S&W's Superb 6.5

SMITH & WESSON’S M&P10 RIFLE GETS THE PERFORMANCE CENTER TREATMENT AND EMERGES, CHAMBERED IN 6.5 CREEDMOOR, READY TO GO THE DISTANCE.

- Mike Dickerson

The last time I tested a Smith & Wesson M&P10 rifle, my expectations were shattered—in a most positive way—because the gun performed far better than I expected it to.

I had just wrung the rifle out during an NRA Outdoors long range shooting school held in Utah and Wyoming. Over the course of two days of high-intensity shooting, Several other outdoor scribes and I successfully shot basic, stock M&P10 rifles, with their pencil-thin, 18-inch barrels, at distances up to 1,000 yards. The only modification to the 308 Win.-chambered rifles was the addition of a Magppul PRS buttstock. Using rifle scopes with custom-cut turrets, we were, to a man, astonished at how well the M&P10 shot. The highlight of the school, for me, was shooting a group at half a mile that you could cover with your hand.

Given that sort of performance from a stock M&P10, I naturally had high hopes for the newest member of the M&P10 clan when Smith & Wesson this year announced the arrival of a new version of the rifle from S&W’s famed Performance Center. The new gun would be chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor— an inherently accurate cartridge.

For the uninitiated, the Performance Center is where modern gun-making technology meets old-world craftsmanship. The gunsmiths at the center specialize in taking production guns to the next level in terms of appearance, reliability and accuracy.

According to S&W’s Matt Spafford, “When designing the Performance Center M&P10 6.5 Creedmoor, each component was selected and manufactured to enable accurate, long range shots with the popular 6.5 Creedmoor caliber.”