So do we escape the Needmore syndrome with a Rem 260? LoL, Barely. It escapes criticism because it wasn't marketed, not because of its overwhelming superiority to the CM. LoL, if you think the 6.5 CM is a punk cartridge, what about the 6.5 grendel or any of the other slew of AR purposed low velocity rounds? Guys on the 6.5G forum are talking about killing elk with them while here guys say you need at least an X, with X=/> 270Win.
Anyway that's all off topic. Real world reports here will tell the tale within the next 12 months. BC tests will be easy to perform and repeat and verify. But I expect that we will see stories of no expansion and fantastic terminal performance like we have with Barnes.
The Needmore made a big splash on the tactical competition scene immediately really even before most people had heard of the round.
Like every fad that's hit spurred by what's winning this year in every discipline of shooting. All they guys and gals who thought they were on the verge of being competitive rushed out to get theirs.
Unlike most of those fads though Hornady and Ruger were ready and had factory rifles, ammo and components standing buy waiting for the rush.
Immediately there are hundreds or thousands of guys and gals shooting the Needmore telling us tremendous "stories" of all the amazing accomplishments they'd made with them shooting everything from eggs at a thousand yards to elephants at ten yards. Yes, I'm exaggerating as much as they did.
Hornady didn't make those fantastic claims in their advertising, neither did Ruger, it was a bunch of folks that jumped onto the train blowing a lot of hard earned money in many cases trying to justify to themselves and their friends that expense.
Tall tales are nothing new, Babe the Blue Ox, Daniel Boone, Johnny Appleseed, Big Bad John, John Henry and on and on, just add "Needmore Lore" to the pile.
Before all these tactical and long range tacti-centered venues came about and exploded after 9-11 we had the same kinds of fads erupt out of the Benchrest world, just at a slower pace since people were primarily reliant on monthly or bi-monthly magazines and weekly sporting shows.
The Needmore just caught the right wave and of course Remington as usual blew yet another great opportunity to grab a huge chunk of market share with the .260 by not doing the same thing, putting rifles chambered in it in the hands of the big guys on the shooting circuits and equipping them with all they needed to succeed.
The two rounds are almost twins, using the same case, producing the same ballistics.
Winchester did the same thing to a smaller degree with the WSM and WSSM's, Remington with the SAUM's neither of which had a whole lot of staying power.
The last thing Remington really did right was the 7mm-08 and I heard the same kinds of miraculous stories about it's performance as soon as it hit the market.
The internet though was the tool that allowed the WOM to travel at light speed from discussion board to discussion board and because of the success of the competition shooters were having the Needmore became the most overhyped cartridge of all time.
It's just another nice, mild, medium velocity 6.5 but nobody that bought one wanted to admit it.
