Somebody (maybe Steve Szihn) objected to my claim about affordable, accurate factory rifles. He pointed out that any factory rifle will be as affordable and accurate no matter what cartridge it's chambered for.
That has not been my experience with the Creedmoor. For one thing, there are more "affordable" rifles chambered for the 6.5 Creedmoor than there are chambered for, say, the .260 Remington and 6.5x55. A little Googling came up with a price of $289 for the Savage Axis and $353 for the Ruger American Predator. In my experience both are very accurate rifles, but neither is chambered in the .260 or 6.5x55. They are, however, chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor.
Savage chambers a number of rifles in .260, but they're all more expensive models than the Axis--or Ruger American. If somebody does want an accurate, out-of-the-box .260 they'd be worth looking at, as Savage's short-action, detachable magazines are 3" long.
My present 6.5 Creedmoor is a Ruger American Predator, and I paid $350 for it. It's very first 5-shot group at 100 yards measured .33", and while not every group has been like that, it generally hovers around .5 inch with handloads OR factory ammo. I've paid a lot more for custom-barreled rifles that don't shoot any better, and some that didn't shoot as well.
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