Just jumped into this thread for the first time and I think this post just answered some questions... Maybe already answered elsewhere, so apologies for the redundancy.
I have an opportunity to get a smoking deal on a Bergara Premier Competition in 6CM. I want a GT, but my budget is 2400 and not sure what I can build for that. Given the fact I can get an MPA and TT in this for a great price, the overarching concern was the action/barrel (both I'm not familiar with in Bergara and prefer Tikka/60 degree throw).
I was curious if A. I could download to these speeds- 2800 wheelhouse, and be GTG. B. Could always rebarrel, that is if it's a no brainer on a good deal and assuming Bergara premier actions/comp barrel is any good. I've read mixed things about Bergara in general.
Crazy you have 3k rounds through that barrel contradicting everything I've read up on 6CM. I'm assuming this is a function of downloading during most if not all of this barrel life?
Thanks, CK1.0 and whoever else wants to chime in.
I think the main ingredient has been that I never ran the barrel faster than ~2900fps, and the other part is that for probably the first ~1500rds or so I wasn't cleaning the barrel properly...
That barrel is/was the second barrel I'd ever had/run, and I was still listening to all the fudd "experts" as far as what to do (or more so what NOT to do) when cleaning, which meant for the first ~1500rds the barrel saw nothing harsher than nylon brushes, cotton patches, and Boretech Eliminator. All the legacy/fudd BS I had read/heard had scared me into believing that any use of abrasives or bronze brushes would ruin the barrel... I've since found that was/is complete and total BS and completely wrong.
So, by mistake and maybe sheer luck(?), I had loaded up the barrel with carbon to where it stopped shooting at ~1500rds, but at the same time was "protected" by a layer of hard carbon fouling due to me being a naive dumbass. I got it out, and voila, it started shooting again.
Once I got a borescope (now an essential part of my cleaning regime) and began to stop listening to any "fudd lore" that defied logic, I discovered that it absolutely requires using abrasives and bronze brushes (in fact new/fresh ones work best) to properly clean a barrel, carbon is hard, therefore you have to scrape it out, there's no magical potion that dissolves it all away (just don't be an idiot and scrape away the rifling too by going bananas without checking your work is all lol).
IDK much of anything about Bergara stuff, so I can't help you there.
But as far as 6CM (or any other 6)... a 6mm is a 6mm, if you run it at Dasher speeds it'll last as long as a Dasher, period. It really is that simple. I also run 6GT (I go back and forth between the two by switching barrels) and if I knew then what I know now I would have just stuck with 6CM. The GT's steeper 35-degree shoulder angle may have something to do with making low SDs easier to attain, but it could also be its less capacity or just be a figment of my imagination, mostly I think the "magic" is using faster powders like Varget, SWPR, N140/N150, etc and not worrying about case fill and/or burn rate so much (like guys do when they're chasing speed). I don't think it's a coincidence that 6BR, BRA, BRX, Dasher, GT and all the other "easy to load for" cartridges use Varget in their "go to" recipes.
I load all my rounds to the nearest kernel and have been doing so for ~3 years now and can tell you that much of the "reloading lore" is BS, there are no "nodes", no magical seating depth you have to discover, blah, blah, blah... there's just the struggle between what's a Rorschach test, versus validation via a statistically valid sample size.
More/less fuel = more/less velocity, always. Try to make every single round you make come out the same as the next and you'll get low SDs and an acceptable ES... and if you get low SDs and a good ES... it will shoot, period.