a friend of a friend is bragging about hunting at 1500 yards for deer with a 6.5 creedmoor. I don’t know about the truth of it but ballistics say it’s not wise.
After doing all the research in ballistics, his 129gr Hornady whitetail ammo is doing just over 900fps at 1500 yards.
As someone who shoots farther than most, more frequently, and for more years, I'll say it flat out - your buddy is full of ****. Anyone capable of delivering the ~1/3MOA group at 1500 yards (NOT just at 100yrds, but at 1500!!!) knows better than to talk about light-for-caliber bullets, let alone with factory ammo, they'd know better than to talk about a 6.5 creed for the task and there are REALLY few dudes in the world truly capable of sending a bullet into 1/3MOA at 1500...
It's not really a matter of the terminal performance, in principle a 6.5mm 129grn bullet hitting at 900fps isn't so dissimilar from a 38spcl snub nosed revolver pressed against the hide of the deer - but with a pointier and thinner bullet which would penetrate better than a blunt 38cal slug... And we all know a snubby 38 pressed against a deer's hide would kill the deer, regardless of expansion. But it's a matter of delivering the shot - which just doesn't happen. The American Whitetail line tends to shoot relatively well in a lot of rifles, around 3/4MOA is commonly reported - not 1/3MOA at 1500yrds - but the velocity stability isn't typically anything to write home about, often in the 75-100fps ES for 20 shots... That means out of a given box, the slowest round would be striking over 9ft lower than the fastest round in the box. So I'd be sure the bullet could kill if we could get it there, but I know just how hard it really is to get it there.
Folks can and DO hunt at 1500yrds, but it's not being done reliably with a 6.5 creedmoor shooting light-for-cartridge bullets out of factory ammo boxes. A buddy of mine out of PA is building a 1 Mile Deer rifle currently, and has had the hunting spot picked out for a long time, which is chambered for 338 Edge. Even bit 30cal magnums are starting to sweat when we talk about holding onto small targets at 1500+.
Maybe another way of acknowledging the challenge of the shot he's describing - The "Cold Bore" target at Spearpoint Ranch ELR series for most of last season was a full sized torso target at 1500yrds, a slightly oversized IPSC ~22" wide if I recall correctly, which is right at 1.4MOA. Out of the competitor field of highly skilled and experienced LR and ELR shooters, typically only 1/3 of shooters hit the cold bore target (first shot of the day, no sighters), and this is using super magnum cartridges like 375 Cheytac and 416 Barrett which eat 3x more powder and have ballistic coefficients literally twice that of the 129 Interlock, bullets still flying supersonic well past 1500yrds, loaded to exceptionally consistent muzzle velocities, and fired from 30-40lb (or more) custom single shot rifles... These are dudes and rifles which are just warming up at a mile, but hitting sub-2MOA at that distance is a real challenge.
Maybe your buddy flung a bullet and killed a deer. It DOES happen pretty frequently that shooters will "miss onto target," but for him to pretend this would be anything ethical or repeatable, or really even intentional...
