This perception is really the crux of the matter.

No cartridge “deserves” any marketshare or sales volume at all. Full stop. No gazelle deserves to live through a day, and no lion deserves to eat.

The firearms consumer market is a capitalist economy, and rarely does “most popular” or “highest selling” ever correspond to “fastest” as an objective measure of ballistic performance - let alone correspond to “older.” “Hype” is a buzzword which folks like to throw around, but rarely has marketing “hype” without corresponding performance really delivered in market - some folks buy shiny things before the collective has realized it’s just a skin of tinfoil, but in the modern age of digital marketing and social media, there’s no hiding - if a product doesn’t deliver, it’s called to the mat and debunked within weeks, or even days. But popularity isn’t just about objective performance - remember, the 30-30 and the 6.5 swede were invented within a year of one another, with the 6.5 swede clearly - objectively - a ridiculously higher performing cartridge, but the Dirty Thirty would own greater marketshare forever thereafter, for no particular objective reason, simply subjective consumer preference - even with the original advertising extolling the flat trajectory of the 30-30 as a unique advantage to the round and rifle!

The 260rem dropped in the late ‘90s after having been wildcatted for around 40 years already at that point - this was early, EARLY in the days of the internet, and before the advent of “social media” as a marketing device, pre-YouTube, pre-Facebook, pre-Instagram. It hit the market because a few wildcatters were enjoying low recoil and flat hunting-distance trajectories, and Remington thought it would be a good idea to pick it up - using relatively slow twists and relatively light bullets. There wasn’t an obvious consumer demand for the round, nor a clearly defined consumer market application target. But Remington swallowed the cost to enable future shooters an option they didn’t previously have.

This was a few years before the “long range hunting revolution” which rode on the backs of the Remington Ultra Magnums, and equally before the Winchester Short Magnums and RSAUMs, but largely came about during the peak of a generational disorder of “magnumitis,” such almost shooters wanting to shoot long we’re looking at magnum cases, not simply an interstice between two calibers in the diminutive 308 case. “Long range shooting” at the time was generally perceived to be a magnum dominated game, in part due to the relatively recent establishment of the 50 BMG and the 338 Lapua as shoulder fired RIFLES in military application. He11, I even recall a conversation in 1998 when an avid and experienced local rifleman told me I should be building a 7 Rem Mag instead of a 284 Winchester for benchrest competition, because even standard long action cartridges wouldn’t reach 1000yrds, let alone a short action cartridge… read that again - would not REACH 1000yrds.

This was before the popularity of heavy barrels, before the popularity of picatinny rails, before First Focal Plane optics. This was before accutriggers and barrel nuts were industry standard. Before drop-in headspacing for bolt actions for shouldered pre-fits was a thing. This was a time when “shooting sports” largely meant shotgun games and slow paced square-range rifle sports like Highpower and benchrest. Even 3 gun really hadn’t yet hit the scene, let alone action precision rifle games - “police/tactical matches” were onesie-twosie around the country, with most not allowing civilian competitors, and those which DID were so uncommon that they were dubbed “outlaw matches.” Obviously long before the inception of the Precision Rifle Series.

This was before the “predator hunting craze” which saw a boom of heavy barreled short action cartridges in flatter shooting rounds.

This was before laser rangefinders and ballistic calculators were commonly available, let alone in consumer hands.

This was also before “prepping” had driven the boom of reloading equipment prevalence among the common shooter, and during a time when the average firearm transfer was NOT being bought by a first time gun owner (someone buying ANOTHER gun, not their first gun). Previously, if you reloaded, you were an avid shooter and likely a competitor, not just a guy with a rifle - but prepping drove presses into homes all over America which wouldn’t have bought one before, making less mainstream cartridges even more available to the casual shooter.

This was before e-commerce was the dominating market. We were still ordering things via mail order catalogs or phone calls, and if a rifle and corresponding ammo wasn’t available at a local shop, or Walmart - or K-mart!! - guys weren’t buying it.

This was also firmly in the height of the Federal AWB, before the AR-15 had blossomed, let alone large frame AR’s, to have the market prevalence they enjoy today - back then, an AR was a 15, and it was a 223/5.56, and a rare large frame was a 308, with only the rarest of any of these being offered in any other cartridge - even custom barrels were often truly one-off custom orders when building 243win or 7-08 large frame AR’s.

This was at a time when consumer standardization was king - Kmarts were converting to “Big K’s,” Walmart was building Supercenters, and if a person didn’t have Air Jordans, a Nokia 3210, a Black AmEx, and a stack of boy band CD’s as tall as their ceiling, they weren’t “in.” This was before Etsy, before the “boutique boom,” before “unique is the new black.” So this was a time when buying anything abnormal was… abnormal…

But thereafter 1999, we DID see all of these market trends.

So in 1999 when it was finally SAAMI standardized, after 2-3yrs of processing - the 260rem was released without a purpose into a market which didn’t want it. A decade later, when winds were more favorable for a fast twist 6.5mm short action cartridge to be used for true long range shooting, the 260rem was sitting on the shelf with a bunch of 1:9” twists and 120 grain ammo, and cases too long to fit long 140-150 grain bullets into the case without shoving their bases too deep into the case…

Shooters asked for a cartridge like the 6.5 Creedmoor to fill the niche of precision rifle competition, and when they got it, it was perfectly positioned to swallow up marketshare like a whirlpool.

The 260rem didn’t deserve anything when it came out, and doesn’t today - nor does any other cartridge. It simply didn’t EARN the marketshare in any era which was earned by the 6.5 creed.