New rifle addresses the need for speed in hunting

Surely that claim will give ballistic groupies the inspiration they need to spend some time conducting speed tests on the shooting range.

Introduced at the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade show at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in mid-January, the new cartridge pairs a 6.5mm projectile with the .300 Weatherby Magnum case. The result is speed. The name, appropriately enough, is the 6.5-300 Weatherby Magnum.

The new cartridge comes in three load options featuring three different bullets. The first is a 127-grain Barnes LRX bullet, the second a 130-grain Swift Scirocco and the third a 140-grain Swift A-Frame.

According to Weatherby’s ballistic charts, the Barnes LRX leaves the muzzle traveling 3,531 feet per second and still pushes 2,523 feet per second 500 yards later. The Scirocco leaves at 3,476 feet per second and at 500 yards maintains 2,557 feet per second. For the A-Frame, those numbers are 3,395 and 2,176 feet per second.

In a rather quick comparison, two of the 6.5-300 Weatherby cartridges top both 150-grain loads available in the venerable .300 Weatherby in terms of downrange energy. At 500 yards, the Barnes LRX puts out 1,794 foot-pounds of energy and the Scirocco 1,887. The 150-grain .300 Weatherby loads, on the other hand, put out 1,547 and 1,773 foot-pounds of energy at that distance. So the new 6.5-300 has plenty of downrange knockdown power.

The 6.5-300 Weatherby is available in six models, all built on the Mark V action. You can expect to pay $2,300 to $3,000 for one of these speed demons, depending on the model and options. You also can expect to pay handsomely for a box of shells. MSRP is $95. That’s about $4.75 per shot.

At the opposite end of the speed spectrum is Thompson/Center’s newest muzzleloader, the T/C Strike. The rifle showed up midway through 2015 but is a new addition in the company’s 2016 catalog. It is also the first new muzzleloader from T/C in some time.

The Strike has an uncanny resemblance to the LHR Redemption first introduced by LHR Sporting Arms of New Hampshire in 2013. Word is that Smith & Wesson, the parent company for T/C, purchased LHR Sporting Arms, but information on that is mighty scarce.

Perhaps the most significant attribute of the Strike is the Adapt Breech System. This design does away with internally threaded breech plugs and replaces them with a plug having external threads. Those of you who have fought with seized breech plugs because of powder fouling will appreciate this change, and it should make the overall job of cleaning the firearm much easier.

The rifle also has a threadless primer adapter that holds a 209 primer and is optimized for use with pelletized powder. An adapter is needed when using loose powder. The rifle’s barrel is coated inside and out with a product called Armonite to protect it against corrosion, the muzzleloader’s worst nightmare. The barrel itself comes in a 24-inch length with a rifling twist rate of 1:28 inches to handle large conical bullets and sabots.

To eliminate scope clearance issues that come with hammer cocking systems, the Strike comes with a low-profile cocking system that allows for ambidextrous use. The Strike is offered with three stock options: black composite, G2 camo composite and walnut. The MSRP for each of these rifles is $499, $549 and $599.

If you like snooping around the gun world, you might search online for LHR Sporting Arms. There is some interesting reading there.

— Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His “In the Outdoors” column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached at intheoutdoorslv@gmail.com.

Calendar

• Applications for Nevada’s spring wild turkey hunt are due Tuesday. Applications for limited entry units must be submitted online. Those for open quota units must be submitted with a paper application available from participating landowners.