Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why/How does the Creedmoor out run the 260 & 6.5x55?

Steve,

Much of the industry is "paying attention" to the short-magazine length problem. A bunch of smaller rifle manufacturers use "short action" magazines longer than the standard of 2.85" Remington established in 1947 with the 722 action. However most, but not all, are smaller manufacturers. The first I knew of was Ultra Light Arms in their Model 20 in 1985, with a 3" magazine, but a few others I can think of offhand are Barrett, Fierce and Georgia Precision. Even a few larger manufacturers use longer "short" magazines: A Savage Axis I have has a 3" as well.

But many others do not. How many .260's with 2.85" magazines already exist from Remington, Ruger, Kimber, Winchester and others? Is the ammo industry going to make TWO lengths of .260 ammo? I doubt it, because even if "long .260" ammo was plainly marked on the box, many shooters won't pay any attention. They'll try to use it in their Remington (or whatever) and when the ammo doesn't fit inside the magazine, they will be pissed off.

The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute was organized in the late 1920's to make sure ALL ammo for a given cartridge would fit and function safely in ALL firearms so marked. I sincerely doubt SAAMI is going to approve TWO different .260's, for quite a few reasons. One would be a marketing slogan. Lemme see: "The .260 Remington Long, Just as Good as the 6.5 Creedmoor!"

But even if they did, so what? The 6.5 Creedmoor was designed expressly to solve the 2.85" magazine length problem the .260 ran into after shooters and many hunters started using longer high-BC bullets. It's now so far ahead of the .260 in sales that I suspect more factory 6.5 Creedmoors exist than .260's. The race is over.

You might also take a look at Formidilosus's post on the OTHER 6.5 Creedmoor thread still running on "Ask The Gunwriters." He just posted it so it should be easy to find.