Just finished reading an article about the new DPMS LR in .260 Remington. Although the rifle was the prototype, the review showed promise of this cartridge used in this platform. Since the .260 is based on the 08 family, conversion for the AR10 would only require a barrel swap. Really like the idea of shooting the high BC 6.5mm bullets. Brass is readily available too.
Wonder if John Noveske has the time to make me another barrel as the .243 Winchester barrel he made is a 1/2 moa shooter with 107 gr SMK @ 2950 FPS 10 feet from the muzzle.
I remember it was introduced about 15 years ago, the community had talked a lot about variants of the 308… naturally the 6mm version did extremely well and it was a smart move by Winchester to not go with the original name!
There were a lot of folks that swore if a major name came out with a 6.5-08 it would take over the market – obviously, it did not.
Names of cartridges are really a bigger deal than a lot of folks think about… the 7-08 did well, but does not enjoy the fame of its siblings on either side. For a long time, manufacturers have been scared of metric names for US cartridges, the American shooters seem to not warm up to the so well – I have said for many years that if JC had named it the 400 Magnum, it would be one of the most popular pistol cartridges around.
So, the 260 is the 260… but I wonder if it would have not done better with a metric name? Many shooters know the 6.5 and want one… but Remmy has played the “name game” before with okay results: 280 Rem –> 7mm Rem Express –> 280 Rem
In any case, the 260 is a great cartridge with outstanding ballistics. I for one hope to see it in use more and more…
I call John and asked about the availability of a .260 Remington barrel for the AR10. He said hopefullly by year’s end. He is pretty much swamped with orders right now with his existing catalog. Oh well, I guess it would make one hell of a Christmas gift!
In the meantime, I was thinking about have a .260 Remington barrel made for one of my Savages. However, I really do not think I will gain anything over my 7mm WSM Savage that is long-throated especially for the Berger 180 gr VLD which has a BC of .698. Talk about shooting a laser beam from a bolt gun…
Numrich has Savage barrels in 260 Remington right now for $135. It got one, and it looks great. It will be a while until I am able to install it though.
Fellas,
is the .260 ammo widely available yet(factory)? I am interested in one down the road but went through the 6.8mm spc fiasco a few years ago and dont wish to repeat that experience.
What 6.8 SPC fiasco do you speak of…? Considering the cartridge was orignally developed with a small amount of funds and the company that was contracted to help develop the it drug their heels, the 6.8 SPC is doing just fine.
As for the .260 remington, try searching Midway or other big online vendors and see what they have/keep in stock. This will give you a rough estimate of availability/demand.
Ironically, Midway only offers 2 brands with 5 selections of that 15 year old cartridge, but has 3 brands and 10 options of the 4 year old fiasco.
ETA: If you are serious about going with the .260 Remington, it would be prudent to look into handloading and scrap the idea of factory ammo, as most of the ammo is for hunting and not LR precision shooting. The selection of high BC bullets in 6.5mm also warrant the need to handload to achieve optimum performance.
What 6.8 SPC fiasco do you speak of…? Considering the cartridge was orignally developed with a small amount of funds and the company that was contracted to help develop the it drug their heels, the 6.8 SPC is doing just fine.
Well where to begin, first i bought a 6.8mm upper and ammo was not available for around 8 months. Then when ammo was finally available it did not meet the performance standards originally reported, then we discovered that most ammo would not in fact actually feed from standard 5.56mm magazines despite claims that it would.
That is the fiasco i was talking about.
I am not interested in handloading my own ammo so i guess i will move on but thanks for the advice anyway.
You would gain a significant reduction of recoil. If all you shoot are five or ten rounds out of your bolt gun, it won’t matter. Sit down and shoot 60 to 70 rounds in an afternoon and will be on your way to a flinch.
The 260 Remington has plenty of ballistics horsepower.
Don’t forget to pick a fast twist if you want to shoot the high BC bullets (Sierra 142, Berger 140, Lapua 139). 1/8 is ideal, as it will stabilize the big ones as well as the smaller ones (Lapua 123, Sierra 123, Berger 120).
I have been shooting .260 Remington for about 6 months in one of my AI-AW’s. In the last year, approximately 10 of our local long-range shooters have built or rebarreled rifles in 260 Remington (one or two have gone with the Ackley version of it).
Why? It’s simple-- 260 has better external ballistics than 308, full stop. If you compare the best long-range 308 loads (155 Scenar at 2800-2950fps), the 260 beats it by 20-30% wind drift and 15% drop at 1000 yards, with less recoil. 260 is merely a 308 case necked down to 6.5mm, so it is short-action, and because it shares case dimensions, it fits in every DBM that works with 308.
The downside of 260–
No “appropriate” long-range factory ammo is CURRENTLY available. By appropriate, I mean high-BC match bullets in the 130-142gr range. Black Hills is supposed to have some available shortly.
Good brass is another problem. Remington brass in this caliber has been highly variable. Many shooters get better results necking up Lapua 243 brass, or using Winchester or LC 308 and necking it down. These “forming” options are generally labor intensive to prep the brass the first time.
Barrel life will be good, but 40-60% of 308’s barrel life, so you lose a bit there.
AR-10 rifles are more finicky for accuracy than bolt rifles, in terms of what loads they “like” and 260 is no exception here. The AR-10 in 260 probably won’t be able to get the velocity you can get from a bolt gun.
hope this helps
Zak
ETA- I believe the 2nd place team at the 2006 PRTC used an AR10 in 260.
Unless you are striving for BR accuracy, Remington brass is perfectly fine. MOA accuracy at 600 yards from sling supported prone with irons is good enough for me.
That said, if you want better, the easy way is to neck up Lapua 243 with a Sinclair 6 mm - 6.5 mm expander die.
Interesting. Being primarily a HP service rifle shooter, the bulk of my reloading is 5.56 LC brass. But I also have a 260 Rem match rifle that I shoot several times a year. The most firings I have on a batch of brass is three (I think) and primer pockets are still plenty tight.
Maybe you guys are using stiffer loads? I am running a Lapua Scenar 139 over 42.5 grains of H4350.
Both myself and another experienced reloader saw this in two different rifles with a lot of different loads. When I was using R-P, with a reasonably mild load, it was leaving smoke rings around 50% of the primers (the primers looked OK.) Primer pockets comparatively loose before first firing, etc.
My current load is 40.7gr H4350 with a 139gr Scenar, in the Lapua brass. The R-P load was a bit more because it was thinner brass, but still less than 42.5gr.
The reason I say that it’s variable and not that it sucks across the board is that a couple other guys have other batches of R-P .260 that seem to be OK.
I started with 210M’s, but got significantly better accuracy with the BR2 in 260 and H4350.
