Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Tell me about the 260 Remington

I liked the idea of the 260 and bought a reamer before I ever saw a rifle. All of my 6.5 chambers have a .2645" diameter throat.
I like the Creedmoor too. I like a little more taper in the case than either the 260 or the CM give me but that's not the way they are.
As far as hunting rifles are concerned, I have a 260, a 6.5x55, and a 256 Newton. All have the same throat configuration and all have 8 twist barrels. All are fine hunting rifles
It was about forty years ago that I decided all 6.5's were better off with a 8 inch twist and that is what I always recommended.
A friend of mine shot a pile of deer with a 6.5 Carcano which he had loaded with 120's at about 2700. It was accurate and easy to shoot.
I would hope a NULA in 260 would be even better. GD

I think I was reading you backwards! My apology.

Nothing to apologize for.

What the “they coulda just have fixed the (insert cartridge here) twist and offered new ammo” crowd often don’t take into consideration is that the new ammo can and will get purchased for older rifles that won’t shoot it well and that will piss off the folks no end. Hence we have the renamed .244, and the redesigned 6.8 Western, right off the top of my head. An exception seems to be the various .223 loads with longer bullets, maybe because so much of it gets burned in ARs with standard 1-8 or 1-7 barrels.

And yet oddly enough, people buy the right ammo for their .223 / 5.56 rifles almost every day. Folks buying ammo for the 1-12" twist .223 bolt actions take home the right stuff more often than not. People buying ammo for the 1-7" or 1-8" twist ARs take home the right ammo more often than not. Are shooters of more powerful cartridges simply not able to make the distinction by reading the box? (Detached retinas, etc?) What do you attribute the difference you perceive to? I'm curious ...

Tom

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

You tried to claim that I had never shot a Creed. I have and I wasn't impressed enough by it to shoot it again. It was no better (and no worse) than my Swede so I have no reason to try and fall in love with it. For what it is worth I also have a Mannlicher Schoenauer Model 1903 chambered in 6.5x54MS that I prefer over the Creed.

The bottom line is they could have tweaked the 260 and got the same performance out of it as the Creed. But that wouldn't sell a bunch of new guns or allow you to sell articles. Face it, you have a financial incentive to tout the new stuff, I don't.

Face it. You're a dumbchit.....

John, maybe you should show him the huge checks Ruger sends you alla the time. Lol

Sheesh. Hold into the jealousy...

And, honestly, I don't really give a schit if stupid people buy the wrong non returnable ammo lol

MAC,

You also have the time-line and hence history of the "promotion" wrong. Like a lot of hunters, you never heard of the 6.5 Creedmoor until other hunters had already discovered it.

Yeah, I'm in the gun-writing business, but had barely heard about the 6.5 Creedmoor before buying my first one in 2010. It was designed and introduced as a target round in 2007--and as others have stated it was essentially an American version of the 6.5x47 Lapua, which was designed for the same target purpose. But the Lapua ammo and brass were pretty expensive--and unavailable in the U.S., so Hornady brought out the 6.5 Creedmoor, with far less expensive ammo and components.

But it didn't go very far as a target round--though not because it didn't work. Instead the trend was already headed toward even smaller cartridges, especially 6mm rounds with even less powder capacity, because they could drive bullets with equally high ballistic coefficients with less recoil. And believe it or not, recoil can be a factor even in smaller rounds with less capacity, for various reasons.

In the meantime a few hunters had tried the 6.5 Creedmoor and were impressed with the accuracy, and not just with handloads but factory ammo. The word got around, and in 2010 I finally saw a few factory-made 6.5 Creedmoors in a local sporting goods store. Heard from other locals how well they shot, so called the editor of HANDLOADER magazine and asked him if he'd be interested in an article. He was, so I bought one of the Ruger Hawkeye sporters (walnut stock, 26" standard-contour barrel) and some factory ammo. The very first group out of the rifle, with the factory ammo, measured .6 inch--and like the group I posted was 5-shot, not just 3-shot.

That rifle is why I kept experimenting with 6.5 Creedmoors. Along with the half-dozen I've owned, have shot an equal number of other rifles ranging from a $200 T/C Compass to a couple of $3500 rifles from well-known accuracy companies. Have shot and owned the same range of rifles in .260 and 6.5x55, and while some were very accurate, on average none matched the 6.5 Creedmoors--whether with factory amm or handloads.

One other thing I have observed over the decades is that few hunters really know how to shoot off a benchrest. Only a few put out wind-flags, which are essential to shooting small groups in any wind more than about 2 mph--and many hunters consider a 5-mph wind just about dead calm. Very few understand scope parallax, or how consistently holding the rifle in the same way for each shot can affect groups.

I do. Am not a great benchrest shooter, but have been trained by enough really good ones to be able to shoot 5-shot groups half the size of the one from that Ruger American with my own 6mm PPC, a custom-made rifle weighing 11.5 pounds with scope.

We don't know what the conditions were when you shot your buddy's 6.5 Creedmoor, or the ammo, or anything else. But based on my experience I sincerely doubt you got the most out of the rifle, whether due to not trying other ammo, or your shooting technique. But hundreds of really good shooters have found factory 6.5 Creedmoors more accurate than factory .260s or 6.5x55s--or even custom rifles. Have already mentioned my own custom 6.5x55, barreled with a 1-8 twist Lilja barrel by Charlie Sisk, the well-known accuracy gunsmith, using a reamer with special "target" throat. It shoots very well--about like the average 6.5 factory Creedmoor--though not as well as the Ruger American Predator in the photo I posted.

Right now I'm NOT going to go deposit the huge check I get every month from the makers of 6.5 Creedmoor rifles, ammo and components. I would suggest that while I'm NOT doing that you fold it five ways and put it where the moon don't shine.

Wanta take down big stuff use a 140gr Partition.

You get practically the same ballistics from a 6.5x47 Lapua, AND mag constraints are better suited!

I am trying to find dies for a 260 AI, none to be had. I am going to put it on a long action with a proper throat. 140's at 2950 abound in pard's rifle, H4350.

If you get a custom reamer for the 260 that follows the tighter spec’s used by most of the Creedmoor lines the result is a cartridge that’s shoots as well as the Creedmoor but with a easier feeding shoulder…. That is provided you have a really good gunsmith to chamber it the right way.

Mine shoots .5 or less MOA out to 600 yards.

NICE !

Me either, but ammo companies probably do.

Boy, am I glad I've kept my 260 Remington love and Creedmoor hatred a secret.

Firstly, someone with a 1-7” or 1-8” twist rifle really has to go out of their way to buy something that won’t stabilize for them, although I did see some Atomic loaded with 112gr bullets. And IME talking with AR shooters at the range, those folks are generally more aware about the twist of their guns anyway, perhaps because so many of them assembled the rifles themselves. I suspect the Boomer-Geezers with 1-12” rifles are either hunting varmints or getting ready to hunt them, and naturally gravitate towards fast light-bullet loads for flat trajectory and good ‘sploding performance, but that’s just my guess. Most .223s being sold now, aside from ARs, seem to come with 1-9” barrels, which in general will work with bullets up to about 69 grains, which takes in a large chunk of the ammo available, so again folks with those have to work a bit at it to go wrong.

Maybe you can explain to me why people get so emotional about a rifle cartridge and resent it so fiercely when new, incrementally better ones come along? I’m mostly old-school (Boomer-Geezer) in my choices, but am happy to see new stuff with new capabilities whether it’s a new cartridge, magic fairy dust birdshot, or funny-looking fishhooks. It’s all good to me, and I try the stuff that I think might help me out and ignore the rest. But I don’t get mad about any of it. If one of my old favorites disappears (Sunshine Raisin Biscuits) , I find something else (Crawford’s Garibaldis).

It's doubtful the OP rifle will stabilize the heavier - longer 6.5 bullets. And if the .260 barrel is good now, improve it and there's nothing better.

Mr. Forbes is a good enough 'smith to recognize that Remington's decision to give the 260 a 1-9" ROT was a poor choice and would have built his 260's with a faster ROT that would handle all bullet weights.

Yes, and the NULA Model 20 also has a 3" magazine, so could handle longer bullets.

Which is why my .260 is a Tikka T3, one of a special run ordered a few years ago by Whittaker Guns in Owensboro, Kentucky with 1-8 rifling twists. T3s also only have one action length, but use different detachable magazines for different-length cartridges. My rifle shot more accurately after I modified the "short" magazine to take rounds up to 2.95" in length, so could seat longer bullets close to the lands.

Haha! Completely agree! It's kinda like there is no way in hell I'm every owning a Kifaru... It would be impossible for me to be that arrogant.