Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 260 bolt action rifles..

Picked up new a savage model 11 in 260 cal.fluted bolt pencil barrel today. Local gun shop close out sale for $650 savage model 19208.Hopefully it will be a shooter..

Best bet these days is to hand load for .260. I've got 3 of them .

I have a Savage model 16 stainless 260 , 22" bbl. I drive the Badlands 125 gr mono at 3032fps with 47.5 grs of Rel 26. Over the years I have taken several elk with it & the Barnes 120grTTSX & 48grs of Rel 26 an even 3100fps. Both shoot to the same point of aim in my rifle. An amazing cartridge. Performs well beyond what you would expect for it's size.

Love my 260's and have/had more than a few. If brass is hard to find, just run 308 brass thru your 260 die and in one pull of the handle, you have 260 brass. For whitetail, I have had nothing but great luck (all DRT) with 100 gr Nosler BT and a full load of H414. I am running around 3275 FPS out of a 22 barrel. Never caught a bullet and all have been bang flops so what is not to like. Mine is a Remington model 7 with a mountain rifle contour take off barrel installed.
I have a buddy that has the same gun but a factory 20" barrel and shooting the same load (just different seating depth) and he is getting right at 3200 out of his.
I think you did yourself good.

A 260 is a great round, that’s fun to shoot.

Even the Europeans use them, I’m running a Sako 85 with one and really like it.

Good luck! I have had very good luck with the Berger Ammo in one of my 260s. Great part about that ammo is it uses Lapua brass which is great for those who reload and also for those that want to sell the brass. The only downside is that they've quit loading the bullet I've been using.

Love my M700 mountain rifle DM. 6.5 is a great caliber.

As long as you don't have a pressing need to shoot the sort of longer VLD bullets that have made the 6.5 Creedmoor's reputation and dominance in the short action 6.5mm market niche, the 260 is a fine medium game cartridge. I've used the 260 to punch deer tags with a variety of component bullets weighing from 95 thru 140 grain with good results since 1997. I like the 130 grain AB for shooting medium game.

I got my first 260 in 10/97, before there was any factory ammo available, so the great majority of my 260 shooting has been reloads and most of those cartridges started with necked up 243 brass from Winchester/Olin.

I bought a Savage 11 XP in .260 2.5 years ago as a retirement gift from the AF for myself. I can’t get it to shoot factory ammo for crap. I’ve loaded up 123 ELD and 130 ELDs and the darn thing starting printing clover leaf groups. The sad part, I’m low on H4350 now.

I think I got my first one around 1998, about the only thing I could find was the old green and yellow (John Deer bullets) that Remington put out in a 140 gr. Brass was hard to come by as well so most of my early stuff had 308 stamped on it.....

Almost all the rounds I've shot in my 260s have had 308 head stamp on the bottom...

and pretty much all of it for free being range pick up brass...

A few years ago, I bought a Savage Ligthweight Hunter (with the wood stock) on a lark from Cabelas. I did my usual bedding job for Savage bolt actions and then started playing with loads on the range.

Because of its light weight, this rifle is VERY finicky about loads and sensitive to relatively small changes in powder charges or seating depth--no surprise. However, it handles top loads well, and gives great velocities, despite its 20-inch barrel.

After some experimentation, I ended up building a hunting load with the Nosler 129-grain ABLR pushed by IMR 4831. Surprisingly, this combination generates 2,860 fps over the chronograph, and is very consistent from day to day. Despite the light weight and short barrel, it prints the first three shots easily into about one inch at 200 metres. In fact, I've seen it shoot better than my competition rifle for the first three shots on some range trips. This surprised me, to say the least.

With my simple Leupold LR Duplex reticle and the 2-7x scope, I've hit first shot bullseyes on TR competition targets at 300, 500, and 600 meters, much to the surprise of my competitive shooting coaches; and the groups from this rifle and load hold waterline at those longer ranges.

I've never used a single piece of brass headstamped "260"; all have been either Winchester or Hornady .308s, or any brand of .243. (I have found that some .308 brands require the neck to be turned if you neck down to 6.5mm, but Hornady and Winchester are just resize-load-and-shoot options, so they are my personal favourite.)

Because of its short length and light weight, the rifle handles like a dream. Before this, my Remington 700 Stainless Synthetic Mountain Rifle in .30-06 was what I considered to be my "light" rifle. This Savage now makes the Remington feel like a varmint rifle by comparison!

It has become my favourite rifle to carry while hunting, and it was definitive on the one white-tail deer who was introduced to it two years ago. I can't wait to see what it can do in the future; and I plan to experiment with the 127-grain Barnes LRX and build a true all-around load that might be able to work for all game in British Columbia. (I've been led to believe that the Nosler ABLR might be a bit frangible for all-around use.)

This is a long way of saying that I believe you should be very happy with your recent purchase.

260Remguy,, what twist do your .260s have? I too have good luck with conventional bullets up to 140 grain. But everything I read says that I'm lucky the bullets don't hit flat side to the target because I don't have a 1 in 8". Mine is 1 in 9". I did want to try some 130 grain Gamechangers, but they looked as tall as fenceposts so passed on them. My current deer bullet is either a 129 grain Hornady Interlock or Interbond, and they shoot just fine.

A few years ago the 260 urge hit me and by that evening I owned one. It's an Ariska with a med wgt barrel,4X14 Leupold,120gr Ballistic tips, and is sighted for our carcass pile across the bay at 376 yards. It was in Boise and my bil was coming home from there the next day. I used the same load as the seller did and on had to move the scope 2 clicks!

I refinished/rebarreled a beat-up bore-rusted "free" 725 in .244 with a take-off 700TI stainless bbl in .260. Specs say it is 1:9 twist.

It won't shoot anything well except 140 factory loads, those are MOA. - I haven't tried much in the way of reloading for it, and none of those were as accurate as the factory Corelokts. Needs work.....

It absolutely hated Barnes TSX120 factory loads worse than anything else I tried. Haven't tried any 129/130.

It has been years, 10?, caribou, an elk, and a wolf since I initially wrung it out, so I need to go back and revisit everything. Perhaps it has since "shot in" with lighter loads as some rifles do, and as I said, some reloading work is called for. I have 3# of 7828??? that I came up with some years ago when I couldn't find anything else, and a bunch of Corelokt and SST bullets.

140's work just fine, tho..... and I still have about 30 factory Corelokt rounds, which are currently unavailable (always hard to find), and may be for some time.

I'll get by.

'

I have 1-8" and 1-9" ROT 260s. 1-9" seems to be just quick enough to stabilize bullets that are 1.3" long, but it is a close thing. I like the 130 grain AB, but it appears to wobble a little in 1-9" barrels.

I felt the need to shoot 140 gr Berger VLDs in my Tikka SS .260, and it shot pretty ho hum as to what I was expecting.
Had a tight spot along the barrel so I sanded off the stock to relieve it.
The recoil lug had a divot in it so I swapped it for a titanium lug.
Was a long way to the lands so I modified the magazine to accept a longer OAL, and then ground a little off the bolt stop to allow for the longer throw.

It shoots like it should now, really happy with the rifle and the chambering.

Thanks, 260Remguy. I rebarreled my .260 about 10 years ago, and asked for a 1 in 9":. It works well enough for the bullets I shoot, but wish I'd have been more informed at the time and gotten a 1 in 8".

Nice buck..

I almost bought a remington 7600 in 260. I wish that I had now.