In an August 1998 installment of Pet Loads, the late Ken Waters once said, “Defeatist, I’m not! Maybe this update report on the 6mm Remington will contribute in a small way to the ‘intervention’ a fellow gun writer recently spoke about to prevent the untimely demise of this fine caliber.

“If there’s anything I deplore in this grand game of ours, it’s watching while inferior cartridges displace superior rounds.

“Sales of the best, most practical of the .24 calibers—the 6mm Remington—discourage continued production of rifles in this caliber despite its admitted ballistic advantages over the .243 Winchester. Why do we do this while simultaneously seeking ways to increase velocity?”

Waters had much more to add to his argument, but you get the gist in the few lines selected. From the perspective of another 24 years, it is obvious that despite Waters’ considerable sway in the shooting world, he failed to move the needle in a positive direction. The 6mm Remington is not offered in any currently manufactured rifle that I am aware of, but its appeal burns strong with a cadre of dedicated diehards. And why not? The 6mm Remington is a quantifiably superior cartridge to the classic 243 Winchester, which is still commonly chambered in scads of contemporary rifles.

From the standpoint of powder capacity and potential velocity, it could be argued that the 6mm Remington is superior to the newer 6mm Creedmoor in terms of shooting the same bullets.

At this point in the game, anyone who is interested enough to have read this far is no doubt familiar with the saga of Remington’s introductory missteps, the 244/6mm changeup, and how the 243 Win ultimately gained the hearts of the shooting public, so I’ll waste no space here rehashing those details.

The 1:9 rifling twist that came with the rebranding of the 244 Remington to the 6mm Remington reintroduced in the 1963-released Model 700 Remington proved sufficient to stabilize any 6mm hunting bullet up to 105 grains. The long neck (.110-inch longer than the 243 Win) ensures bullet bases won’t intrude into powder space. It includes a 10 percent case capacity advantage over the Winchester and Creedmoor that translates into a potential 150- to 175-fps gain in velocity.

Traditionally chambered in short actions, I built my 6mm Rem on a Model 700 long action, allowing more room for seating long-for-caliber bullets while keeping bullet bases out of the powder chamber. The medium-weight, fluted, 24-inch Wilson replacement barrel included ample free bore to accentuate this further, allowing overall loaded lengths of 3-plus inches. A Timney trigger and Magpul Bolt Action Magazine Well Kit with a detachable 10-round PMAG magazine were added. As my long-time windy-day varmint rifle, this rifle has consumed thousands of rounds, enough so accuracy began to deteriorate—in varmint-shooting terms, at least. As such, I pulled the barreled action from the heavy McMillan stock, replacing it with a trim and lightweight Proof Research carbon fiber handle, and swapped out the high-magnification varmint scope for a Swarovski 3-16x 50mm Z8i P scope set in Warne Mountain Tech rings atop a UTG Picatinny rail. This transformed a heavy bench gun into an easy-toting big game rifle. 

Most of the work I’ve done with this cartridge has involved long-range varmint loads, with just a single series dedicated to big game loads. This round, I switched things up, either adopting a “what-else?” approach or looking to improve groups with bullets I had high hopes for but that just hadn’t performed well with the powders and seating depths selected the last go-round. The latter included Hornady’s CX and ELD-X in 90 grains.  

Bullets selected for this newest round of testing included Barnes’ 80-grain TTSX BT (Tipped Triple Shock X, Boat Tail), Swift’s 90-grain Scirocco II and Nosler’s 95-grain Ballistic Tip Hunting. As hinted, Hornady’s 90-grain ELD-X and all-copper CX were given another chance to impress with this rifle, changing up powders and seating depths while looking to solve the head-scratching lack of accuracy experienced during the last test.

The 80-grain Barnes TTSX BT includes a blue polymer tip and sleek boattail that creates a .331 G1 ballistic coefficient (BC). This light bullet can be sent in excess of 3,500 fps, making it ideal for pronghorn or smaller deer like Coues whitetail. It was combined with Hodgdon Superformance, which provided a 1.07-inch overall group average, Accurate 4350, resulting in a .97-inch overall group average, and Alliant Reloder 16, which gave a 1.11-inch group average. With Superformance, the maximum load of 50.5 grains did the trick, shooting inside an inch and hitting a zippy 3,624 fps. A-4350 proved worthwhile, the best group measuring .92-inch at 3,329 fps. Reloder 16 produced this bullet’s best group—.89-inch at 3,350 fps—with 45 grains of powder, if not the best overall group average.