I have a 260 Remington 700 Mountain gun. I have a box of Hornady SST 6.5 129 gr. bullets.

Nothing on Hodgdons site, nothing in my Lyman 49. Of course nothing on the Hornady site (it's their bullet).

I could just start at the 125 loads and decrease by 15% or the same at the 140 mark.

Anybody shoot a 129 gr in the 260?

thanks in advance
rc

i was loading 46.0 grs of RL-19 with the 129
i am loading 42.0 grs of RL-15 with the 120.
i like the 120 for deer size game.

From Hornady #7


IMR 4831 start 37.6 max 45.7 ALL max 2900fps
RL-19 38.9 to 47.9
RL-22 40 to 49.1
H4831 40.2 to 49.9

The 129 gr SP is a very good bullet in the 260. I`ve never had much luck however with the SST version. The 129gr SST is as long as a 140 gr Sierra MK (1.30") vs (1.309")and longer then a 140gr Hornady SP (1.257". This puts the bullet deeper in the case and the ogive farther from the lands in short actioned rifle where you are limited to 2.80" COL.
I haven`t found the SST to be as accurate as the std soft points in 2 different 260s and blame the extra lenght for the problem.
BTW 269 Remingtons are normally rifled at 1/9 twist and the longer bullets may need a bit more twist to stabilize. Quite a few shooters claim the 140gr don`t shoot as well as the lighter bullets in their rifles and place the blame there. Keep in mind this is mostly JMO and you may find different.
BTW R19 has been the best powder with this weight range (125gr-130gr) in my rifles with H4831sc 2nd.

Thanks to all. I will try these at the canneleur (fits in mag). If they won't shoot, I will load at the lands and load one at a time. Thanks for the input. I was lured in by the high bc.... rc

Did a .5 grain ladder shoot from 42.9 (another shooter recommended load) to 45 gr with the 129 SST H4831SC CCI LR primers in my new/old REM 700 mountain rifle (new to me). The ladder behaved in a perfectly normal manner with the spreads beginning at a 1.5 in scatter and ending at 45.0 gr load with a 5 shot .48 in group.

Because the 700 Mountain is a 22" skinny barrel with a pressure point, I fired all groups as a three and two set allowing the barrel to cool between the first three and second two shots for the group. I did not wait till it was cold, but, it was back to a warm barrel.

I didn't bring my chronograph because I didn't expect to find a node of this accuracy. I will need to play with the seating depths in that I loaded these "off the lands" but, they are too long for the magazine.

Bottom line, my Rem will shoot 129 ssts. May take a set of the 45.0 gr to the 300 meter line today and see where the fall. Great BC on this bullet.

Thanks rc

Ol' Joe wrote: "The 129 gr SP is a very good bullet in the 260. I`ve never had much luck however with the SST version."
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My experience mirrors yours, though I haven't given the 129 grain SSTs as thorough of an evaluation as I would have liked.

In a 26"/1:8 MGM Contender barrel in 6.5x30-30 AI (aka 6.5 Bullberry IMP), one of my favorite loads is the 129 grain Spire Point ahead of 37.5 grains of N160. The accuracy is surgical, and the bullet has performed well on a number of hogs, including at least one double.

But the SST is much more fragile and only gave me accuracy that I'd call "acceptable" but still not up ot my standards. Further work may have it shooting like a house afire, but considering the terminal performance, I probably won't waste any more time or components on it since the Spire Point version performs so splendidly.

On the other hand, the 30 caliber, 150 grain SST is fairly stout and performs much like the company's standard Spire Point offering. Ditto for the 7mm/139 grain SSTs.

But the 6.5s, for whatever reason, perform more like the A-Max than the Spire Points.

The top photo is a double on a couple of smaller hogs taken earlier this year.
Both are boars, and the range was app. 170 yards. The smaller of the 2 was in the front; the other was a few yards behind him. The 129 grain SP took both through the shoulders and exited. The entrance on the 2nd hog was slightly larger than a nickel but smaller than a quarter. The exit on the 2nd was quarter-sized.

MV of the load is 2639 fps from the 26" MGM barrel in 6.5mm Bullberry IMP.

The bottom photo shows a couple of hogs taken with the then-new Rem 700 VLS in .260 using the 129 grain SPs. Terminal performance in each case was textbook.