December 2014 issue of Handloader. His cartridge board article on the .260 Remington.

"For woods hunters (ranges of 100 yards, usually less), it is too powerful."

"On the other hand, if hunting where 200 yard shots are expected, but 300 to 400 yards possible, why use a marginal round when one of adequate power is readily available?"

Apparently Gil doesn't hunt with a .260, or know Scenarshooter....

Maybe senility is setting in

May just be intended to get us to write them.

I have loaded for and hunted with the 243, not my personal favorite although it will kill our little deer. If you listen to the talk here is West Texas quite a few deer escape young shooters using the 243 with light bullets - that is the fault of who ever is supervising the young hunter.
While I am not quite this rabid current talk has the 243 known as the: ".243 Wont Kill Anything."
I enjoy shooting and loading for the 260. We have an 18 1/2" Model 7.
If Gil Sengel had been writing about the .256 or 6.5X54mm Mannlicher's He would have liked them. While the Model 7 is not a levergun it is a nice little rifle for deer.

I enjoy Gil Sengel's writing and his choices of material but this Cartridge Board left me wondering if he had actually used the .260 Remington cartridge on deer.

That article was a head scratcher. Why write about a cartridge and say nothing really positive about it?

I had just read the Campfire post about a "Two gun battery" and then read Gil's article while sitting at the tire shop.
Apparently Gil would be happiest with a 30-30 and then something bigger than a 260, unspecified in the article.

My take on it, there is a tremendous amount of overlap among the cartridges we have to pick from and play with. None of them are Magic but for lots of folks a "middle ground" round can make placing the first shot easier.

They may Way Over-penetrate at less than 100yds and there may be better tools for long range but that doesn't mean the are only good for targets and silhouettes.
Now which two to choose? Two cartridges, are you crazy?

I have a golf club bag with 8 rifles in it that I take hunting. I pull out the appropriate rifle/cartridge depending on range.

Steelhead;
But are they all carried loaded chamber/hot?

Seriously though I've come to believe that quite a few writers enjoy putting some "out there" things in some articles just to see if anyone catches it - reading comprehension being what it appears to be sometimes these days and all that.

Anyway sir, all the best to you folks and good luck on your remaining hunts this fall.

Dwayne

Someone reads Sengel's column?

Maybe he is auditioning to write the stupid comments used in the various editions of "Cartridges of the World" - now there is some nonsense.

so i was wrong packing my 260 last week for everything from deer to black bear to elk for everything from powder burn range in the timber to long range in the valley fields?

Likely the same stuff most "writers" are. Silly "remarkable" chitte abounds.

I have always liked his writing and have found it to be both informative and entertaining. He really won me over when he alluded to the blowing up of handguns in the name of experimenting to be a less than admirable pursuit.

Many , many writers are just that writers, not gun guys like Mule Deer.

Odd, too powerful for what?
So, the round is good for 200-300 yards only, I am looking at getting a CR, so I guess it would be good for 175-275 yds, I think I will get a CR and take my chances.

The only thing the 260 is not powerful enough for past 300 yards is an armored personnel carrier.

I thought I was the only one who assumed Gil was off track, I am Glad I am not. He obviously never used one or his opinion would be different. His column seems to nave been written in 1960, when the .243 was a varmint gun and leverguns were still the woods gun to own...... Times change and with various technological improvements ,Gil, you can actually kill deer and other various game with a .243. How many .243s are bought nowadays that are primarily varmint guns, I bet almost none. Varmint guns have gotten smaller and so have deer guns. Look how many use .224 bullets successfully nowadays.....
P.S. I guess the pigs and antelope I have shot with my .260 were all luck. The two closest shots were 200 yds. the rest past 450 yds.

At least this time he didn't blame everything on societal decay.

I actually enjoy Mr. Sengel's writing, but have found him to be VERY opinionated. But I grew up on Elmer, so I can handle that! But like so many writers today, it seems if you don't have the exact correct cartridge, barrel length, rifle weight, scope magnification, etc, well, you're doing it WRONG. I remember a day when several of my uncles and cousins came out hunting when I was a kid. There was a .300 Savage with a K4, and .250-3000 with an even older K4 (non-centered reticle and exposed adjustments), a military action restocked by my cousin and rechambered to .308 with iron sights, a borrowed .348 Winchester with open sights, and a Marlin .30-30 with a cheap 4x scope. There were a lot of deer in those days, and I believe everyone filled a tag, and no deer were hit and lost.

All felt their armament markedly superior to throwing rocks. And they were right .

Yep .260 Kool-Aid, .223 best round for deer. IT'S A SHORT ACTION!!! .... Uupps forgot to drink the Kool-Aid--- Damn oh well guess I will just have to use the heavier bullets in the 6.5X55 or 6.5X57. I will try and get over the fact that they are not a SA..............................

Something tells me a .30-06 with a 4 or 6 power scope will still get the job done...even if it does have a long action and the scope doesn't have a fancy reticle or click adjustments.

Maybe GS was simply concerned about overpenetration.

I enjoy his writing too. He seems to be a "farm boy" and handy with tools.

"VERY opinionated" sounds like Gil Sengel would fit right in on the Campfire.

I was surprised by the article as well. It really seemed like he had a bias against it from the outset. And from the article I got the impression that his bias came from "paper ballistics" and not real world usage of the .260 Remington.

Reading the article brought to mind the Bio for the late Al Miller. In it it was said that as a previous Editor of Handloader Al Miller had the philosophy of "Write about what you know." If you haven't experienced something personally, you don't write about it. It made me wonder if Gil had personal experience with the cartridge or if he had violated Al's good advice.

I'm pretty nonplussed about the article though. So he doesn't find merit in a .260 class cartridge. No skin of my nose. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion.

Even if it happens to be wrong.

This cannot be more true, sadly.

95% of today's "gunwriters" don't know their asses from a hole in the ground.....

While I have never met or spoken to Gil Sengel I believe he is a "Gun Guy."
When you look at some of his feature articles there is little doubt Sengel has an appreciation of new and old guns and enjoys tinkering with them.
Sengel's Cartridge Board articles are well researched even if somwhat dismissive of all but the most popular cartridges.
I could write the same words about articles written by several gun writers - Ed Matunas comes to mind.
When it comes to unbiased writing about cartridges it will be a long time before we see another Robert Hutton or Ken Waters. Those two were certainly the "Gold Standard" of obejective curiosity. I gues we could include several others such as F.C. Ness, Ed Harris and William Davis.

Opinions are like navels. And controversial opinions sell magazines. One of my friends wrote an op-ed piece for the KC Star advocating an ordinance forbidding the erection of a church within 300 yds of a liquor store. His views were not ignored

Jack O'Conner said the .32-20 was useless, while George Nonte killed deer with it - in a revolver. And so it goes.

In "The Rifle Book", Jack said the .25/20 and .32/20 " remained highly useful for wild turkeys", since they didn't tear up meat. He did comment that they were dying, as no rifles were being made for them.

Bear in mind that Jack was on the cutting edge gun-wise in his day, and appreciation for old stuff wasn't as fashionable as it is now. This was the period when Ken Waters was picking up all those marvelous old rifles for a song.

I read that article and simply thought the guy was a bit of an idiot on the .260 Rem. He's obviously never shot it at big game past 500 yds with a properly loaded .260 Rem and watched them drop, which tells me he didn't hit them. OTOH, I was shooting 130 gr. cast loads from the .260 Rem at around 1500 fps that probably would have been perfect for the sub-100 yd shots that the .260 is "too powerful" for.

All people (including writers) have their own opinions from their own experiences and, GS certainly has his. Personally, my experiences have shown me the solid performance of the 260 Remington. We all know the 6.5X55mm Swede work well and the 260 Remington is just a shorter, higher pressure cartridge.

see: http://saami.org/specifications_and_information/specifications/Velocity_Pressure_CfR.pdf

Yes.

A bunch of years back, Boddington wrote about the 260 and its use in Africa (in a Model 7 I believe) and dang that article has had me wanting a 260 ever since... everything he took aim at died as if it were hit by a 270 or a 30-06... I recall one of the unfortunate beasts was a warthog... I guess they did not tell the critters to man-up against the lowly 260...

Some might have an Ah Ha moment if they actually shot vitals with good bullets and stopped obsessing over ballistics and headstamps.