Re: Looking at next precision rifle 260 vs. 7mm-08????
I built the 260. Why?? Because the 140 AMAX. I love it. My dope at 1000y is 8.4mils up and at 1 mile is 26mils up. I really cant comment on the 7-08, it appears to look very promising.
By running the numbers across a couple calculators at my density altitude I maintain around 750ftlbs of kinetic energy at 1000y. Would I shoot game at that distance....only if it was a hell of a wall hanger!! I do know that bullets still splash with authority and steel swings at 1000y!
Regardless to what any calculators say....shoot the damn thing, hell if all I had was a 223 or a 308, I would still be happy pulling the trigger. There is no replacement for knowing how your platform is going to behave at any given condition. As far as barrel life is concerned....I really dont care. It doesn't stop me from shooting. Do we build these things to shoot them or to put them in the safe and talk about them? I know that I will have over 700 rounds down my barrel after this weekend, and I got it back the first week in March. Boots Obermeyer, one of the god fathers of 6.5mm, has a 260 barrel with over 6000 rounds through it, and it still maintains way under MOA accuracy (I am not going to quote anything smaller than MOA because I cant rightfully recall, but I think it was more like 1/2moa).
I do run my loads hot, but that got me the performance I was looking for. I dont have any pressure signs, if you toss out the remington brass that I blew primer pockets out in 2 reloads. With necked down 7-08 Win brass I have reloaded them 5 times with zero out of tolerance anything.
All my opinion. You will be happy with what ever you build. My only recommendation is to go with the radiused rifling i.e 5r, 5c or any of those. Call Tom at Broughton and see what he says about it or Boots Obermeyer himself and see what he says about it or John Krieger and see what they say about it. Radiused rifling is the cats ass, in my opinion.
You know what they say about opinions right? Just like a$$holes, everyone has one, and they normally stink.