The .260 Remington is a great round. Don’t think so? We’ll get to that later…
Check out the 6.5 Creedmore. The Rifle Shooter’s Darling Cartridge. It leaps tall buildings. It is Sub-MOA to a Grand. It’s made of accuracy. It’s everyone’s favorite round. Right?
Well, how come the 6.5 Creedmore is so popular when the .260 Remington isn’t? Ballistic-wise, they are almost identical with the .260 actually having a slight performance edge. Accuracy? Sixes really. But 6.5 Creedmore is the one people are looking for.
The difference is Marketing. Remington doesn’t know how to do it. They had something good YEARS before the Creedmore came out and Remington let it flop. Basically overall performance is like a .25 WSSM, before that round came and went. It’s one people are always asking for too… yet there is the .260, sitting there, ignored. Even by Remington! It makes no sense. They should be all over the .260. But they just don’t get it.
Yup. Ditto the .280 Remington. Ditto the .25-06 Remington.
I think the .25-06 enjoys some popularity around where I live, but it is hard to tell what will take off. Marlin tried to market the .450 and seems to have given up on it. I was looking at the 6.5C for my next rifle purchase, but I will have to give the .260 some consideration.
They didn’t try very hard with the .450 Marlin. For the longest time, they only ever offered it in blued steel versions with fancy walnut stocks (the stock on my 1895M is noticeably nicer than that of any 1895G I have handled). The people who want to buy a rifle like that are primarily going for nostalgia, and they want the .45-70.
The proper market for the .450 Marlin is for somebody like me. I live in Alaska, and I am ONLY interested in the big bore lever gun because I want a defensive rifle that I can use to keep the bears off my ass. Up here, we want a Guide Gun in stainless steel, with a stock that we won’t get upset over if it gets beat up. We want a full capacity magazine tube; i.e. one that extends all the way to the end of the barrel. Putting a 4 round tube on the original guide gun was just idiotic. We want a rugged ghost ring sight, a big loop on the lever, and we’d prefer to be able to buy full power ammo at the store, without having to pay the prices that Buffalo Bore and the other smaller manufacturers have to charge for their (outstanding) niche product.
What we want is something like the 1895SBL, which they STILL do not offer in .450 Marlin. If Marlin doesn’t want the .450 to be another bastard stepchild (like their inferior .444), they should quit treating it like one.
Marlin doesn’t even list a gun in .450 any more. I don’t think they have since 2009. It basically wasn’t really an improvement over the .45-70, so I can see why it never really caught on. At least once a year, I can usually find the Buffalo Bore on sale, so it isn’t too bad.
That’s not even true; they still make the 1895M and 1895MXLR. At the time it was introduced, it was a huge improvement over the .45-70, because the semi-custom .45-70 loads were not all that widely available. I have one of the first 1895Ms build and I have never had trouble getting full power ammo for it. I can even buy it at the grocery store down the road from my house. If they have .45-70, it is probably some green box remington low power crap. I don’t have to spend time hunting for expensive ammo, or try to find it on sale. If I buy .450 Marlin ammo I know it is full power, and the price is always better than BB.
I stand corrected. They did discontinue for a bit. I am glad they are offering it now. Around here, I can get the Buffalo Bore and a few other high end choices. The .450 is almost never available. As for price, I just checked a few places. It is almost the same.
After further looking into this, while the .450’s are still on the website, they are not in the catalog. Over on the MarlinOwners site, the .450 subforum has a stickied thread on how it has been discontinued and Marlin/Remington isn’t making new ones.
Still making the 1895 M and MXLR? Yes. But not in .450.
I find the Lever Evolution and HSM Bear Loads in .45 Gvmt easily.
Thats good enough in a factory load for me.
Then again… my hot loads are all from my own press.
Jim
The 1895M and MXLR were only ever offered in .450 Marlin. The .45-70 versions of those rifles are the 1895G and XLR, respectively. Lame that they discontinued them. It’s their own damn fault for mis-marketing the .450 in the first place. If they had introduced it in a stainless/synthetic version right off the bat, they would have been a huge success here. As it stands, they were late to the game with a stainless guide gun to begin with, and plenty of people who would have gone with a .450 ended up buying a .45-70 just because they could get it in stainless. Marlin probably doesn’t care so long as they got to sell all of those people a rifle anyway.
It is not just marketing; it is the market.
The 6.5 is just the latest in along line of attempts to introduce a new cartridge. It was introduced commercially 2007 and has been an enthusiasts darling for less than five years. The .260 Remington was introduced in 1997 and was a wildcat for at least ten years before that. At the time was hyped just as much as the 6.5 is now but just didn’t catch on.
Maybe the 6.5 will succeed and maybe it will join a long line of commercial flops. I wish Hornady luck in their endeavor but I won’t be surprised to see the 6.5 fade as the .260 did before it. For the most part, the market seems content to bang away at 100 yards with .223 and 7.62X39.
Was the 6.5 Creedmoor marketed or was it a word of mouth cartridge that started on the long range circuit? I do see that the new 6mm Hagar is trying to be pushed now for competitions.
.243 has a lot of limitations to it… the Hagar is just a hot .243. Not interested.
The .260 and 7mm-08 are both good cartridges. I have read that in developing the 6.8spc, the military found 6.5mm bullets were most accurate and 7mm bullets had superior terminal ballistics, so they settled on the 6.8mm/.277 to split the difference. I’m curious about putting a heavier projectile in the .308 case and building a 6.8gpc or “general purpose cartridge”.
Or you could just call that 6.8 what it is… .270.
I’m describing a “short action” .270 which Jack O’Connor would undoubtedly approve.
Yup. I hate when a manufacturer neglects or outright ignores their own cartridges.
.400 and .440 Cor Bon. Well, the later I understand as it was only in a Desert Eagle but I guess they gave up when they found out the .400 CB doesn’t work well in d-stack .45 mags the way .357 SIG works in d-stack .40 mags.
.480 Ruger (they no longer chamber a single revolver in their own cartridge)
But the .260 Remington irks me most. REAL nice BC on that round. Someday…don’t really know when but someday I’d like an AR-10 in .260 Remington. Maybe with a 24″ barrel with nice glass….
You will want it necked down to a .251. 😉
Jim
I think Crusader may still have a .260 barrel, but you’d have to contact Joe to make sure. I considered an AR-10 in .260 as well. If I was starting all over again – I’d have done that. I’m fairly invested in .308 though.
Demand 5R rifling!
Same old story as the 6mm Rem vs the 243 Win. The 6mm was first and considered the better cartridge, but try to find a 6mm rifle or ammo.
And as long as we are on the subject of Remington marketing why won’t they manufacture any 10 round mags for their 7400 and 7600 rifles. The short barrel versions are great for hogs, defense, truck gun, etc. I love my 7600, but the over priced 4 round mags drive me nuts.
Years ago, I got aftermarket 10-round mags for a .30-06 7600; they would not feed properly even after I adjusted the lips so I exchanged them for 4-rounders which worked fine.
Yeah, I’ve got three aftermarkets that make better targets than ammo feeding devices.
Some guys over on falfiles built fals in 260 Rem. Had a lot of fun with the gun IIRC>
Really like the .260. DPMS AR10 in 260 shoots the 140gr rounds best.
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I have a 25-06 – Love it. I also have a .257 Weatherby Magnum – Love it more (Roy Weatherby’s favorite cartridge). Another interesting one is also a 6.5 – the 6.5 Grendel…nice alternative to the 5.56 or 7.62