kind of magazine length you have on a Savage 99 but with a 1 in 8 twist having more room to play with long bullets is great to have.
 
That should be a very unique Savage 99. Please put up some pics when you get it back.
 
gerry":2hwkls2o said:
The little 6mm Creedmoor sounds perfect. I'm not sure what kind of magazine length you have on a Savage 99 but with a 1 in 8 twist having more room to play with long bullets is great to have.

The donor action is a .308, so I can run with any of the .308 family cartridges or shorter. (Some of the shorter 6mm cartridges like the 6mm BR are a little too short for consistent feeding.)
 
I happen to know that all of the Creedmoor iterations are based off of the .250 Savage, and or .300 Savage cases. The length will be fine.
Now, my questions are this: is it a 99 action that had a box magazine, or is it one that has the rotary magazine?
I think the box magazine would best suit the Creedmoor bunch.
Also, as I think about it, the older lever actions used cartridges that had taper to them. The reason being, it's easier for their actions to extract the empty cases because they don't provide a lot of oomph to get out of the Chambers.
I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but these are questions that should be asked to a gunsmith.
I'm hoping that the 6mm Creedmoor will work just fine. It more than likely will.
It would be a really cool round to use in a 99 action.

Sent from my moto e5 play using Tapatalk
 
HAWKEYESATX":17cdjfi4 said:
I happen to know that all of the Creedmoor iterations are based off of the .250 Savage, and or .300 Savage cases. The length will be fine.
Now, my questions are this: is it a 99 action that had a box magazine, or is it one that has the rotary magazine?
I think the box magazine would best suit the Creedmoor bunch.
Also, as I think about it, the older lever actions used cartridges that had taper to them. The reason being, it's easier for their actions to extract the empty cases because they don't provide a lot of oomph to get out of the Chambers.
I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but these are questions that should be asked to a gunsmith.
I'm hoping that the 6mm Creedmoor will work just fine. It more than likely will.
It would be a really cool round to use in a 99 action.

Sent from my moto e5 play using Tapatalk

The rifle is a late 50's vintage 99 with the rotary mag. My gunsmith has quite a bit of experience working with the 99's, and the rotary mag models are his preference for something like this (though more because the added steel in the base of the action leads to a little stiffer action than 99s that had the clips). He's not concerned with feeding problems of the rotary mag as long as we don't choose a cartridge that is too short.

I'll ask him about extraction concerns on a casing with less taper. The 6mm Creedmoor was his suggestion to me when I told him what I wanted to do, so my guess is that's not a big concern. (I know of another 99 that has been chambered to a 6.5 Creedmoor, and that owner hasn't mentioned any extraction issues when we've talked.)
 
The 6XC and 6x47Lapua are the other two calibers that are under consideration. Only reason I'm leaning toward the Creedmoor over those two are that they would be more reliant on me handloading (which I'm set up to do) and the convenience of a large choice of factory ammo for the Creedmoor is nice.
 
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