Years ago, I purchased a pristine 1917 6.5 Swede because it was still in cosmoline (or equivalent), had a mirror-bore and all matching serial numbers (I seriously doubt it had ever been fired). I thought it was a "wimp round" but the rifle was $199 at Dunham's. I began to research for handloading and found an absolute DIAMOND of a caliber and rifle (printing 3/4" groups at 250 yards). Due to the Mauser not being scope-friendly, I had my gunsmith drill and tap the barrel for a sporter-mount Burris 2-7 handgun scope with phenomenal success.

Then I read GregW's account of taking his little-people to Africa using a .260! I now had the confirmation of my suspicions for the numbers the Swede was turning in. Sadly and aggravatingly, I'm a work-a-holic and never actually hunted with it, just printed groups and made and broke hunting plans.

Now roughly 15 years after the purchase, I've accepted that my real-world fun comes from shooting tiny groups (though they're still with heavier hunting bullets, just in case!!! hahahahaha). I love the Swede, but with the handgun scope, it just ain't cuttin' the LR boundaries. I knew the Creed was taking all of the thunder from other, fantastic 6.5 calibers(!) and began searching for a 700 Magpul in .260. Any other caliber need not apply for less than $1,000 on a good day. The little, forgotten-about .260 was $660 out the door and I raced 1.5 hours away to pick it up (I couldn't wait for shipping!) Long-story short, after break-in, the first 2 shots at 100 yards were in a ragged-hole (from the bench, I actually thought I missed the target and began messing with turrets to compensate!) I'm mostly done with load-development (just messing with seating depths, now) and 43.1 gr of H4350 is getting me 2656 fps and 0.513" group (best of 4 loads in the same vicinity of group-size) with 140 SST's. By the way, all this accuracy with a Tasco 3-9x40 that I had sitting at the back of my safe (I'll be getting a Vortex soon). The reticle covers up all of the bull's eye at 100 yards and I was guessing with every shot whether I was in the same point-of-aim, or not. (I have pictures, but couldn't figure out how to post them here).

So, my question: SOCOM compared the 7.62 NATO vs. the .260 vs. the 6.5 Creed and UNANIMOUSLY picked the Creed. All I have are ballistics charts and, to me, the Swede, Creed and Remi are triplets. My Swede is phenomenally accurate, same with my new .260, so what leap of technological excellence am I missing?




Last edited by CAPITALIST; 09/08/20. Reason: Edited for grammar errors and to keep focus on the main topic

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