.260 Rem Barrel ?

[noflyers]

Anybody had any luck shooting heavy 6.5's, 130 gr or larger, with shorter than 24" 1:8 barrels? If so what length barrel and what was the resulting accuracy and velocity.

Any pearls of wisdom?

Thanks

 

[Shortmagman]

I have a Model 7 Rem with a 22 inch Hart barrel chambered in 260 Rem.. I use this as a hunting rifle. I have shot many different loads in this gun. Most have been quite accurate. One of my best hunting loads is a 130 grain Nosler Accubond bullet loaded with RL-19 powder in RP cases and WLR primers. This load will shoot into .5 to 1.0 inches and I just looked at my chronograph data and this load averages 2922 ft/sec..
I have also loaded 129grain Hornady SP bullets with H4350 powder. This load gave a velocity of over 2900 ft/sec but was not as accurate as the 130 Nosler Accubond.

My gun has a 1 in 9 twist so I have not tried bullets heaver than 130 grains.

 

[winmagman]

I shoot two different 6.5 wssms which is about the same balistically as a .260. One has a 24" barrel and one with a 17" barrel (pistol), both are very accurate with the 130s or 140s. The rifle is most accurate at 2740 fps with the 140s and the pistol runs around 2600 with the 130s.

Chris

 

[Leathel]

I had a std 260 rem model seven and with its std barrel shot .7" with 140gr hornady SP with 2209 from memory 18" tube??? (a while back) but rebarreled to 243AI as a light weight varmint rig as I also had a magnum model 7 CS KS.

 

[noflyers]

Thanks guys, I think I am going to cut it to 22" and go from there I don't want sacrifice too much on the velocity because there is the occasional chance for a long shot at 'yotes. My big concern is having enough barrel length to stabilize the heavies with that twist and not losing enough velocity to go subsonic and start keyholing critters at reasonable yet lengthy shots. Makes for ugly pelts y'know.