6mm Dasher

6mm Dasher Information

Note: If you are looking for someone to chamber your rifle or re-barrel an existing rifle in the 6mm Dasher cartridge, Fred at Sabreco, Inc. in Skippack, PA (610) 584-8228 can help you with this. He has the reamers for the cartridge as well as the head space gages for the cartridge, and has had extensive experience setting up and chambering many barrels and rifles in the cartridge.

We also have Die Sets Available for the Dasher - Call (215) 348-8789
Available From:
AR-X Enterprises, LLC
199 North Broad Street
Doylestown, PA 18901
(215) 348-8789

Redding Type S FL Bushing Sizing Die $89.95

Full Die Set With Competition Seater $199.95

Competition Seater Only $119.95

6mm Dasher Modified Case $10 (for use
with Stoney Point or Hornady Lock-N-Load Tool)

6mm Dasher Load and Chrono Information

The general consensus is that Varget, Reloader 15 and H4895 are three of the most popular powders of choice for the 6mm Dasher, and the CCI #450 primer is also a primer of choice for some shooters, although this author used CCI BR-4 primers and had good results with them.

Top end loadings vary (depending on the rilfe, barrel, lot of powder, etc.) but top end accurate loadings with the 105-108 gr bullets are generally being reported in the range of 2950 - 3050 fps (with exceptions both up and down).

Making Brass - Very Easy!
The technique used by this author to make Dasher brass is very easy - just load up factory 6mm BR brass using standard 6mm BR loads, using good neck tension (.004" neck tension) making sure the bullet is jammed into the lands about .025", and shoot them in the 6mm Dasher chambered rifle - Done! Not only did this author find that the fire forming loads were very accurate (using standard 6mm BR loads) but the brass, after fire forming, came out very consistent and uniform. This author is not sure why some use the "false shoulder" method with Dasher brass (too much work and works the brass too much in this author's opinion). The false shoulder method involves necking up 6mm BR brass with something like a .257" or .264" mandrel, then necking down a portion of the neck to 6mm again to make a "false shoulder" to hold back the case when it is chambered. For fire forming loads, this author found with good neck tension (.004" neck tension) and loading bullets .025" in the lands, the cases were held back fine for fire forming.

Limited Chronograph Testing - At this point this author has only done limited chrono testing with moly coated bullets, which is noted below. The rifle involved is a prone target rifle with a 30" Krieger 6mm 1:8 twist 4 groove barrel (.236" x .243" bore) with a 6mm Dasher chamber similar to the reamer described below on this page (i.e. .115" freebore and a one and a half degree throat angle). The results were as follows:

Chronograph Loadings: 6mm Dasher brass, fire formed from 6mm BR Lapua Brass, with the primers noted and all results are for five shot strings:

30.8 gr. RL15 and a Sierra 107 MatchKing - moly (.025" in the lands) - 2830 mean velocity, ES 23, SD 11
(the above loading was with thrown charges - not individually weighed and a CCI BR-4 primer)

32 gr. RL15 and a Sierra 107 MatchKing - moly (.020" in the lands) - 2917 mean velocity, ES 19, SD 6
(the above loading was with individually weighed charges and a CCI #450 primer)

33 gr. RL15 and a Sierra 107 MatchKing - moly (.020" in the lands) - 3000 mean velocity, ES 13, SD 6
(the above loading was with individually weighed charges and a CCI #450 primer)

33 gr. RL15 and a Berger 105 VLD - moly (.015" in the lands) - 2996 mean velocity, ES 13, SD 5
(the above loading was with individually weighed charges and a CCI BR-4 primer)

32 gr. Varget and a Berger 105 VLD - moly (.015" in the lands) - 2888 mean velocity, ES 12, SD 4
(the above loading was with individually weighed charges and a CCI BR-4 primer)

33 gr. Varget and a Berger 105 VLD - moly (.015" in the lands) - 2979 mean velocity, ES 6, SD 2
(the above loading was with individually weighed charges and a CCI BR-4 primer)

General Comments on the 6mm Dasher:

The cartridge seems to be extremely accurate and easy to load for. As soon as there is time the author would like to try loadings and do chrono testing with plain (non-moly) bullets.

Dasher Reamer Used For Project:

The 6mm Dasher reamer below was used for this project - dimensionally this author likes it very much
for the following reasons:

1. It has an easy .272" no neck turn neck
2. It is throated well for most of the 105-108 gr bullets with the .115" freebore coupled with the 1.555" chamber length.
3. The chamber length of 1.555" worked out very well with the Lapua 6mm BR brass, because when fire formed, most of the Dasher cases came out being around 1.542" in length.
4. The dimensions of the case dovetail well with the Redding dies which size the cases adquately but not excessively.