I was thinking of getting a box of either Hornady round noses or Sierra semi-spitzers. I'd like to whack a black bear with my new rifle before deer season. I feel the high S.D. of the 160's would give me very deep penetration, a little more than a 140 gr. would. My M700 has a pretty short throat, not much more than the magazine will allow. Would the ogive on these 160's, being so far forward, cause problems with reagards to seating depths? 160 gr. is alot of bullet for a 6.5mm, especially a short necked 260 Rem. Would these long bullets take up too much powder space? Would I be better of to try a lighter weight X bullet? My M700 has a 1-9" twist. Could I run into stabilization problems?

Any comments or suggestions would be much appreciatted.

Tod, I think I`d forget the 160s and stay with 140 gr premiums. The 140s have a SD equal to a 190gr 30 cal bullet. Put the bullet in the right place and you should have all the penatration you need.
The Swedes put a 1/7.5 twist in the 96 mauser to stabilize the 160s. I don`t believe you`ll have much luck with your 1/9. Also the 160 is going to seat pretty deep in your case. How it will affect powder capacity I`m not sure, but you may not get enough in the case to reach the preformance your looking for.

If you can't do it with a 140, you won't do it with a 160 grainer, either. The 140s have a high SD, and at the velocity you will be launching them, will give tremendous penetration. In fact, in my carious 6.5mms, I rarely use any of the premiums and the modest velocity and high SD combine to give all the penetration that is needed.

And if you can't get the 140s to shoot accurately enough, there's always the 125 grain Partition...

I agree with the above post, a 140g Nos Part provides tremendous penetration and would be my recommendation for any game larger than deer.

However, to answer your question, I have tried 160g Sierras in my Rem 700 SS with 24" bbl. 40g Rel 19 with 160g Sierra clocked at 2440 and accuracy was good at 100 yds....LR

I was thinking they may be too much for a 260, sort of like 220's in a 308. I think I'll either go with a 140 gr. Nolser or a XLC.