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.260 Match Ammo Comparison
Table of Contents
Introduction and Test Procedures
Just a few months ago we conducted a comparison article with many of the available 308 Match
loads that are out there (Article can be found here).
It was a fun and interesting article to write and showed some interesting things and we plan to
continue to update the test with the addition of other match loadings. Now, enter the
.260 remington, a cartridge that is growing in popularity in long range
tactical shooting, and with good reason. The cartridge has excellent long range ballistics due to
the high high ballistic coefficient (BC) .264 caliber bullets that are available.
The 260 is simply a .308 necked down to .264 (6.5mm). It was
a wildcat cartridge for many years and was known as the 6.5-08 until Remington standardized it as
the 260 Remington. There was a bit of a controversy when they first standardized the cartridge
because A-Square had
submitted all the required material to SAAMI several months before Remington submitted their
"intention" to standardize a 6.5mm 308 loading. But for some reason SAAMI decided to go with
Remington and the 260 Remington cartridge instead of the 6.5-08 A-Square. Controversy aside, the 260 is
a gem of a cartridge allowing excellent ballistics in a short action and it has displayed
excellent accuracy as well.
But the problem has always been factory support for the cartridge as there are very few rifles
chambered for the cartridge and very few factory loadings, of which only a few make any effort at
taking advantage of the long range capability of the cartridge. In fact, it seems to have fallen
out of favor at Remington, as they decided to create a match loading for the short range 6.8 SPC
cartridge instead a good match loading for the .260 and they even chambered the 700P in 6.8 SPC
which makes me scratch his head even further?! But, the .260 has taken off in shooting competitions
and has gained great popularity there which has kept the cartridge alive and now has started to
raise the awareness of the capability of this little cartridge. In fact, it raised it enough that
there are now match loadings available from some of the mid size ammo makers. And that is where this
review comes in. HSM and Black Hills each came out with their own version of a 260 match load, 123gr
for HSM and 139gr for Black Hills. And just very recently, Cor-Bon came out with their own loadings,
one of each the 123gr and 139gr. We assembled all 4 of these loadings and decided to put them
through the same battery of tests that we do with the 308 loads. In case you missed it, the test
procedure is as follows:
- 1 Box of 20 rounds of ammunition will be purchased over the counter/web/mail order to insure
randomness. No factory provided ammo for testing
- 3 groups of 3 rounds will be fired from each rifle at 100 yards
- Called flyers will be noted in the results but no individual groups will be re-fired
- Each rifle will have a bore snake pulled through the bore ONCE before the start of the test.
- Each rifle will fire 2 fouler shots after the bore snake cleaning and before firing the groups
for record
- Groups are fired with a Caldwell sand bag up front and a sand sock under the rear of the rifle
- Groups are fired slow fire at what ever pace the shooter desires.
- Groups are fired with a scope set on 16x (read about the rifles to see what makes & models are
currently being used)
- All rounds are fired through a chronograph to measure average velocity, standard deviation, and
extreme spread.
- Outside temperature is recorded for each series of tests as well as wind conditions
- Retesting is allowed but the entire test must be fired as a whole for that ammo
Of course, if further sniper quality loadings come out for the .260 in the future we will be sure
to add them to the review, but for the first run. This is what we have.
The Test Rifles
Now, as with the 308 comparison,
we needed two rifles and unfortunately I do not personally own two rifles chambered in .260. I have
one personal custom rifle, but not two, but it just so happened that I had the Terry Cross KMW
rifle here for review and writeup, so that ended up being the 2nd rifle
for this evaluation. Let us take a look at the two rifles.
The first rifle is my own personal .260 tactical rifle (SC2) I built a few years back for another
project/idea which will be written up soon in the
members area. It is built on a
Remington 700 action that had just a few minor things done to the action including squaring the
action face and lapping the lugs, but that is about it. I may even have a factory recoil lug on it
but I honestly do not remember if I replaced it with a better one of the same thickness or not.
It has a Montana Rifleman 22" barrel
With 1:8" twist. The barrel has a JP Recoil Eliminator brake installed, which was done
for the other writeup I'm doing as it is not needed because the recoil of the 260 is mild.
(Very mild with the brake!)
It is all sitting in a HS Precision thumbhole stock with Aluminum bedding block. It is NOT glass bedded
and is only using the standard bedding block. The floorplate is a HS Precision 10 round detachable
box magazine. The rifle is quite light and very handy with the shorter Remington Varmint contour 22"
barrel. But the single most amazing thing is that somehow this rifle turned into
a .25 MOA rifle! It has always amazed me and I attribute it to a good barrel and a little bit of luck
because like I said, there really was not much work done to the rifle. Normally it has a Burris
XTR 3-12x mounted on top, but I wanted 16x for these tests, so I put a Leupold Mk4 16x up on top
for the ammo tests.
My custom Remington 700 Test rifle (SC2) with leupold mk4 16x
The second test rifle is the very nice KMW Long Range Solutions Custom .260
we had here for review. You can read about this rifle in detail in the review as it is a very nice
rifle. The barrel is a full 4" longer than the other test rifle at 26". It is built on the
excellent Surgeon Tactical action and is bedded in a McMillan A5 stock. It has the Badger Ordnance
detachable magazine floorplate that uses the AI magazines. This rifle shot very well in the evaluation,
often shooting well below .5 MOA. The scope is a US Optics SN3 T-Pal
with 3.2-17x magnification. For the tests, the magnification was set at 16x. The SN3 is a very good
tactical scope, but the crosshairs are a bit thick for real precision work which may have hurt some
of the groups a little. Overall this rifle and scope make an EXCELLENT 260 long range tactical package.
KMW Custom 260 at the range
These rifles should serve as a good sample of what might be expected with this ammo performing in various
custom tactical rifles. Since there are really no "Factory" tactical rifle chambered in .260 both
rifles ended up being custom, but should still provide a good overall impression of various tactical
.260 rifles and ammo.
Test Results
l-r: HSM 123gr, Cor-Bon 123gr, Cor-Bon 139gr, Black Hills 139gr
This initial test included 4 manufacturers of match grade 260 ammunition including HSM, Blackhills,
and two loads from Cor-Bon. The summary of the results is included in the table below, but be sure to visit each
manufacturers result page to find out more specific details on how the ammo performed as well
as photos of the ammo, best groups fired, price, etc.
| Sniper Central Custom Remington 700 Tactical Rifle (SC2) |
| Ammo |
Avg Velocity |
Std Dev |
Extr Sprd |
Avg Group |
Best Group |
| HSM 123gr Match |
2758 fps |
16.02 fps |
49 fps |
.421" |
.154" |
| Black Hills 139gr Lapua HP |
2724 fps |
11.93 fps |
36 fps |
1.744" |
1.242" |
| Cor-Bon 123gr Match |
2773 fps |
15.72 fps |
55 fps |
.507" |
.230" |
| Corbon 139gr Match |
2748 fps |
13.43 fps |
39 fps |
.467" |
.210" |
| Average |
2751.8 fps |
14.28 fps |
45 fps |
.785" |
.459" |
| Average w/o Black-Hills |
2759.7 fps |
15.06 fps |
48 fps |
.465" |
.198" |
Conclusion and Thoughts
After all of the shooting was completed, there were a few interesting points that came up. First,
all of these loads are great long range loads, far outpacing the 308, which is the parent
cartridge for the .260. Just as an example, in the chart below I took 260 load that drops the most
as well as the one the drops the least and put them side by side with the 168 and 175 Federal
Gold Medal Match 308 loads as a comparison of the drop at various points out to 1000 meters. It is
quite evident of the performance gain the .260 has over the 308 even in the least performing rifle
and ammo combination in the test. I also included the federal GMM 300 Win Mag load as well to show
that both of the Cor-Bon loads as well as the Black Hills load out of the KMW rifle has slightly better
ballistics than the mighty 300 Win Mag, though with far less energy on target.
| Total Drop in Inches |
| Rifle & Ammo | 300 meters |
600 meters | 1000 meters |
| 308 168gr GMM Factory | -31.78 | -157.31 | -617.14 |
| 308 175gr GMM Factory | -32.49 | -156.33 | -579.67 |
| 260 HSM 123gr SC2 | -28.31 | -132.77 | -471.7 |
| 260 Cor-Bon 123gr KMW | -25.4 | -118.65 | -418.92 |
| 260 Cor-Bon 139gr KMW | -26.28 | -120.51 | -412.21 |
| 300 WM 190gr GMM Factory | -25.63 | -120.31 | -429.65 |
With the exception of the Black Hills load in the SC2 rifle, they are all
very accurate loads. In regards to that Black Hills load, at first I thought the SC2 was just not
stabilizing the heavy 139gr bullet, as I have always had very good luck with the excellent Black Hills
ammunition. But then when the Cor-Bon 139gr load shot so well out of the SC2 it ruled out
stabilization. I really just think that the SC2 simply does not like something about that
ammo. I have a few more boxes of it here and I will shoot some more to see if any other clues
show up as to why it doesn't like that ammo.
At one point a while back when I was researching various loads for the project that the SC2 rifle
was built for, I was researching ballistics fairly extensively and noticed that the 123gr Lapua
Scenar has nearly the same ballistic coeffecient (.547) as the 190gr 308 Sierra Matchking Bullet (.533)
that is used in the Federal 300 Win Mag Gold Medal Match Load, which is an excellent long range
load. With a slightly higher BC, that meant if you could push that 123gr Scenar at 2900 fps the ballistics would
be very similar. While the 260 would not have the same energy at that range, it WOULD have
exceptional long range ballistics out of a short action with very mild recoil, and that to me would
be an excellent sniping cartridge keeping the package light with a reduced report of the rifle, especially
if you had a suppressor attached. To top it off, the ballistic arc is so similar between the 123gr
Scenar and the 190gr SMK, that you could use the same BDC for the two loads if launched at 2900 fps.
It so happens that Leupold has this BDC for their M3 knobs... how convenient. In fact, I included the
123gr Cor-Bon load in the table above so you could see the similarity in ballistic path between it
and the Federal 300 Win Mag load. At 1000m it is getting a bit separated but still only about 10".
Similarly, the very
high BC of the 139gr bullet (.615) would give similar drop at 1000 yards if it is launched at
2800 fps, though the arc does not match as nicely and the use of the 300 WM BDC would not be recommended.
Of the four loads tested here, none of them met this velocity out of the SC2 with its short 22"
barrel and muzzlebrake. But three of the four accomplished this out of the KMW rifle with its
26" barrel. The HSM 123gr load (2847fps) was the only one that did not reach the 2900
(or 2800 fps for 139gr loads) velocity needed. It is interesting to note how much of a difference
barrel length makes in relation to the velocity at the muzzle. With the 308, a 26" barrel vs. a 22"
barrel gives you little or no gain, look at the average velocities in the
308 ammo comparison, the shorter barrel actually had a higher average
velocity than the 26" barrel which I commented about in that article.
The average gain for these 260 loads (139 and 123gr loadings) was 103.5 fps, over 25 fps per inch
of barrel. For the 260, it is probably worth it to go with the longer barrel where as with the
308 it is not worth it if only looking at velocity.
You may have noticed that all four of these loads use the Lapua Scenar bullets of 123gr and 139gr
variety. The reason is because these Lapua bullets are excellent match bullets, and more importantly
they have very high Ballistic Coefficients. There are other bullet makers that have as high or higher
BC's, but they are more expensive and not as easy to procure, and again, these Lapua bullets are
excellent quality. I would additionally like to see a high velocity 108gr load at some point as well.
If the 108gr Lapua Scenar can be pushed to about 3000-3100 fps it too makes a very fast and excellent long
range load with even less drop. The 108gr has a BC of .478 which is higher than the 168gr 308 Sierra Match King (.462).
But I am satisfied with the choice of the 123gr and 139gr bullets as they are probably the better choice
for now until popularity increases. Sierra is getting into the higher BC mid weight bullets as well
with the recent introduction of their 6.5mm 123gr Matchking Bullet with a BC of .510. Of course, their
142gr Matchking is another excellent bullet with a BC of .595.
So which is the best load to go with? Honestly, with these loads, it is a matter of finding which
one your rifle likes best. The SC2 rifle loved the HSM in terms of accuracy and shot the best group
of the test, but it still shot sub
.25 MOA groups with both of the Cor-bon loads, though for some odd reason it would not shoot the
Black Hills ammo at all, but yet the KMW rifle shot it with no problem. That was the only
anomaly in the test, and everything else shot very well. All four loads are excellent match
grade loads. The HSM was the slowest load like it was in the 308 comparison but showed excellent
accuracy, the Black-Hills load showed great promise for long range potential with good velocities
with the 139gr bullet and the two Cor-Bon loads showed both excellent accuracy and very good
velocities. It is just wonderful to have 4 great options for the .260 and hopefully the popularity
will continue to grow.
Getting down to business.
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