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Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

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Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

Old 12-21-2004, 08:06 PM
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Nontypical Buck
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Default Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

I have one in a Rem 700 mountain rifle. I love this gun and this cartridge. It shoots very accurate, is light recoil, low noise and does a heck of a job on Texas Whitetails. Everyone in my family from my 11 year old daughter, 15 year old daughter, wife and myself shoot this gun very comfortably and very accurately. I'm not a big fan of the .243 as a deer cartridge and I was afraid that the 7mm-08 would have been a little much for my wife and daughters. The .260 fills that gap very nicely. It has factory loaded ammo up to 140 grains and down to 90 grains I believe. To me this is the perfect all around gun for Texas at least. You can shoot anything from varmits to whitetails and have read of people shooting Caribou and Elk with one shot kills from souped up handloads. The bullet also has a high ballistic coefficient as well which makes it good for accurate shooting at longer ranges.

Unfortunately, Remingtom has elected to discontinue my favorite ammo for deer this year. I was using a 125 grain Nosler Partition and had outstanding results, all were one shot kills and all expired within sight. So it's looking more like it's going to be reloads for me from now on. Oh well, just another hobby to add to the list.
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Old 12-21-2004, 08:11 PM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

Well I always wanted one...but they just didnt make it available in any of the more affordable rifles...such as the adl's, adl syns, 7600's 7400's. I would think thats a big part of it....Remington has standard calibers on the brains...they need to let some shooters run the company again rather than the bean counters. They are very stale on offering anything besides the norm calibers in anything but the higher priced guns. They also seem to be dropping a lot of the borderline popular loads like the 260.
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Old 12-21-2004, 08:23 PM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

The .260 did not catch on for a bunch of reasons. The biggest is that it does not have the word magnum attached to it. The modern whitetail cannot be killed with anything less than a magnum Secondly, no 6.5 has ever caught on in North america. Those who do use them seem to love them but they are few compared to the love affair with .30 and .270 rounds.
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Old 12-21-2004, 09:05 PM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

I think the issue is the existence of the .25-06 and .270 as they shoot "flatter" to name one feature. These calibers can do everything or more than the .260 and are simply more popular for whatever reason (the .270 has a lot of history behind it and famous characters that used it [Jack O'Connor] and developed for it - [Weatherby] come to mind).
Very similar, in my opinion the .280 is a great chambering but almost no one makes rifles for it, don't know why...
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Old 12-21-2004, 09:10 PM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

i agree, remington needs hunters and shooters running things. you cant even get a standard BDL in .308win
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Old 12-21-2004, 10:08 PM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

I would have loved to have had a 260 but when I was in the market for a new rifle there just didn't seem to be anyone that had one. By the time I had heard of it most of the major gun companies had already stopped chambering it in their standard rifles. I think the immense popularity of the 7mm-08 which only kicks a little more and is based on the same hull overshadowed the 260.

The .260 did not catch on for a bunch of reasons. The biggest is that it does not have the word magnum attached to it. The modern whitetail cannot be killed with anything less than a magnum
Preach, brother, preach!!!! Ain't it the sad ass truth. At the rate we are going I expect to see people hunting whitetails with a 50 caliber BMG and depleted uranium penetrators within 10 years.

On a funny note. A guy I know bought a new 300 WSM rifle and he is just amazed that none of the deer he has shot have dropped in their tracks. They all seem to run 30 to 50 yards just like they did with his other rifle. I mean after all how can these deer withstand the awsome power of the incredible earth shattering SHORT MAGNUM?? Now he wants a 338 magnum because he's convinced that will put them all down on the spot. I just laugh and shake my head whenever he walks away. The last time I saw him he had shot a deer from a shooting house and the scope on his NEW AWSOME SHORT MAG had tagged him between the eyes cutting the bridge of his nose and blackening both his eyes. Oh yeah, the deer ran about 60 yards.
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Old 12-21-2004, 11:24 PM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

^^^^^^ Good post^^^^^^


I wanted a 260 for a long time but couldnt find it in the rifle I wanted it in...so i bought the closest thing to it...7mm-08 but I can promise you it took me a long time to find it in the synthetic adl...will probably be a better choice in the long run anyways. Theres another on gun-broker now.
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Old 12-21-2004, 11:29 PM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

why? because of one caliber... the .243 Winchester. Now I for one think the .260 has it ALLOVER the .243 but the .243 has to much age and custom on it to be overthrown. IMHO if you have a .308 you don't need a 7/08 and if you have a .260 you wouldn't need the .243.

But then again, think what woulda happened if Rem had the nads to chamber the .270 in the .308/.260 case??? The Wby, the WSM, ANYTHING with the words .270 in front of it is a seller in the U.S.
RA
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Old 12-22-2004, 01:59 AM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

Another good reason to buy a CZ rather than a Remington. Isn't it pretty sad that a company 1/2 way around the world in a former communist country can make the quality and selections that we want but the buffoons that run the domestic companies cannot?

Get a CZ 550 in 6.5x55- it can be handloaded to better performace than the .260, and its a better quality rifle to boot.
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Old 12-22-2004, 08:08 AM
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Default RE: Why did the .260 Remington not take off as a standard caliber?

Maybe because we americans don't like the metric system? even though we call them by their inch names we all know that a .243 is a 6mm, and .280 is 7mm, and .260 is 6.5mm. only somehow the 7mm mag creeped up on us.

Yes I have a friend that has a .260 that went to Labrador (I think) caribou hunting, and took 2 nice ones.

Any new cartridge that comes out now has to have "Magnum" attatched to it for it to be a seller. With all the "standard" calibers that we have, why do we need anything new?
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