6,5mm Bullets for long Distance?

[IceFoxx]

Comparing the Rifle Ammo, I saw that the 6,5mm is the only one with the highest effective Range of 200m

Means to me, and othes I spoke to, that up to 200m range, it hits the target with full power. Most other Rifle Ammo hast 150m

So in conclusion, this is the best ammo for long shots, right?

[DarkFalz]

I definitely find 6.5mm to be one of the best long range rounds in the game since it has a pretty flat trajectory and low recoil. But you do pay for that with lower overall power. For instance, if you shoot a whitetail deer with the .303, .308 or .30-06 and you hit both lungs, the deer will instantly drop on the spot. But from my testing, the 6.5 is incapable of doing this even at close range. In fact even from moderately long distances, the 6.5 doesn't even seem like it can punch through both lungs. I really wouldn't be surprised if all the aforementioned rounds were just as (if not more) powerful as the 6.5 is at those longer distances.

So the tradeoff with the 6.5 is you will have easier long range shots but you'll spend more time tacking your kills since the animals will take longer to bleed out.

[Ninjafroggie]

^
6.5mm is a very high velocity round, which is great for accuracy, but also means that rounds tend to punch straight through, creating a narrow wound channel, as opposed to slightly slower, fatter rounds which may have similar penetration values, but way more damage. I definitely wouldnt use it on any class 7-8 animals, it may be rated as ethical but you're going to spend an hour following your target waiting for it to bleed out. Even class 4s, as falz said, take noticably longer to die.

This is an unfortunate reality of game hunting vs real hunting...irl, you would shoot the target, and it would run a short way to cover and then lay down and bleed out. Here, they run and keep running. IRL the 6.5 is a great round for things like feral hogs and whitetail here in the US. In game, it's like an imperial guard lasgun...pinpoint accurate, but only makes a tiny hole that doesnt bleed much.

Honestly, the only reason i ever used the 6.5mm is for the mission on quatro colinas where you have to make a 400m shot. There are plenty of class 4-8 guns that are accurate enough at 300m and do WAY more damage.

[IceFoxx]

Thanks a lot guys. Your answers so far are short and to the point.

I do made meanwhile some hunting and indeed experienced what you said - it is noticeable that I track the animals a lot longer. There is not enough punch, somehow. At first I thought it could be bad aim but its the ammo.
very said as its called the only one with 200m effective range.

So what you guys use for a powerfull hit? Not talking about the .338 - which seems to be the strongest two guns but has way too much recoil.

The .300 canning mag or 7mm?
The 7mm has huge range of species - even bizon (4-9)
but the .300 canning has one more shot in mag.

your opinion?

[DarkFalz]

Originally posted by IceFoxx:

Thanks a lot guys. Your answers so far are short and to the point.

I do made meanwhile some hunting and indeed experienced what you said - it is noticeable that I track the animals a lot longer. There is not enough punch, somehow. At first I thought it could be bad aim but its the ammo.
very said as its called the only one with 200m effective range.

So what you guys use for a powerfull hit? Not talking about the .338 - which seems to be the strongest two guns but has way too much recoil.

The .300 canning mag or 7mm?
The 7mm has huge range of species - even bizon (4-9)
but the .300 canning has one more shot in mag.

your opinion?

The 7mm is great for maps where your loadout is gonna be more constrained for whatever reason (like if you want to carry a tent or maybe squeeze a shotgun or something else in). But you'll notice that it's lacking in power against animals like cape buffalo, bison or moose. It can definitely take them down, but it will take noticeably longer to do so compared to the .300 magnum.

So if I know I'm going up against those tougher animals and I have space in my loadout, I'll take the .300 magnum or .338 over the 7mm.

[IceFoxx]

Originally posted by DarkFalz:

Originally posted by IceFoxx:

Thanks a lot guys. Your answers so far are short and to the point.

I do made meanwhile some hunting and indeed experienced what you said - it is noticeable that I track the animals a lot longer. There is not enough punch, somehow. At first I thought it could be bad aim but its the ammo.
very said as its called the only one with 200m effective range.

So what you guys use for a powerfull hit? Not talking about the .338 - which seems to be the strongest two guns but has way too much recoil.

The .300 canning mag or 7mm?
The 7mm has huge range of species - even bizon (4-9)
but the .300 canning has one more shot in mag.

your opinion?

The 7mm is great for maps where your loadout is gonna be more constrained for whatever reason (like if you want to carry a tent or maybe squeeze a shotgun or something else in). But you'll notice that it's lacking in power against animals like cape buffalo, bison or moose. It can definitely take them down, but it will take noticeably longer to do so compared to the .300 magnum.

So if I know I'm going up against those tougher animals and I have space in my loadout, I'll take the .300 magnum or .338 over the 7mm.

Thanks - that fits with my experience too.
The .338 "feels" more heavy and has a huge recoil, but is it worth to take it instead of the .300, since I read the .300 is more versatile?

[Carstein83]

Originally posted by IceFoxx:

Thanks - that fits with my experience too.
The .338 "feels" more heavy and has a huge recoil, but is it worth to take it instead of the .300, since I read the .300 is more versatile?

There are two .338 - the Rangemaster .338 from the base game and the Tsurugi .338 from the Weapon Power Pack.
I would never take the Rangemaster, because it´s very inaccurate and one shot only. The Tsurugi is a good alternative to the .300. My personal experience is, that the Tsurugi has a little bit more impact than the .300, but is a little bit more inaccurate. They are very similiar, but I personally prefer the Tsurugi against strong and big class 9 animals like Buffalos, against class 7 and 8 imo the .300 is the better weapon.

[DarkFalz]

Originally posted by Carstein83:

There are two .338 - the Rangemaster .338 from the base game and the Tsurugi .338 from the Weapon Power Pack.
I would never take the Rangemaster, because it´s very inaccurate and one shot only. The Tsurugi is a good alternative to the .300. My personal experience is, that the Tsurugi has a little bit more impact than the .300, but is a little bit more inaccurate. They are very similiar, but I personally prefer the Tsurugi against strong and big class 9 animals like Buffalos, against class 7 and 8 imo the .300 is the better weapon.

I wouldn't say the Rangemaster is really inaccurate. At least I find it plenty accurate enough for most of the shot I take with it. Really the only downside is that it's single shot.

Between .300 magnum and .338, I prefer .300 just for the lower recoil. But either one will do just fine against all the big game animals you'll come across so just use whichever one you like more.

[IceFoxx]

Thanks guys - appreciate.

Yes, I guess since the Tsurugi was released, the Rangemaster got out due to one shot only.

One last question. Whats your personal opinion about "hard" ammo and soft point?
I read about the pros and cons and have seen some vids and discussions about it.
But whats your personal opinion and experience, means, which one you using and why?

[DarkFalz]

Originally posted by IceFoxx:

Thanks guys - appreciate.

Yes, I guess since the Tsurugi was released, the Rangemaster got out due to one shot only.

One last question. Whats your personal opinion about "hard" ammo and soft point?
I read about the pros and cons and have seen some vids and discussions about it.
But whats your personal opinion and experience, means, which one you using and why?

When it comes to determining how fast an animal will die, COTW seems to care a lot more about how many vital organs you hit with your shot rather than how much damage you caused to any individual organ. An animal that's had two or more organs hit always seems to die faster than one that only had one organ hit.

As a result, I find it's always better to go for ammo that has a higher penetration stat. Expansion feels like it's almost meaningless.

[Mooncatt]

Originally posted by DarkFalz:

Originally posted by IceFoxx:

Thanks guys - appreciate.

Yes, I guess since the Tsurugi was released, the Rangemaster got out due to one shot only.

One last question. Whats your personal opinion about "hard" ammo and soft point?
I read about the pros and cons and have seen some vids and discussions about it.
But whats your personal opinion and experience, means, which one you using and why?

When it comes to determining how fast an animal will die, COTW seems to care a lot more about how many vital organs you hit with your shot rather than how much damage you caused to any individual organ. An animal that's had two or more organs hit always seems to die faster than one that only had one organ hit.

As a result, I find it's always better to go for ammo that has a higher penetration stat. Expansion feels like it's almost meaningless.

coincidentally i actually tried this out today. ive been an avid poly user for god knows how long. even though i was hitting lung shots etc i never liked the bleed rate on the larger animals. i swapped to soft points on my 7mm (my pref rifle) been hunting bison today. it doesnt pen deep but enough to hit a lung, however the bleed rate is so much better and they drop pretty quickly. where as the poly tips obviously pen deeper but the bleed rate is so poor they can run for ages.

[IceFoxx]

Originally posted by Mooncatt:

Originally posted by DarkFalz:

coincidentally i actually tried this out today. ive been an avid poly user for god knows how long. even though i was hitting lung shots etc i never liked the bleed rate on the larger animals. i swapped to soft points on my 7mm (my pref rifle) been hunting bison today. it doesnt pen deep but enough to hit a lung, however the bleed rate is so much better and they drop pretty quickly. where as the poly tips obviously pen deeper but the bleed rate is so poor they can run for ages.

I tried a bit myself and experienced the same, but also vice versa. Dont know if it was luck or not that they bleeded out so fast.

Anyway, Mooncat, keep in mind (like someone said before in this thread) that the 7mm is really versatile due to its class range (4-9) but it also lacks off power compared to the .300 and the .338 rifles - thats one reason why they dont fall so fast and run for long time.

[DarkFalz]

Honestly this thread made me want to try the 6.5 out again since I haven't used it in a while. So I took it with me on Silver Ridge Peaks earlier and I have to say I think I was a little unfair to it. It might not be as powerful as the other 4-8 rifles but it's still pretty good.

It demolished these mountain goats even from long distance:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072584428
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072584377

Mountain ions didn't fare much better:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072584643
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072584526

It even did ok against black bears:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072583941
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072584070
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072583860

I also tried it against some elk. This is really pushing what the 6.5 is capable of and I wouldn't recommend it but It still did alright. Most of the other 4-8 rifles wouldn't do much better:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3072584259

So don't completely write the 6.5 off as useless. It still packs a decent punch and I had a lot of fun using it even if I had to do some extra tracking.

[Ninjafroggie]

As for the expansion vs pen debate, my experience is that pen is overall better. The expansion ammo does more damage, so vital hits kill faster, but it's limited in its ability to actually hit those organs, especially against game at the higher end of the bullet's ethical range. The high pen ammo allows you to make vital shots from a wider range of angles, especially at long range. Remember, quick kill only applies to session score, not the animal's trophy score, so any vital hit is good for diamonds no matter how far you have to track it afterwards.

As for what guns I use, I find it depends...on maps that have class 9 animals i frequently use the tsurugi .338, but for maps that top out at class 8 I generally like the .300 better. The exception to that is if I'm deliberately hunting the big class 9s, like water buffalo, I'll bring the .470 or the bow with 600gr arrows. They have easy to hit organs, but with the rangefinder bowsight still broken that's not really viable right now.

I hope they fix it soon. The bow is a great 'other' weapon to carry because it has ok range, is quiet, and can cover every class 2-9 animal with just 2 types of ammo.

The class 4-8 guns is where you REALLY notice a difference in performance between guns in accuracy, power, and range effect. The 6.5mm, for example, has relatively low performance in terms of hitting power, but it's the ONLY gun that can really be called suitable for a 400m shot. Compare that to the hudzik .50 muzzle loader, that gun will drop an elk on the spot within 100m, but you quickly notice dropoff in power past that range and at 200m accuracy is pretty poor. As far as pure "whats the best 4-8" gun overall, I'd say the zarza .308 but the .303 and various .30-06 are very close runners up. I still use a wide variety of them, because almost all of them are effective, it just comes down to a matter of what I feel like hunting with.

Still, I'd say the gun I use more than any other is the solohkin 1897, aka the mosin. Fantastic gun for 3-7s, so on any map that has class 3 animals it's my go-to carry.

[AfterCrow]

Originally posted by IceFoxx:

Means to me, and othes I spoke to, that up to 200m range, it hits the target with full power. Most other Rifle Ammo hast 150m

I can confirm that yes, this is the general consensus in terms of "effective range", which is only an arbitrary comparison number to denote energy retention over distance.

Any of the "normal" rifles with 150m effective range will work fine out to 415m (max render distance for everything non-waterfowl), but yes, you will notice a slight energy loss after 150m.

In comparison, the round-nose calibers, like lever actions with listed effective range of 75m have a much more noticeable energy loss (i.e. worse performance) over distance.

That being said, I can't guarantee that the energy loss starts exactly at 75m and decreases linearly like Battlefield or CoD; But the fact that 75 is half of 150 gives you a good estimate of range performance.

Now, if the 6.5 has a 200m effective range, that's just a 33% increase in range from 150m (remember 150 is +100% from 75m). AND the 6.5 is already a point of contention in the community for being underpowered.
People have been trying to get the base performance of the 6.5 buffed for years, to no avail, because at the end of the day the developers need to sell newer DLC.

On top of that, the ingame 6.5 does not have a noticeably flatter trajectory than the other sharp nose caliber rifles. (See LokkNar's guide for reference).

Originally posted by IceFoxx:

So in conclusion, this is the best ammo for long shots, right?

IMO, In conclusion you might be better off with a .308, .30-06 or 7mm

Originally posted by DarkFalz:

Originally posted by Carstein83:

There are two .338 - the Rangemaster .338 from the base game and the Tsurugi .338 from the Weapon Power Pack.
I would never take the Rangemaster, because it´s very inaccurate and one shot only. The Tsurugi is a good alternative to the .300. My personal experience is, that the Tsurugi has a little bit more impact than the .300, but is a little bit more inaccurate. (...)

I wouldn't say the Rangemaster is really inaccurate. At least I find it plenty accurate enough for most of the shot I take with it. Really the only downside is that it's single shot.
(...)

You guys might be aware, but I just want to point out that all rifles in the game are 100% accurate (save for bullet drop). The "Accuracy" stat listed for rifles is actually just telling you how much stability you have to fight gun sway. The smaller calibers have more stability ("accuracy") for balancing reasons.

[Geronimo]

IMO, as one who isn't learned in ballistics, but very familiar with most of the in-game weapons, I have found that the Devs have been doing far too much adjusting for us to be able to come to any solid, reliably consistent conclusions.

As well, I've found that the statistics we read in the various listings are also not very reliable. I don't think much actual firing range testing is done and the Devs that write these stats into the descriptions are likely just copying texts that someone else prepared who didn't actually do any specific testing to confirm any ballistic data.

IOW, there isn't the sort of precision involved as many of you might hope that the statistics would imply.

I'm not demeaning the game, I love it, but when it comes to our being able to rely on consistent ballistics, that's just not the reality.

When I tried out the 6.5 mm I immediately realized the sense of smoothness similar to that of the Zarza 308, and it seemed to be very accurate. But I also realized at the firing range, the drop beyond 200 yards was considerably more than the other same class weapons. And I noticed that in the field I was definitely tracking down wounded animals over greater distances.

Now I don't know how many times that gun has been adjusted since my testing was done, but I think it's fair to say that the Devs probably consider it to be more of a medium range, Whitetail-sized deer gun, and will likely always have that in mind whenever they feel the need to adjust its ballistics.

As for how much wobble, trajectory, power, etc actually influences the 'accuracy', I still don't put much faith in how those statistics are written into the descriptions. I like to take my weapons to the range regularly and keep a cautious eye out for potential changes that I might experience in the field as I hunt with them.

And my experience has sadly been one of often noticing changes at the most inconvenient of times.