Thoughts on the Aero Precision SOLUS ?

Well turns out my solus hunter is a shooter. I swapped the trigger tech field out for a trigger tech special set at 1 pound, installed a salmon river solutions Arca, installed a area419 adaptor and put my harvester 300 suppressor on it.
The load I came up with is:
147 eldm
Prime 1x brass
Cci200 primers
42 grains of h4350.
Coal is 2.820 with an sd of 8 and es of 18
Velocity was 2694. Group shout was 7 rounds off my atlas and rear bag.
Weight came out to 13.2 pounds
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Apparently my Solus Comp 6.5 Creed is also a shooter... The only things I've swapped so far is put in a TriggerTech Special with the screw removed (1 lbs.), and retorqued the action screws to 65 in-lbs. First 25 rounds, only a simple barrel scrubbing and dry-patching before going to the range. 3 shots to sight it in, so 3 of the groups are 4-shot groups, then the last 2 are 5 shot groups... I'm using brand new virgin Alpha SRP 6.5CM brass, Nosler 140 RDF's, StaBall 6.5, and CCI 400 primers. Seated them to 2.270", which is 0.010" jump, and still fit and feed perfectly from an MDT steel AICS mag with no front binder plate. Didn't know it was shipping, so I was caught with my pants down on ordering a matching Ergo grip like on all my other rifles, and the proper height rings, but they should arrive this week from Midway.

The DNT scope is alright... It tracks true, and I can see the reticle just fine, the reticle layout is very nice with the .1 MIL marks, the parallax is almost dead-on with the known distances, and I have no problems shooting tight groups. It was quite overcast, so it really put the glass to the test to show how it stacks up in the shadows compared to out in the bright light where every halfway decent optic can look clear. In the shadows when the sun went behind the clouds while shooting, above 25x definitely got a bit grainy, but nothing that wasn't able to be mostly adjusted-out with some slight parallax tweaking...But at 30x it wasn't as clear as my Burris XTR-3 5.5-30x56 at 30x. The DNT is assembled in China with Japanese EXD glass, and the Burris is built in the Philippines with Japanese ED glass.

Personal opinion based just simple on initial thoughts with only 25 rounds through it... In bright light, very clear, very bright, organic colors (no tinting). There is tiny bit of dark blueish/purple CA around the edges when you get your head off-center of the eye box, but that's not the end of the world. Eyebox is a bit tight at 35x, but most scopes will be. I'd certainly buy one over another Arken, I can tell you that much, just that the glass is much better than any of the ones I have/had prior, including a Gen1 EP5. Also I REALLY like the TOR reticle. It's .1 MIL marks, so it makes corrections and helping spot for others to give corrections for them super simple and easy.

It's definitely worth the $600 I paid for it, but honestly, the glass in my Burris XTR-3 5.5-30x56 is noticeably better for just a few hundred more. Haven't compared it to anything else yet, as those were the only 2 guns I carried to the range with me today. That said, if my budget for a LR scope was $600-750, I'd probably recommend the DNT.

That all being said, it very well could have just been extreme mirage from the cans, being that my rings are super low, and I'm waiting on my taller rings to arrive. That could help with the grainy image at max mag noticeably, because I did have that problem with several higher-end scopes until I put taller rings on them and got them above the barrels and suppressors directly in the LOS. My taller rings should arrive this week, so hopefully we can test this theory next weekend, and after more rounds my thoughts might change. Only time will tell, just giving my initial rundown.

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Here's the first 5 groups (first 25 shots on a brand new barrel, random ass load choice, and getting some REALLY good velocities and ES/SD numbers for a new barrel that hasn't even fully settled in yet. But it started to settle in nicely in the 4th and 5th groups (other than the random flier in each one). Those fliers were me pulling because there was lots of people at the range today talking and bumping the goddamn bench while I'm trying to shoot.

Also, not sure WTF happened at 44.0 grains with that double-grouping, but that was weird.

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If anyone is interested in a barrel for under $300, check out Outlier. Their promo is still going on. I got a savage small-shank 26" barrel for around $250.00. it will be a heavy barrel since they are 1.200" straight contour, but they do offer fluting.
 
If anyone is interested in a barrel for under $300, check out Outlier. Their promo is still going on. I got a savage small-shank 26" barrel for around $250.00. it will be a heavy barrel since they are 1.200" straight contour, but they do offer fluting.
I have one of there barrels I ran on my Origin action. It was a 16 inch fluted 6.5 creedmoor. The barrel shot very well. It took them forever to get me my barrel and screwed up on it once but they made it right. Barrel is sitting on the shelf now.
 
7 SAW dies showed up yesterday, so now I can continue load development. These are temp dies, as I’m waiting on Redding to ship them to WTO, then to me. They won’t give a specific ETA, just “soon”. So I went ahead and got these to use in the meantime.

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Well, came home from work, and my $200 Aero Solus barrel was here… Yes, to those asking, they were obviously contracts for a Stag Arms bolt action, they have the Stag logo (very small) on them, and it says STAG on the packing slip.

What I was NOT expecting was a very pleasant surprise… It’s already cerakoted to match the Solus actions! It looks GOOD!!! I’d venture to say it’s leaning into the “sexy” territory… Aero need to put spiral fluting on their Solus barrels, too! I might have to order another action when they go on sale to build a lightweight hunting rig with this!

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Well, came home from work, and my $200 Aero Solus barrel was here… Yes, to those asking, they were obviously contracts for a Stag Arms bolt action, they have the Stag logo (very small) on them, and it says STAG on the packing slip.

What I was NOT expecting was a very pleasant surprise… It’s already cerakoted to match the Solus actions! It looks GOOD!!! I’d venture to say it’s leaning into the “sexy” territory… Aero need to put spiral fluting on their Solus barrels, too! I might have to order another action when they go on sale to build a lightweight hunting rig with this!

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Looks good. What model was that?
 
Well, came home from work, and my $200 Aero Solus barrel was here… Yes, to those asking, they were obviously contracts for a Stag Arms bolt action, they have the Stag logo (very small) on them, and it says STAG on the packing slip.

What I was NOT expecting was a very pleasant surprise… It’s already cerakoted to match the Solus actions! It looks GOOD!!! I’d venture to say it’s leaning into the “sexy” territory… Aero need to put spiral fluting on their Solus barrels, too! I might have to order another action when they go on sale to build a lightweight hunting rig with this!

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Was that the Sporter weight fluted 22” barrel? If so, what does it weigh?

I just got on my account and mine showed up today. I’m away from home until Friday, but I had a friend open it and mine is black cerakoted as well! It’s a 20” sporter weight spiral fluted 6.5cm. Can’t wait to see what it weights. If I had not read that so many people find the 308 barrels to be finicky, I would have ordered one of those too.
 
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Well, came home from work, and my $200 Aero Solus barrel was here… Yes, to those asking, they were obviously contracts for a Stag Arms bolt action, they have the Stag logo (very small) on them, and it says STAG on the packing slip.

What I was NOT expecting was a very pleasant surprise… It’s already cerakoted to match the Solus actions! It looks GOOD!!! I’d venture to say it’s leaning into the “sexy” territory… Aero need to put spiral fluting on their Solus barrels, too! I might have to order another action when they go on sale to build a lightweight hunting rig with this!

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That’s a nice looking barrel for $200.
If you get a chance run a bore scope through it and snap some pics if you can.
 
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Looks good. What model was that?

20" 6.5CM

Was that the Sporter weight fluted 22” barrel? If so, what does it weigh?

I just got on my account and mine showed up today. I’m away from home until Friday, but I had a friend open it and mine is black cerakoted as well! It’s a 20” sporter weight spiral fluted 6.5cm. Can’t wait to see what it weights. If I had not read that so many people find the 308 barrels to be finicky, I would have ordered one of those too.

20" sporter 6.5CM

That’s a nice looking barrel for $200.
If you get a chance run a bore scope through it and snap some pics if you can.

I don't have a borescope, but looked down it with an LED light, and that barrel is gorgeous! Clean, unfired, no tooling residue, no metal chips or chunks, absolutely flawless. The chamber is beautiful, too.

Interesting side-note... I wanted to see how concentric their chambers are cut... So I used my same Hornady OAL tool, same caliper, and the same Alpha modified 6.5CM case gauge, and same Nosler 140 RDF bullet as I measured my other "Aero" brand 22" sendero 6.5CM barrel. Out of 10 different gauging runs, the chambers are within 0.001". This chamber is 1/1000" longer than my other barrel, so that means I can share loads and brass between them. My once-fired neck-sized brass will also fit in the chamber without issue. Crazy stuff! But that's good to know that I can share brass, loads and dies between 2 barrels and should be getting remotely similar results with the same components, provided both barrels are good.

I couldn't get any inside shots worth a damn, but here's a few of the chamber and muzzle end. The rifling is VERY precise and clean and consistent from what I can tell by eye with a bright LED light. The chamber is also nice and shiny, and the throat is VERY concentric. There is a tiny bit of dust particles making the barrel look dirty, but it's spotless. A simple wet patching and then a dry patch will solve that.

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Did you get any tracking info from Aero for that barrel? I ordered the same one and have got nothing so far
Nope, I don't hardly ever get emails from them after purchases either...I think my email (owned by Yahoo) is a bunch of liberal fucks, and they are anti-2A and have it set to filter those emails just to be pricks, because it's not just Aero that it happens with, but it only ever happens with gun stuff... I have to check it in my account under my orders. It will say "Complete" under status, and then you can click on Tracking and track from there manually.
 
Also, how thick is it at the muzzle?

Thanks!
If you're worried about there being enough shoulder for a proper tension on a suppressor mount with 5/8-24 threads, there's more than enough shoulder there. 👍🏼

I measured with my calipers and it's 0.800" on the nose at the edge of the shoulder where the threads start, so it's really close to a Bartlein #4 "Bull Sporter" countour (0.750" @ 26") barrel. It really looks to me like they took a #4 Bull Sporter blank, and then just chopped it down at 20" so it's still 0.800" at the muzzle. It's a very stiff contour with plenty of meat on the shoulder for your can/muzzle device to sit against. I don't foresee any real POI shift issues.

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Weight is JUST under 3 lbs. for the 20" barrel, which is fairly light. It was actually 2 lbs. 15.65 oz on my kitchen scale.

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Muzzle threads are straight as an arrow on this one, too. This is my OCL Hydrogen-S 6.5mm can, and it's dead-nuts center.

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Alright... My taller rings and grip and MDT mag came in today... MUCH better!

It got the scope up high enough to leave plenty of clearance and use the new/old set of Arken 56mm flip-caps (which are actually really nice) from one of my old EP5's that I never used them on. They're working fine on the DNT. I figured since it was identical to an Arken, the caps should fit fine, and they fit really nicely. Very tight, too.

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Anyone know if there’s a fix for the large cock on close? Doesn’t look like they make different trigger hangers.
TT Diamond.
So I realized the difference in actions, especially closure and the abruptness on this sction. Mine is smoothing out an after putting rounds through it…., I have a second action that I will be also pulling the barrel to save for later.

If you take the bolt apart and look, there are what looks like almost like a zigzag and a ball bearing …can’t remember … I believe I had a picture that I posted way towards the beginning of this thread?

AC did a YouTube video and he’s shooting the hunter and you can see that the closure definitely upsets the rightful a bit probably not as much if you’re running a 20 pound gun
 
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Mmmmm contract pre-fit barrels, nice my order is going in now…

For me, the best thing that ever happened was having a barrel that didn’t shoot or what I thought was the barrel and going through my reloading process……. I fixed so much I didn’t even have a headspace gauge before four months ago I figured out what to do and what not to do.

When Everything goes smooth. You don’t learn a damn thing.
 
Go up to post 557, there’s a link to Aero that says “Contract Overrun”… You’ll see barrels that say “shouldered”, those are Solus barrels. Most are spiral-fluted.
Always wondered about these contract overruns though doesn’t that basically screw over stag arms if they’re building these rifles with these components?

Aero precision turns around selling the others off for cheap!

For me it seems like that is a shitty deal. Perhaps that was the way it was written when they had done the contract?

stage arms symbol on the ar10 receivers? That they’re selling for cheap.??

Plenty of 6 mm Creed overrun brass though from federal… will be picking one of those up right now from Aero precision
 
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Nope, I don't hardly ever get emails from them after purchases either...I think my email (owned by Yahoo) is a bunch of liberal fucks, and they are anti-2A and have it set to filter those emails just to be pricks, because it's not just Aero that it happens with, but it only ever happens with gun stuff... I have to check it in my account under my orders. It will say "Complete" under status, and then you can click on Tracking and track from there manually.
You have emails other than gun stuff?
Except for spam, all mine are related to gun stuff.
 
I was trying to make a YouTube short but failed, so it's a 1 shot video... Hate on it if you want to, but they don't exactly do a good job of explaining how Shorts work or how to make one...


Didn’t see any movement of the gun , when running the action… don’t think I have anything to worry about
 
so apparently, they’ve had a 223 bolt face out for months…

Don’t know if anybody lining up for a bolt action, short pistol placed on shortest forearm length chassis system that I’m aware of perhaps it is just getting rid of all their short chassis forearms that no one buys

I could see it in 300 blackout as a sub gun, that’s extremely quiet.. but not in a 223

Perhaps they have barrel cut offs that they’ve got sitting around that they chambered?

could’ve done something really cool and made it a two piece barrel but the machine that that takes to line the rifling up, etc. may not be worth the squeeze
 
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Always wondered about these contract overruns though doesn’t that basically screw over stag arms if they’re building these rifles with these components?

Aero precision turns around selling the others off for cheap!

For me it seems like that is a shitty deal. Perhaps that was the way it was written when they had done the contract?

stage arms symbol on the ar10 receivers? That they’re selling for cheap.??

Plenty of 6 mm Creed overrun brass though from federal… will be picking one of those up right now from Aero precision
Aero owns StagArms... There's nothing shitty about it. They are for all intents and purposes the same company. So is Ballistic Advantage, who builds all the barrels for both Aero and Stag. All 3 are sister companies.
 
Aero owns StagArms...
had no idea that that was the case makes sense now..

What do you think is a 6.5 PRC sporter contour that they’ve got for sale with fluting,@?


I try and run all my rifles with some form of compensator now, unless it has a target crown like some of the Schillen barrels I have.
 
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7 SAW dies showed up yesterday, so now I can continue load development. These are temp dies, as I’m waiting on Redding to ship them to WTO, then to me. They won’t give a specific ETA, just “soon”. So I went ahead and got these to use in the meantime.

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interesting… the 308 parent case looks like it definitely holds more than the CM case.

Basically a 284 win, with inexpensive brass?
 

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I just received an Aero email, SOLUS Barreled Short Action - 24" 6.5 Creedmoor, Fluted Sendero Light for $933.75 - 20% to $840.37. I really do not need another 6.5CM, but for that price I now have one. I know that there is a lot of talk about the Solus action, but this is a deal, and it takes Origin pre-fits... win/win to me.
 
I just received an Aero email, SOLUS Barreled Short Action - 24" 6.5 Creedmoor, Fluted Sendero Light for $933.75 - 20% to $840.37. I really do not need another 6.5CM, but for that price I now have one. I know that there is a lot of talk about the Solus action, but this is a deal, and it takes Origin pre-fits... win/win to me.
At that price, it's hard not to. That's what I did for my .308 Win solus. The prices were super low like that, and I bought the barreled action and 15" comp chassis on sale. I think the barreled action was around $850 shipped, and the chassis was 30% off, so it was like $500. Even though the barrel was junk, I was still way ahead of the game at that price.
 
At that price, it's hard not to. That's what I did for my .308 Win solus. The prices were super low like that, and I bought the barreled action and 15" comp chassis on sale. I think the barreled action was around $850 shipped, and the chassis was 30% off, so it was like $500. Even though the barrel was junk, I was still way ahead of the game at that price.
Didn't you change bullets and shrink groups?
Definitely a junk .5 MOA barrel.

Well... It seemed to like the Hornady 168 ELD-M's better... Plus, I'm only jumping them 0.010" from the lands, and they're still well inside of mag length, and cycle perfectly.

Here's the best group of the day (it's only 4 shots, because it was the starting load, and I shot the first round to confirm my POI on another target)...

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Didn't you change bullets and shrink groups?
Definitely a junk .5 MOA barrel.
Yeah, and if you had paid any type of attention instead of attempting to discredit me or be right, you would know that I said it was still hit-or-miss with that load, too, which is why I snatched the barrel. That last time I shot that load it wouldn't even hold 1 MOA, and was missing the 4" 300 yard gongs nearly every shot, whereas, prior to, it was pinwheeling it with the same load, from the same batch, loaded at the same time. So, yeah, it's a shit barrel. Very unstable and inconsistent from day to day.

Same with that stupid @CarbonSix 7 SAW prefit barrel I should have never bought. Should have just gotten a GD refund. It's acting stupid, too. I'm hoping now that the brass has been fired once, it will start to stabilize. But after 100 rounds, and the barrel still barely stabilizes a load it should have zero problems stabilizing, It has 100 more rounds before I'm sending it back. Which is 4 more sets of 25 load development. I plan on trying StaBall 6.5 again, and then H4350 again. If it won't group worth a fuck, I'm calling Gene. A $1,000 barrel shouldn't shoot more than 0.5 MOA with proper handloads.
 
Man that’s a good looking rifle! Cant wait for my Dasher barrel to come in
Thanks! It's a real shooter, too. That was my best target at the time I made the video, which was a month or so ago, but it's since shot an even better group with that load.

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Feel free to follow the video link to YouTube and give it a like over there, and share it on you socials if you want. Every view helps, since YT hates 2A content and squashes my reach every upload until it's almost dead. They literally remove legit views from my videos every time I upload.
 
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Did a little more load development today on the factory 6.5CM, and the @CarbonSix 7 SAW... The 6.5CM continued to impress, while the @CarbonSix 7 SAW continued to disappoint...Profusely... I'm going to try one more set of load development tomorrow (holiday) and see if I can get it to shoot any better with H4350 again, but I'm damn-sure not holding my breath... 🙄

Factory Solus 6.5 CM...

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@CarbonSix barreled 7 SAW... 👎🏼

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Got my 6mm creed overstock barrel today. Only marking on it wont be visible when screwed on the action. I'll probably bead blast and spray paint it anyways.

Still on the fence about ordering a 6.5prc barrel. I don't need one but feel like I should get one just to have
 

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Got my 6mm creed overstock barrel today. Only marking on it wont be visible when screwed on the action. I'll probably bead blast and spray paint it anyways.

Still on the fence about ordering a 6.5prc barrel. I don't need one but feel like I should get one just to have
Being that it's raw stainless, you could always have someone with a laser mark your 90ª points on the sides when screwed into the action, and then laser engrave the cartridge and twist where you can read it when installed. Then have it cerakoted later if it shoots good. Or, vise-versa... Have it cerakoted if it shoots good, then have it lasered so you can read it cleanly.
 
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Good points. My buddy has laser could definitely do that. Or I have 1000 58gr VMAX bullets on the shelf I could load them up just slower than the velocity they explode at and just let the kids merk pdogs until there's no rifling left.
 
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My barreled action still shows the same lol... wonder if they "sold" more than they actually had.
Not sure about the overrun barrels... But there was (according to the CS rep I talked to) an issue with their .30 caliber barrels and they had to send them all back, which is why the Solus pistols in .300 BLK (like mine) still have no shipped yet, after 4+ months. They were waiting on new barrels with the corrected issue.

Maybe they spotted a problem with all .30 caliber barrels, including .308 Win, and fixed the accuracy problems with them. My factory Solus .308 Win barrel sucked, so hopefully they corrected whatever was wrong, all the way across the board.
 
I received my SS 6mm as well, looks good. Bore looks great through the borescope. I don't know that I'll shoot it yet as I'm going to get it cut to 21" and my nitrided 6.5 cut to probably 16-17".
 
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After last weeks shitty grouping continuation with the @CarbonSix 7 SAW, I decided to check concentricity, and the barrel threads are not concentric to the bore. All of my 9" cans leaned far enough with the alignment rod, that at the very end nearly had strikes. So, I decided, to try my 7" cans, and it was much better, but still cockeyed... But it was much more centered in the suppressor bore, than the longer 9" cans were, so I figured it would be less of a chance of causing any interference with the groups.

So, I decided to try my Magnus-S on the end to see if that would help... It actually, did, but still not enough for me to be remotely near happy with this barrel. I will be calling Gene tomorrow about a refund or possible replacement... A $1000+ barrel shouldn't be shooting more than 1/2-MOA at most with handloads.

So, here's today's groups... They were ALL shot with 45.0 grains of H4350, Berger 175 Elites, CCI 400's, 1x Fired/FL Sized Alpha brass, same everything...

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Shot 2 groups with the factory Solus 6.5CM, and the first group was kind of wild, but the 2nd was much better... If I had not had the random flier, it would have been 0.529", instead of 0.699". I hope it's still settling, as I still don't even have 100 rounds through it yet. Today was shots 51-70 using the best load that tested from my initial sets of load development. It may not be supreme, but it has zero issues pinwheeling the 3" gong @ 300 yards every time. I even had 2 other people shoot it that had never shot the rifle, never seen a DNT scope before, and never shot that cartridge at 300 yards, both nailed it on the 1st shot.

Just FYI incase anyone is wondering, this load is averaging 2,833 FPS from my 22" barrel.

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Shot 2 groups with the factory Solus 6.5CM, and the first group was kind of wild, but the 2nd was much better... If I had not had the random flier, it would have been 0.529", instead of 0.699". I hope it's still settling, as I still don't even have 100 rounds through it yet. Today was shots 51-70 using the best load that tested from my initial sets of load development. It may not be supreme, but it has zero issues pinwheeling the 3" gong @ 300 yards every time. I even had 2 other people shoot it that had never shot the rifle, never seen a DNT scope before, and never shot that cartridge at 300 yards, both nailed it on the 1st shot.

Just FYI incase anyone is wondering, this load is averaging 2,833 FPS from my 22" barrel.

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I was looking at grabbing the 22" 6.5CM barrel for my coyote setup. I may have to jump on one after seeing this.
 
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Well... After emailing Gene at CarbonSix, I asked him to contact me sometime after 2pm this afternoon (I had work meetings all morning, then a lunch meeting), so he called around 2:15, and after talking on the phone for about 45 minutes, and discussing all the things he was curious about, he said he wanted to get it back and examine it, so he sent me a label to overnight it back to them, which I pulled when I got home from work, and swapped on my new Aero contract overrun spiral-fluted 20" 6.5CM barrel just to have something to shoot in the meantime.

I have to say, it looks damn good on there! And even with the heavy Burris XTR-3 and the Aero chassis, this thing is actually lightweight enough to hunt with... I just weighed it with my Magnus-S on the end, and it's only 13 lbs. 11.30 oz ! I know that sounds heavy, but it's a hell of a lot lighter than it was when I had my M24 stainless steel .308 Win barrel on there. And it feels about as light as when my CarbonSix barrel was on there. When the new one comes back, I'll weigh it. If I stuck a much lighter scope on there, like my Vortex Viper HD 5-25x50, then I bet I could shave another 1.5-2 lbs. off it.

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Well... After emailing Gene at CarbonSix, I asked him to contact me sometime after 2pm this afternoon (I had work meetings all morning, then a lunch meeting), so he called around 2:15, and after talking on the phone for about 45 minutes, and discussing all the things he was curious about, he said he wanted to get it back and examine it, so he sent me a label to overnight it back to them, which I pulled when I got home from work, and swapped on my new Aero contract overrun spiral-fluted 20" 6.5CM barrel just to have something to shoot in the meantime.

I have to say, it looks damn good on there! And even with the heavy Burris XTR-3 and the Aero chassis, this thing is actually lightweight enough to hunt with... I just weighed it with my Magnus-S on the end, and it's only 13 lbs. 11.30 oz ! I know that sounds heavy, but it's a hell of a lot lighter than it was when I had my M24 stainless steel .308 Win barrel on there. And it feels about as light as when my CarbonSix barrel was on there. When the new one comes back, I'll weigh it. If I stuck a much lighter scope on there, like my Vortex Viper HD 5-25x50, then I bet I could shave another 1.5-2 lbs. off it.

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Nice. I can’t wait to see how it performs. I have the same barrel on my bench. It will likely be a while before I play with it since I have a PVA 308 barrel on it now.
 
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Nice. I can’t wait to see how it performs. I have the same barrel on my bench. It will likely be a while before I play with it since I have a PVA 308 barrel on it now.
I just ordered another box of Alpha 6.5CM SRP brass last night, so should have it by Friday. I don’t mix and match brass with barrels, unless I’ve completely burned the tube, and replaced it with another, then I FL size to get them back to SAAMI, then start neck-sizing again.

Also, I do have a really nice set of Manson Go/No-Go gauges that work for ALL the Creedmoor cases (which is genius on Dave’s part), and headspace was dead-on the new barrel, as well.
 
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