What caliber should I re-barrel my rifle?

[LongRifle]

I have settled on re-barreling my rifle in .260 Rem. For someone who is just starting to get into long range plinking/competition I think this will be a very good performing round and easy to load on my own. The .308 would have been the easiest entry level round for a long range beginner but like I said I didn't want another .308 caliber and I wanted something small and light recoil and though many of these round are small and lightly recoil, the .260 Rem. has really grabbed my attention and I cant wait to start building this rifle and working up loads. Now if I could just get the cash to do it...........

You can't go wrong with the 260, it's a good round. It is to the 6.5 Swede what the 7-08 is to the 7mm mauser.

However the 6.5 creedmoor does have a slight accuracy edge, because the hornady ammo which is readily available for a decent price, is more accurate than other factory ammo in 260. But if you reload and you have a decent barrel the 260 can be just as accurate. But all barrels for the 6.5 creedmoor have match chambers while not all 260 barrels do.


So you might want to take those faxctors into consideration before you buy a barrel.

Explain to me what a match chamber is??

[ron]

I have settled on re-barreling my rifle in .260 Rem. For someone who is just starting to get into long range plinking/competition I think this will be a very good performing round and easy to load on my own. The .308 would have been the easiest entry level round for a long range beginner but like I said I didn't want another .308 caliber and I wanted something small and light recoil and though many of these round are small and lightly recoil, the .260 Rem. has really grabbed my attention and I cant wait to start building this rifle and working up loads. Now if I could just get the cash to do it...........

You can't go wrong with the 260, it's a good round. It is to the 6.5 Swede what the 7-08 is to the 7mm mauser.

However the 6.5 creedmoor does have a slight accuracy edge, because the hornady ammo which is readily available for a decent price, is more accurate than other factory ammo in 260. But if you reload and you have a decent barrel the 260 can be just as accurate. But all barrels for the 6.5 creedmoor have match chambers while not all 260 barrels do.


So you might want to take those faxctors into consideration before you buy a barrel.

Explain to me what a match chamber is??

A match chamber has tighter dimensions and is throated for specific length projectiles, generally a tighter shorter throat with less freebore. This is the difference between the 223 Remington and the 5.56 Nato. The 223 is a varmind round so for accuracy, it has a closer to what you would call a match chamber. But the 5.56 chamber ha smore play in it so that military arms under battlefield conditions are still going to feed and functiuon even when the chamber gets all cruddy. and aleso by giving it a longer throat with freebore, they can load the cartidges up to higher pr4essures. So when you fire 5.56 in a 223 chamber pressure go beyond max.

The argument for choosing the 260 over the 6.5 creedmoor used to be that 260 ammo was cheaper and more available. But that's no longer true because of recent ammo shortages. Now the Hornady 6.5 creedmoor ammo is cheaper than Remington ammo and it's better ammo. And cases are available for both chamberings and if you had to, you could neck down and trim 7mm-08 or even 308. and then if you reload, Hornady provies you with the load data to duplicate their factory ammo. The only real advantage the 260 has over the 6.5 Creedmore is slightly greater case capacity but If maximum velocity is your thing you might as well go with a 6.5 Swede or 6mm-284. in factory loadings there is very little difference between velocities of the two smaller cartridges

[LongRifle]

Thanks Ron I appreciate all your helpful knowledge. I probably wont use a match chambered barrel for now as I haven't settled on the exact reload I plan on working up for the .260 rem. As soon as I get the rifle built and some loads worked up ill post them up here to show you guys the final results. Thanks again everyone for all your input and help