Remington is going to give the 260 another try in the configuration the 6.5 mag should have been issued in. The SPS with a 24" 8 twist. I picked mine up on Monday. Although I hate the SPS stock the rifle is pretty slick. It is light and well balanced with the scope mounted and a magazine full and my newly de-bugged x-mark pro trigger is crisp and came at exactly 4 pounds. It will end up with a Bell and Carlson Medalist, but I will be shooting it this week with the Tupperware for barrel break in. I am hoping to shoot 125 grain Partitions or 130 grain Accubonds so the 8 twist isn't so important, but I do like 24 inch barrels. I will post how it shoots.

Finally found space to shoot in the now just "mostly" flooded gravel pit. I have topped this rifle with a Leupold LPS 2.5-10x45 in PRW rings on Warne steel bases. The trigger is set to 3lbs. Bullets fired today were 100 and 120 grain B-Tips and 125 grain Partitions. These are loads that were built for other rifles, but usually serve as a good jumping off point and I like B-Tips for barrel break in. The barrel is fairly rough and I think now that I have used one, I hate the SPS stock. Not only is it ugly and floppy, but it is quite slick on my cheek. That said I was satisfied with the trigger, I think the X-Mark pro is a very useable trigger. I only fired 2 of the 100 grain loads as they were a little hot in this rifle. The 120s were good considering the time between shots with cleaning. I did fire a 3 shot 100 yard group with these and it was in the neighborhood of MOA, though I did not shoot well. I also fired one 3 shot group at 210 yards with the 125 Partitions after one fouler 120 and it was a bit better with a 1.7 inch spread outside to outside. Again this will probably be easy to improve on with just a more normal range session. I will definitely be re-stocking though. As it sits it's a fairly light reasonably balanced rifle. It is definitely worth the $600.

I shoot a 260 AI a lot and never found the Partitions to shoot very good in it. The Ballistic Tips shoot well. My gun has an 1-8 twist. It will shoot under 1/2" with 130 gr Norma match and Swift Scriocco. It will also shoot the Sierra MKs of all weights great.

I have had great luck with 100 and 125 grain Partitions in all of my other 260s, but this is my first 260 with an 8 twist. I have been loading 414 in the 100s and 120s and Super Performance under the 125. SP is a great powder in the 260 from my limited experience.

quote:

Originally posted by Quintus:
Remington is going to give the 260 another try in the configuration the 6.5 mag should have been issued in. The SPS with a 24" 8 twist. I picked mine up on Monday. Although I hate the SPS stock the rifle is pretty slick. It is light and well balanced with the scope mounted and a magazine full and my newly de-bugged x-mark pro trigger is crisp and came at exactly 4 pounds. It will end up with a Bell and Carlson Medalist, but I will be shooting it this week with the Tupperware for barrel break in. I am hoping to shoot 125 grain Partitions or 130 grain Accubonds so the 8 twist isn't so important, but I do like 24 inch barrels. I will post how it shoots.

I bought a 700 in .221 Fireball, blueprinted by Speedy Gonsalez, Hart barrel,etc.
The rifle was in one of Remingtons Tupper Ware stocks and shot patterns instead of groups, that all changed with the Boyd's laminated stock, it went from billiard ball size groups to .187 for 5 shots using the same load.

Stepchild

I have an AR10 chambered in 260 Rem with a 24", 1:8" twist barrel that I shoot out to 1,000 yards with the 123 grain A Max. It works great.

If Remington offers them in left handed they'd be worth looking at.

Well, this gun with the new stock is pretty sweet. 125 partitions and 130 accubonds are well under an inch. The gun balanced well and is comfortable to carry. The barrel seems to clean easily and the trigger is a good hunting trigger. I think they got it right this time. For the money, I bought two more.

Interesting about the Rem SPS stock. I have one of their 375H&H DG rifles. The rifle will put 5 into MOA and felt recoil is way down on the same loads in my CZ550 375H&H, while the M700 is a good 2+pounds lighter than the 550.

Good to hear you got the 260 shooting as they should.

Had Remington done it right the first time , the 6.5 Creedmoor would never have been. But they didn't. Hornady/Ruger did and Savage got on board right out of the chute. .
I'm glad to see the 260 finally got a rifle it deserved tho the 6.5/08 A-Square started right. . My Ruger Hawkeye 6.5 Creedmoor SS factory rifle. Is consistently shooting .3s and better so I'll be sticking with it. But I am glad the 260 finally got a rifle with the correct twist from the factory.
We will all benefit from the increased bullet development!!

Been playing around getting ready for SD (leaving this week) and these SPS rifles are impressive. The one I am shooting will put 5 Barnes TSX 120s into a nickel at 2950/60 with IMR4350. Just over .5 MOA and the only change is bolting the barreled action to a Bell & Carlson stock. Ballistic Tips and Partitions are sub minute in all three. We will see how they hunt in just a few days.

Back home and had a great hunt. My youngest son got his first deer with a 175 yard shot with a 90 grain Scirocco from a 243. The 2 new 260s that were used performed as expected. My middle eldest son killed his first buck with a 125 partition at 185 yards with a high shoulder shot that destroyed 3 inches of spine and exited! Mine was a 260 yard shot on a 200 pound Mule deer with a 120 TSX. Sheered off the ventricles and hit a rib on the way out leaving a silver dollar sized exit and a 4 inch rose wound. Deer reared up and went over backward and died on his back. Also helped the neighbor track his deer and shot it running away in the right rear. Smashed the femur bounced through the liver and out the left side knocking the brute on his face (he had originally been shot through the brisket and was unsteady to start with). He was out in less than 2 minutes. Rifles were accurate easy to clean and the 260 was reliable as expected. I definitely got my moneys worth.

I have always felt that the 260 Rem. would take the market by storm in the SPS configuration, with 700 action, synthetic stock, 24 inch barrel and affordable price. And while the price is not as affordable as it was 10 years ago, when I lamented Remington's amazing lack of marketing savvy for their own products, I am still glad to hear they have finally decided to offer what may very well be the best affordable deer rifle on the market for those who are recoil sensitive. I am keeping my eyes open, I just might have to sell something and pick one up. Better let than never, I guess.

Remington is funny in that they "never" listen to customers. That's a trait they learned from Dupont, as Dupont has the same problem...

Unless Remington figures out their position on 260 factory ammo, they can put any style of rifle intro production in 260 without much hope of success. I think that the 260 has a lot of negatives to overcome before it can hope to equal the 6.5 Creedmoor as the king of short action 6.5s.

The 6.5 Creedmoor has a huge, exponentially better, advantage in factory ammo. Hornady knows how to load for the 6.5 Creedmoor and their quality control beats Remington at every turn.

I have a bunch of 260s, currently 23, and have shot a fair number of whitetail, coyotes, and 'chucks with the 260, but I never cared for the most common and least expensive Remington factory load, the 140 grain PCL. The 120 grain BTs and 125 grain Partitions shot well, but I don't think that the slower ROT barrels were a good choice for the longer 140 grain bullets. I mean, how dumb could the Remington designers be to select a ROT that only marginally quick enough to stabilize the bullets fired from their most common factory load? Pretty dumb it seems to me.

260remmy. Rem have a history of doing just what you say about their twist rates. 35 Whelen & 350 rem Mag, 1:16 twist = bloody idiotic and this is without going into the history of the 6mmRem. Would seem their dumbness is iether heraditory or a requirement for working there.

quote:

...Would seem their dumbness is iether heraditory or a requirement for working there.

Or there is no dumbness. The Remington 140CL is pretty short as 140s go, it's length not weight which matters in bullet stability. My M700VLS with factory barrel shoots Sierra 142MKs (a lot longer than the CLs) very well out to 300 yards (as far as I have tested them) so I am not so sure that the twist is somehow "wrong" for that bullet weight....


.

Remington should offer the .260 rem. in everything they make.. at least half of what they make. i have a .260 rem. in a ruger M77 s.s.

strange that I don't hear more about the 160 gr. bullets in these 6.5s, are they too short and the 160 takes up powder space that deletes velocity..The 6.5 made is reputation killing very large animals with that bullet, it penetrated like hell and still does I presume..just curious, but I do probably live in the age of high velocity.

Also interested in the twist, some guns are 1x9 and others 1x8..I would be shooting all weights from 90 grs. to 160 I suspect.

I am intending to make myself a 6.5, either a creedmore or perhaps a Sweede, not sure yet.

If you are building, I would suggest the 6.5-06 with an 8 twist. It is the perfect 6.5 case from v-max to VLD. It will do it all and You can find brass by accident. It even has reliable published load data to get started. You would not regret it.

Ray,
the 160 RN's seem to have gone the way of the passenger Pigeon. Velocity and drop fans prefer the sleek 140's and down. The old 160 RN is not available to buy from Hornady though occasionally they pop up somewhere. Maybe they make a run on the 5 Tuesday in February or something.
I shoot the 160 H RN out of my son's 260, simply because I like long RN bullets, and frankly it runs about as fast as the 140's do and kills well as expected. 1 in 8 twist is what I have.
On your build, I would stick with the 260 Rem or the 6.5 Creedmoor or the 6.5x55. Anything bigger cased is wasted powder and barrel life in my mind. With the three above, one can do anything that needs done on big game.

Check out the Woodleigh 160's. They come in both round nose and protected point. I shot the PP's in my 6.5-06(1-8" twist) with great accuracy. I never killed anything with that bullet, but they zipped right through the dead tree my target was hung on while the Barnes 120gr TTSX's did not exit. I'm a huge fan of heavy for caliber bullets. Velocity doesn't ring my bell. My first choice would have been a 6.5x55, but I just felt like I was wasting the extra .200" of magazine box length in my rifle and plus I had thousands of '06 based cases avaliable to me. Although most of the time I shoot the equivalent of hot 6.5x55 loads.

Ive shot a ton of Woodleighs, used to get them comped to me..Did some work with Geoff on 350 gr. 375s and 450 gr. 404, 416s, and tested them in Africa....I don't believe there is a better bullet for hunting than the Woodleigh but a few are equal..I like Nosler, GS Custom, and Woodleighs in no particular order, and depending on the caliber and gun I am shooting.

An older mountain rifle dbm in 260 likes 120 ttsx with rl17. Handy little gun shoots well and is a pleasure to carry.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
strange that I don't hear more about the 160 gr. bullets in these 6.5s, are they too short and the 160 takes up powder space that deletes velocity..The 6.5 made is reputation killing very large animals with that bullet, it penetrated like hell and still does I presume..just curious,

I used the 155 Lapua Mega a few years back on a deer and bobcat. Worked great in my 6.5x55. I was using a CZ which had a 1 in 9 twist. It would not stabilize the 160 Woodleigh protected point. The Mega's shot really well. I only pushed them to 2450 FPS but they worked fine on the deer I shot at about 150 yards.

When I bought my 260 in 1999, I got my reloading data from sierra.They would not give me any loads for a 140gr bullet because they did not recommend shootingh shooting them because of the ROT.I never found the need for bullets heavier than 120gr anyway.

I just bought one of these yesterday. Whittaker Gund is offering them for $529 over on 24 hour campfire. You cannot beat that price. Hell, I should have purchased two of them. I'm looking forward to getting it in

If you have a picture of yours in its new stock please post it up. I'm leaning towards a McMillan edge right now. Crazy that I'm considering a stock that costs more than the rifle