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And IIRC, Ken Waters even earlier.

Yep, Ken developed what I believe was called the .263 Express, as I recall in the 1960's--long before some of the .260's other "inventors" were born.

Guess I missed that event...never been a whizzum fan anyway. I grew up reading Jordan, Skelton, Keith, Swigget and the like. This new guy Barsness shows promise.

No pressure there...

Knew/know 'em all � an admirable crowd well worth your attention.

I was always a fan of John Wooters. He always seemed like a very practical sort of person. That guy John Barsness that you mentioned, he strikes me the same way. Although he's got some strange ideas about 6x scopes.....

John & Ken-
Water's column in Handloader #110 (July 84) describes his first attempt with the .263 all the way back in 1956.

His rifle was 03 Springfield action with a Buhmiller barrel, 1:8" twist, .263 grooves, chambered with a .243 Win reamer, and throated with a straight reamer. Pressure problems developed, particularly when bullet makers changed diameter from .263 to .264. He gave up and rechambered the rifle for the 6.5 Rem Mag.

The earliest description or the .263 of which I'm aware appears on p.150 of the 1957 Gun Digest in an article by Waters. Interestingly, the name was temporarily first attached to a wildcat 6.5/250; he named the version made with the 243 Win case the ".263 Express No. 2". The original impetus for the cartridge was the possibility of use in a lever action like the M99 Savage or M88 Winchester.

--Bob

Jim Dumbo made a somewhat 'rise from the ashes' comeback after his stupid comments cost him his jobs. Jamison is either not so desperate or not so lucky.

Friends,

I was on a prairie dog hunt with Jim Carmichel, Ned Kalbfleish (owner/editor of Varmint Hunter Magazine) and John Larroquette (actor, hunter and GREAT GUY) a year or so before the .260 Remington made it's huge introduction.

Jim Carmichel is the real deal; he is an unreal shooter, superb rifle shot, not a bad hand with a pistol and he surely knows his way around cartridge development.

When working with a 6.5 round, he was trying to develop a GREAT over-the course round. Two cartridges stood out; the 6.5-.308 and the 6.5-.250 Savage. I every way, the 6.5-.250 Savage was the finest shooter.

Remington picked up the 6.5 cartridge, but was sure that the one based on the.308 was marketable ... and the better one, the cartridge basedon the .250 Savage would die at birth.

Jimmy had all of the target data with him on our hunt and the .250-3000-based 6.5 round was BY FAR the finest shooter at all ranges. Slower? Yes, but it was an accurate little bugger.

Jim was very sad that Remington would, without a single doubt, commercialize the 6.5-.308 and he'd be associated with the round ... and for all the wrong reasons. The 6.5-.308 had a greater case capacity, thus shot faster, but it was not nearly as accurate as the 6.5-.250 case.

Jim had an amazing array of data and targets with him on both rounds, and with several differant barrels in each chambering ... make no mistake, the 6.5-.250 Savage round was considerably more accurate.

Did Remington make a mistake? Nope, not really. Billy-Bob, the typical rifle buyer, wants to see performance and an extra fifty fps can tip the scale. And the difference in accuracy of one-tenth inch at 100 yards could not concern Billy-Bob less ... Old Billy-Bob wants to see 3,000 fps muzzle velocity.

Anyway, it was fascinating seeing all of the ballistics work that Jim had done with the two rounds. The more accurate cartridge, the 6.5 Pussycat (or whatever) was a dandy, no doubt about it ... but the round that eventually was to be called the .260 Remington was also no slouch.

As a matter of historical interest, I started working with the 6.5-.308 AND the 7-.308 back in 1965. In all, I had four 6.5s and six 7mms and killed a large number of mule deer and a fair number of elk with the rounds. Surely, I killed enough with both rounds to have an idea of what was going on with them.

My conclusions? The 7mm, which I called the 7X51, was a considerable better killer, although it offered absolutely nothing over the 7X57 I was using, too. For those interested, my 7X57 was a Mannlicher-Schoenauer Carbine with double-sets ... one HELL of a killer.

The 6.5 round offered low recoil, reasonably flat trajectory and evrything that is grand about moderate cartridges.

Anyway, lots and lots of rifle experimentors have worked with the 6.5-308 over the years. Some of us will left history and some of us (like myself) left no history at all.

And in some cases, like the Jim Carmichel/Remington situation, the buying public ends up with a cartridges for some kinda silly reasons.

God Bless,

Steve


PS. By the way, I mentioned hunting for several days with John Larroquette. John, of course, was famous for acting in Night Court and a zillion other television and movies. John is a really, really good guy; John is a hunter and a shooter and I am incredibly happy to be able to count John amongst my friend. Johnny is also a deadly rifle-shot.

Even better, John truly loves his wife, his son, his dogs and his rifles ...... John is recovering alcoholic and has NEVER missed an AA Meeting (in something like 20 years). John is a complete man.

I can affirm Steve's statements about Jim Carmichel and his shooting and research. I've been on several gun-writer deals with Jim over the years (and even once roomed with him on a prairie dog shoot), and he is the real deal--not only an extremely good shot but a tireless and educated researcher.

On one of the occasions I was shooting PD's with Jim he was using a VERY heavy .22-250 built specifically for the purpose by Kenny Jarrett. He let me shoot it a few times, and it was a deadly rifle, not just because of the accuracy but the weight. There wasn't any scale in the field, obviously, but I'd guess it weighed at least 15 pounds and maybe 18, which allowed him to see the bullets hit through the scope, rather than have somebody spot the shots. In my experience that's an iffy deal.

This impressed me so much that I immediately started working toward the same goal. Tried a really heavy .22-250 but eventually decided that smaller cartridges in lighter rifles worked just as well. Went to a 12-pound .223 at first, but still didn't like it, so eventually went even smaller, to the .221 Fireball, .204 Ruger and .17 Fireball. But shooting Jim's Jarrett was the beginning.

He also knows how to tell a tale or two, and has a few!

DZ- Thanks for that information! I found it interesting and am glad to hear of a hunter in Hollywood. I would not have guessed, based on the characters he's played, that Mr. Larroquette was a hunter/shooter.

John Larroquette is an excellent actor. I really enjoyed Night Court and several episodes still make me laugh when I think of them.

John Laroquette is in a handloading intructional video, I think available through VHA. Jim Carmichel, when he first published his 6.5 research (I can't find the copy) stated that he did not claim to be the first to work with these rounds. He just put in a lot of time and research on them and published the results for the benefit of all. Douglas chambers for Jim's .260 Bobcat (on the .250 Savage case) and the 6.5 Panther, aka .260 Remington.

I just want to mention that MT_DD_FAN is the only other shooter I've ever run into on a public range who also set out wind flags. He knows what he's doing!

A person could almost think of him as cheating with that much magnification, don'tcha think?

and I left out Steve Timm and Jim Carmichael and I was privileged to meet both and shoot sod rats with them. Two more humble, genuine decent people I have never met.

I owe my fascination with rifles and cartridges to Jim Carmichael. My dad would get Outdoor Life every month and when it came in the mail I was interested in three things; Pat Mcmanus humor article on the back page, Jim Carmichael's shooting article, and whatever hunting article Jim Zumbo wrote for that issue. In that order. I must add that JC gave me a desire for a .280 remington from early on and after owning around ten .270's and .30-06's I still don't have one.

It's never too late to see the light!

was going to point out that the creedmoor is basically the same as the 6.5x250...JB beat me to it