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Naki, that is a beautiful rifle! Just the thing to have along on afternoon jaunts after fallow deer!

I just checked Midway catalogue for Hornady and Norma. No dice. Not listed there. OWS is probably your best bet. Sounds like you ought to buy a pile of it.

The topic of this caliber {and the lamentable fact that it is not on every gunshop's shelf and difficult to find...} makes me want to hop up on my soapbox for a moment, so I will!!

The headsize and OAL of the 6.5x54 just begs for a proper modern rifle to chamber it. IMHO, the American companies are continually bringing out ridiculous "short mags" of one ilk and persuasion or the next, evidently demanded as "necessary" by their marketing experts as they try to sell more and more guns to guys who already have more and more guns. But I bet that 95% of American hunters spend 95% of their time deer hunting and if my experiences at public ranges is instructive, 95% of the fellows that buy the various "mags" are scared to death of them and NEVER shoot them enough to become proficient with them at all. A couple shots from the bench, with teeth clenched and eyes barely open "to check zero" is all many of those things get.

For years I used a .375 H&H Mag and heavy-loaded .45-70 for much of my deer hunting. Why? I don't know, they worked! But then I switched to the 6.5x55 and 7x57 and found out that they too work and in fact there are really quite a few situations where those calibers can be used and the heavier ones, well, not, or at least, not well. The lighter calibers make for better woods stalking rifles and for example, I have shot deer from the most bizarrely contorted and twisted positions using a rifle that simply doesn't kick, only to find out that on deer-sized game at reasonable ranges of 200 yards or less, there is no observable killing power difference between the "little" 6.5 and the .375. And now we train at the range from all sorts of positions that are not comfortable with the heavies. And I admit I need all the training I can get!

The mags offer a bit of range, and where that is demanded {and the shooter can make the shot.......} they have an advantage over such as the 6.5x54, 6.5x55 and 7x57, but for mass sale appeal, one of the lighter ones makes for an easy-shooting rifle that begs to be practiced with and as a result makes for better shooters, and in the final analysis, it is the shooting not the caliber that kills the vast majority of game animals which for the American hunter means deer.

Bravo the 6.5x54!! Though I admit all of this is a pipedream and the caliber is really in truth redundant {with the existence of the .260 Remington and 6.5x55}, I'd love to see some enterprising US rifle company spin out a light handy carbine with balance of a M-S. Impractical, unnecessary? Sure, but that is what US rifle making is all about!!

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