Building Confidence

[DrHenley]

Originally Posted by FfNJGTFO

I'm also seeing a caliber with which I'm not familiar (260 Remington). Is that a recommended caliber?

Nothing inherently wrong with the 260 Remmy cartridge itself, but Remington screwed the pooch with the rifles they chambered for it when it first came out. The problem comes when you put it in a short action rifle and then don't have enough magazine length to seat it out enough for heavier bullets that you need for LR. So Remington optimized the rifles for 120 grain bullets...which kinda defeated the whole purpose of the cartridge.

With standard short action magazines you would need to seat the base of a heavy bullet DEEP into the case, reducing powder capacity. The Creedmoor solves this by using a shorter case leaving more room in a short action magazine for the bullet, and then raising the max pressure to allow the same performance as the 260 Remmy in a shorter case. The 6.5 Lapua takes it one step farther by shortening the case even more and using an even higher max pressure (blown primers are common in the Lapua).

In a single shot rifle you have no such limitations. I know of LR target shooters that love the 260 Remmy, but then they have single shot target rifles.

I had a single shot falling block chambered for it at one time, but the barrel was too light leading to rapid heat buildup in the barrel. Again, not the fault of the cartridge itself.