So far as I can determine, Remington is the only brand of brass available for the 260 Rem. caliber. In addition, there is loaded ammunition (but not bulk brass) available from Federal.

Does anybody know of any decent quality brass that is head stamped 260 Remington?

Not interested in necking up or down. I keep hearing rumours that somebody other than Remington is manufacturing brass but have not been able to find any from the usual suppliers.

Bruce: I am assuming that you are not happy with the Remington 260 brass. I just thought I would relay this to you. I am just now bringing a Remington 700 VLS (Varminter Laminated Stock) in caliber 260 Remington on line. I bought the Rifle new earlier last year. I am using 260 Remington brass, Redding dies, Leupold rings, bases and a Leupold 6.5X20 scope. I did some barrel breakin on 1/8/03 with the Rifle and had five rounds left over. I shot a .451" five shot group with the Rifle and the Remington brass at 100 yards that day. I have not been able to get back to the range with this Rifle since then. I want to see how well it will shoot with the now fire formed Remington brass. Anyway it shot well enough to satisfy me with the Remington brass.
Perhaps you can make some brass from a different brand of brass in caliber 308 Winchester. I understand that is a one step process.
Or you could (again I am assuming you are not happy so far with Remington brass) sort some Remington brass by weight. I used to do this all the time. If I wanted 200 brass for a particular Rifle I would buy 400 pieces - sort them by weight keeping the middle 200 in weight and selling the heavier 100 and the lighter 100 (noted as such) at Gun Shows.
Did you find a problem with the Remington brass?
Good luck.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Bruce,

Remington is the only manufacturer of 260 brass I've come across. If one wants another brand, it means necking up/down and labelling the box explicitly so no one will try to chamber the ammo in a .243 WCF or 7mm-08......

Having a 260 Remington, I find myself necking up .243 brass the easiest. I've had no trouble with the Remington brass...just sometimes more cost effective to run my plinking and load development through once-fired .243's necked up.

It takes no more effort to run .243 brass through the sizer die than it does your normal 260 Rem brass - it's a one-stroke pass through your FL die and you have a case ready for your 260 Rem.

It's been my experience that using 7mm-08 brass usually gives good results on a simple pass through your 260 dies, but using .308 cases usually requires the necks to be turned down a bit (otherwise, the necks are too thick, and your finished ammo becomes difficult to chamber as a result).

TXLoader

[ 02-04-2003, 22:48: Message edited by: TXLoader ]

Wonder where Speer gets what they use in the Nitrex ammo? Never looked at any, so I don't know for sure.

R-WEST

Thanks guys for the input.
I buy my 260 Remington brass in lots of 1000 and sort/prep the hell out of them for use in f-class match shooting (shooting prone with a bi-pod and a rice sock).
The Remington stuff is so much worse than Winchester brass that I really do not care for it. My gunsmith passed on to me that he heard a rumor that some manufacturer is coming out with good quality 260 brass but he did not remember who.
I figured if anybody would know the truth, it would be somebody on this website.

The final accuracy of my sorted and prepped brass is not the problem, the issue is how much work it takes to get there. With the volume I shoot, things like necking up and neck turning are just not a desirable alternative. I dearly love the 260 chambering for both wind drift and accuracy. There are superb powders and bullets available for it, the only problem area is in brass. Since I go thru a couple of barrels a year, the 6.5-284 is just not a desirable alternative because of short barrel life.

When I was debating on which cartridge to go with, the choice was between a 6mm BR and a 260, either with a 1-8 twist. I went with the 260 last year and feel that I made the right choice. The Lapua 123 Scenar only needs 25 moa to get to 1000 yards and does a superb job of making the 260 a viable alternative to the 6.5-284
At a 1000 yard match in January my younger brother was shooting my rifle in the first relay. Lucky guy, he got to shoot in reasonably calm conditions. After twiddling with the sight settings for a few shots to get centered up, he did a 6 shot group that was somewhere between 3" and 4" and nearly shot the center pin out twice. REAL impressive performance for 1000 yards. I was pulling pit duty or would have not believed it myself.
The month before, I was shooting the 500 yard segment in a match and shot the spotter pin out twice in a row (3 shot cloverleaf at 500 yards).

The 260 is doing just fine, I am simply preparing to buy another 1000 pieces of brass and was hoping for something besides Remington brass.

Bruce - How many different 1000 piece batches of the R-P stuff have you gotten? I'm just thinking you MAY have gotten a bad lot.

My second lot of R-P brass (different lot #) was much more consistent than the first lot I purchased. I'm not shooting BR like you are, so, maybe I'm not as critical as you need to be, but, out of the second 500 piece lot, weight didn't vary more than 2.5 grains. The first batch was all over the place. Necks were much more concentric within the second lot, too.

Man, if Lapua would just make 260 brass, huh?

R-WEST

I buy 1000 pieces of brass whenever I need more. The 260 seems to go thru a barrel at somewhere between 2500 and 3000 rounds with the load I shoot. After sorting and tossing the really bad brass, I ended up with about 700 or 800 usable pieces from the last 1000. Most of the ones that get tossed have seriously uneven neck thickness. Anything that seems useful, I use. I also toss the heaviest 50 and the lightest 50, just for grins.
Because of the piss-poor Remington brass I use a button sizer to get the ID of the brass to an even diameter rather than an OD neck bushing. Then I shoot all the brass to fireform with a consistent load and write the velocity on the case. Next, I resort all the brass into groups of 50 based on the velocity. It takes 45 shots for record + sighters for a match and I rotate the brass and use about 200 pieces at a time till the primer pockets get big.
For this barrel, which I am guessing is just past half worn out, I have just tossed the first 200 pieces of brass. Some went 6 loadings, some, 7, and one box even went 8 loadings. As soon as any of the brass gets loose primer pockets I dump the whole box of 50. It sounds like a waste but is way better than fighting brass in matches.

Before shooting the 260 I shot a 243 barrel and used Winchester brass. It was way better quality. Who knows, I might have simply gotten a really crappy batch.

The style of shooting I do is not what you would call benchrest. More like high power with a bi-pod and scope rather than a sling and open sights. We lay on the dirt berm and shoot lay prone shooting at the same target.

I've gotten new WW brass with lose primer pockets too. CCI primers fit much better, but I've not had any trouble with the WLR primers leaking or anyting. I also noticed a huge difference in case length when prepping the WW brass, some of it was well under min length while the rest was in the middle of the range.

I have only purchased WW brass lately based on opinions expressed here, but in the factory ammo I've bought the Remington brass is superior in .30-06 and .243. I won't buy loaded Winchester ammo anymore while the Remington ammo beats most of my handloads in both guns (ruger & savage).

Just remembered the WW brass had primer pockets so shallow the primers were about .003" above the case head - coupled with neck sized cases this was a real pain the primer showed bolt marks when cycled through. After that I bought a primer pocket "uniformer" and fixed the problem.

I think WW brass is overrated, but my experience is very limited.