It might be dead from a marketing stand point....but certainly not from the stand point of those that
shoot it...
Spent a lot of years in the sales end of marketing...
doesn't matter the product, marketing is marketing...
if the 30/06 was introduced today, it would be a dead cartridge with 3 to 4 years...
people would complain its too big for your needs, and the other folks would complain it ain't enough..
Marketing has nothing based on efficiency, practicality or anything else...
it is creating a perceived need, often where one doesn't exist.... by those that have the solution
available for the problem the marketing folks convinced you that you have...
I didn't buy a 260 back in 1998, because it was the latest greatest idea out of the gun rags or the marketing TP.
I bought one, because I loved the 6.5 bore, thinking it was one of the most efficient.
but yet being a 308 necked down, brass availability would be no problem....
and besides, it was a 6.5 mm in an American Case... the 308.. how more red white and blue can ya get?
if the 260 and the 6.5 Creedmoor were both brought to market today.. my pick would be the 260
strictly due to the case it was made available in.. over the Creedmoor.
kinda the same philosophy I've used, spinning a 204 barrel off of an action and spinning on a new barrel
in 20 cal and having it chambered for the 20 Practical...
its a 204 performance, with readily and plentifully available brass...
guys I know who shoot 204 are scrambling for brass.. when it wasn't that long ago
you could get brass all over the place... because the marketing dweebs had enough
people convinced it was the greatest varmint cartridge ever produced....
marketing hype doesn't work real well on me.. I guess after being around it for 30 to 40 years professionally.
that is why I have the 260s, instead of getting rid of them and getting a 6.5 Creedmoor...
and being a handloader.. doesn't matter how much variation in ammo is available....
