Answers to Questions Nobody Asked

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Unless you are shooting 400-500 yards,I can't see where this is particularly important.
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Two sides to that. Increasing the max point blank range is useful for hunters who may not know the precise range... and on the other side some of the advocates of the .260 would say "500? Who needs that? I'm trying to reach 1250."
 
:rolleyes: indeed.

Match grade .50BMG bullets run $2 each.
Match grade 6.5mm are about $0.35 each.

At 1000 yards the drop of a .50 is about.. 26MOA.
At 1000 yards the drop of a .260 is about 26MOA.

Either one will guarantee sudden death to any sheet of paper it strikes.
 
My point is that if you can do it with a .260 you will also be able to do it with the other calibers mentioned. Ed,that is a good comparison of drop "At 1000 yards the drop of a .50 is about.. 26MOA.
At 1000 yards the drop of a .260 is about 26MOA". Now how about remaining energy comparison?
 
That's the whole point, ballistic coefficiency, and the main reason why the .260 Remington rocks.

Comparing it to the .50 BMG in regard to the amount of energy left at 1000 yards is comparing apples to... mufflers.

If you want to compare something sensibly, compare it to the cartridges you mentioned. The .260 has more energy than most of them past a certain distance. Depending on how far you're shooting, that may or may not be an advantage, i.e. why we have so many options available to us. The .260 is certainly a great (if not the ideal) cartridge for a number of situations.
 
Does having the energy of a .50bmg at 1000 yards count as a question anybody asked?

At 1000 yards the .260 retains more energy than the .223 does at 300 yards. In fact it retains the same energy (~590fp) at 1000 yards as some (soft point) .308 nato does at 500.

If that energy is enough there is no reason to endure the punishment, expense, and inconvenience of even a 300mag and certainly a .50bmg.
 
The .50 BMG has a whole bunch of other uses though. Anti material, machine guns, etc.
 
The question comparing the energy of the .260 vs. the .50cal was made in jest to illustrate the obsurdity of ANY comparison between the two. I KNOW that the .260 Remington is an awesome cartridge. BUT, I do not believe that it somehow has "super powers" inherent to it that any other 6.5ish round doesn't also have. I STILL hold that the .260 can't do ANYTHING that a similar cartridge loaded with equal bullet weight/powder charge(all else being equal) can't do equally well or at least close enough to make any differences negligible.
 
If that energy is enough there is no reason to endure the punishment, expense, and inconvenience of even a 300mag and certainly a .50bmg.
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Yes and no (mostly yes). Making a hit is the most important thing, regardless of energy delivered. The insane BC of 750 gr .510 bullets means that "wind drift estimation error" and "range & drop amount estimation error" will be less/minimized with .50 bmg - that *could* be the difference between a hit and not a hit.

But, if, OTOH, you hotrod a 6.5 with something like 6.5-284 or faster, the extra velocity of the bullet over a .50 BMG can make up for or more than make up for the inferior BC, making it the far far better choice if all you need is enough energy to dispatch a 200 lb living target, even at 1,250 yds or more. .260 Rem however, doesn't deliver quite enough velocity to overcome the wind-drift-estimation-error-advantage of the .50 BMG, at 1K yards.
 
Suggesting .50 BMG for target shooting at 1250 yards instead of .260 (or other comparable cartridges) is laughable. I don't know if the person who suggested that is a long-range shooter, but usually those who do not shoot long-range recommend wildly larger cartridges as "ideal" for long-range shooting, than those who do.

There are other factors than simply case capacity and bore size. Certainly there are other 6.5mm cartridges that are similar to the .260-- some are very similar. If we compare to 6.5-284, 6.5-06, or 6.5x55, the biggest advantages of the .260 for practical long-range shooting are:

* it is a drop-in replacement in any .308 rifle

* short action

* short-action box magazines work perfectly

* brass is readily available from anything in the .308 family

These factors may or may not be interesting to any particular shooter; however, the combination of them in conjunction with the 6.5mm ballistics hits a sweet spot.

Anyway, the premise of this thread is lame. Calibers exist because someone thought they were useful, ballistically, for accuracy, or maybe to make money. I'd rather have too many choices than not enough.
 
I'd really like to try the .327. You get an extra round in the cylinder plus a reduction in recoil, from what I've heard.

I consider the .22 Long pretty useless though.
 
Zak..it was a JOKE(see emoticon). However the "advantages" you list also apply to .243win,7mm-08,.308win and a number of others. A short action is not a particular advantage anyway. All calibers listed are "capable" of moa accuracy at practical hunting ranges while delivering a lethal dose of enegy. The .260 Remington was touted as the "perfect" deer caliber by gun rags when it was introduced. I don't see it.
 
All calibers listed are "capable" of moa accuracy at practical hunting ranges while delivering a lethal dose of enegy.
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Not talking about practical hunting ranges, or the distances most people shoot deer. They could use a .30-30 for that. (Even though at what I consider a practical hunting range, the .260 does have an advantage over .308.)

My arguments for the .260 are specifically for practical long-range shooting. Your latest comment about the box magazine not being a particular advantage reveals that you do not understand what that is about.

The fact that the most-used caliber in practical long-range events is now the 6.5 mm and the dominant 6.5 mm cartridge used is the .260 is strong evidence that it does have tangible benefits over other cartridges for this application, even those you mention.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the .243, 7-08, or .308 as a general-purpose rifle or hunting rifle cartridge, and I believe my next hunting rifle will be in 7-08; however, they have relative disadvantages to the .260 for practical long-range shooting, which have been detailed elsewhere (threads here and articles on my site).
 
Suggesting .50 BMG for target shooting at 1250 yards instead of .260 (or other comparable cartridges) is laughable.
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Sorry, Zak, I don't think that's true (entirely). That IS true for the type of shooting YOU do (practical shooting, where you're just trying to "make hits" on a largish target), but the reality is that the answer depends on the SIZE of the target you're trying to hit, or what group size you're trying to get. What's the world record group for .50 BMG at 1,000 or 1,250 vs. the world record group for .260 rem at that distance? I submit that the BMG has it handily beat. I will readily admit if I'm wrong - am I?
 
I am pretty sure the F-class record at 1000 yards is smaller than the .50BMG record at 1000 yards, but I don't have data at my fingertips to back that up.

[practical shooting, where you're just trying to "make hits" on a largish target)
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Just because in practical LR matches we shoot steel doesn't mean that we never shoot groups at those distances, and if you only get one shot, I hesitate to call a 1 or 1.5 MOA target "largish." In any case, it's kind of a moot point because if you get to shoot a string of shots at a single target, the person/cartridge with the smaller group size will get more hits, proided the target isn't ridiculously big.

In the context of the 50 BMG comment ("target shooting at 1250 yards"), I submit that if I plunk down two shooters of equal skill behind my .260 and my .50 and set a target at 1250 yards, the one shooting the .260 will shoot the smaller group (or "get more hits") because of the "shootability" of the .260, and he'll have an extra $100 left over afterwards to boot.

-z
 
Practical long range shooting (1000yds +)is a "niche" sport. If the .260 is superior to other rounds for this purpose then by all means use it. The .260 was introduced to the shooting public as "THE PERFECT DEER CARTRIDGE" I have the magazine articles(somewhere). If it has been adapted to something other than a hunting round then more power to it(pun intended). If the length of the magazine is that critical to long range shooting then why use a magazine at all? Why not a single shot platform?(You are making an inaccurate assumption as to what I do or do not understand). For what it was designed for(deer hunting et.al.) it is a good cartridge but NOT VASTLY SUPERIOR to similar calibers. To the 1000yds shooter...well that's a whole nuther matter.
 
If the length of the magazine is that critical to long range shooting then why use a magazine at all? Why not a single shot platform?(You are making an inaccurate assumption as to what I do or do not understand).
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I think not.

Having a magazine is advantageous because it removes from the critical path another thing the shooter has to do between shots on the same target, or between shots target to target. A detachable box magazine is useful because it is much easier, handier, and quicker to load and unload administratively and they typically hold 5 or 10 rounds, more than the 3 or 4 you might fit into a typical hunting rifle style internal, top-loading, magazine. All modern bolt-action military sniper rifles have a box magazine for the same reasons.

The first thing you wrote about .260 in this thread was, ".260 Remington...why?". Nobody replied: Because Remington told us it was THE PERFECT DEER CARTRIDGE. All the replies referenced how .260 has ballistic advantages at long range, and hits a nice combination of features for that application. In fact, nobody mentioned hunting.

You're the one who brought up hunting as a reason for the .260, and mentioned Remington's marketing strategy (or lack thereof) for it, and used that to "prove" the .260 does nothing better than anything else. That is the definition of the straw-man fallacy (arguing against a misrepresentation of the opponent's position).

Anyway, for hunting within a few hundred yards, the .260 will have substantially similar performance to calibers between .25 and .30 in case sizes similar to the "08" or "x57" families. There is probably an argument for shooting the .260 over .25-08 or .257 Roberts, and there is probably an argument for choosing it over the .308; however, one could imagine arguments going the other way in both cases.

-z
 
"All the replies referenced how .260 has ballistic advantages at long range, and hits a nice combination of features for that application. In fact, nobody mentioned hunting." You are correct ,I concede. When long range was mentioned, I incorrectly thought of long shots in the hunting fields(because that is where MY "niche" is). Apparently I have misunderstood what the OP was asking when he posed the question.
 
Agreed. I hope to one day build a .260 around a Mauser action. It would be used for hunting but not as a replacement for any of my other very capable calibers. BTW,I didn't see "detachable" when you were talking about box magazines.
 
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Some calibers really are pointless. .30 TC and .300 Marlin Express for example. Didn't they already invent .307 Winchester? Do we need it two more times?
 
Actually, Zak, the more I think about and research, the more I stand strongly by what I said, comparing the .50 BMG to .260 Remington, and .260 remington only, which is the subject matter here. It flat out IS capable of better practical accuracy at 1K and beyond than .260 rem (however small in magnitude that may be), particularly in moderate/high wind. As I previously said, I am NOT comparing it to much faster whiz-bang 6.5s like Rich DiSimone's 6.5 super (which I believe did in fact set the world record at 1K yards), which pushes a 6.5 bullet a LOT faster than a .260 Rem.

http://www.6mmbr.com/gunweek050.html

And I didn't say that you don't shoot for groups at that range, but what I am saying is that if you had a gun every bit as accurate as your current ones, in .50 BMG, you WOULD get better groups, however slightly, than with .260 Rem.

Faster 6.5 are whole nuther story. So what I said was exactly right, albeit very very small gains, and certainly not worth the tradeoff in recoil, etc., unless you WERE trying to beat DiSimone's record with a .260 remington, which you wouldn't - you'd probably use the same caliber he did or a similar 6.5 or 7mm.

I have and really like the .260 rem. And I do NOT have a .50 bmg. But it's just that it's incorrect to say that the .50 BMG won't minimize wind-drift-estimation-error better than the .260 rem will. Even if we're talking very small amounts here.

Edit, well, let me say that what I said may not be *exactly* right, when I said it could make the difference between a hit or a miss - not really true if the target is human sized. Could in theory be true if the target is rodent-sized. :)
 
And I didn't say that you don't shoot for groups at that range, but what I am saying is that if you had a gun every bit as accurate as your current ones, in .50 BMG, you WOULD get better groups, however slightly, than with .260 Rem.
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My point is I do but I'm not sure "I" would. That was the point of my two-shooter scenario.

There is no doubt the .50 has better ballistic numbers, heck, it has only just over half the wind drift of a common .260 load at 1250 yards. But it is harder to shoot accurately .

I think your article proves my earlier point. He has a 1000-yard benchrest record of 1.56" @ 1000 yards with the 6.5mm. However, the .50 cal benchrest record is around 2.6 inches: http://fcsa.org/wwwroot/visitors/worldrecords.php This answers the question of which is more accurate at 1000 yards. (Yes, I know it wasn't .260. However, for the purposes of my comparison, his 6.5 wildcat and even 7mm RM or .300 WM would be closer to the .260 in terms of the things that make the difference, than the .50.)

One might wonder if comparing sub-quarter MOA groups of the best benchrest shooters in the world, at 1000 yards, has any relevance to how your average long-range shooter would do; however, I would counter that it takes a lot more skill to put five .50 cal rounds into 5" at 1000 yards than it does to put five .260 (or other 6.5mm) rounds into the same, mostly because the big guns are harder to shoot. The average long-range shooter will shoot better, relatively, with the smaller caliber. That is the essence of practical accuracy.

To the .50's credit, its stratospheric BC values are really a big advantage when you get into the extreme long-range regime, where bullets with BC's less than 0.7 are more or less just dropping out of the sky.

-z
 
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