Remington screwed it up with their ammo. A handloader can make it shine.

I wore out a .260 Rem barrel at 2500 rounds. It did everything I asked of it. It can make identical ballistics to the newer darling the 6.5 Creedmoor. And my .260 load made identical ballistics to my 6.5 Creedmoor load out of the same barrel length. It just required a bit more powder to do it. Hornady saw the .260 as a good one, and they saw how Remington screwed it up. And Hornady fixed the Remington problems with their own invention.

Don't overlook product marketing. The right marketing approach has never been more important than it is today.

220 Swift

I agree. One of my bucket list rifles is a .264 Winchester Magnum. A very underrated cartridge that got sent into oblivion by the 7 Rem Mag.

About 20 years ago I hunted on a lease in West Texas with three brothers that all hunted with .264s. They were always asking me when I was going to sell my wimpy .308 and buy a real rifle. They killed lots of deer with those rifles, including several way past 300 yards.
I will have one someday.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

30-30 was my first thought. I would never consider one for its capability, but have for the novelty of having a cheap lever gun to hunt with. That said nearly every deer/hog etc. that I have shot could have been cleanly killed with a 3030.

That caught me off guard but I agree.

For me it is the 6.5 Swede. 100 years old and still flying under the radar.

With that logic gotta consider the 7x57

When I met my wife, I just started getting into longer range and had a 22-250. She totally liked it and wanted to get into rifle shooting. I told her this even though I owned, and shot very well, a 22-250. Fast forward a decade and we both still love and shoot often her Tikka varmint in 223.

Factory loads for the 264 are pretty watered down.


Great caliber though

I think Hornady was eyeballing the 6.5 x 47 more than the .260.

I think the biggest screw up marketing wise was the name. They should have left it as 6.5-08.

257 Bob and 6.5 Swede, IMO.

356 Winchester.

With hog hunting being as big as it is now I bet this round would have seen more success if introduced today. It has a cult like following with black bear hunters and I feel the only reason hog hunters haven't latched on to it is because nobody chambers for it anymore and factory ammo is nearly impossible to find.

I agree and I think the 7-08 is a great “all around” rifle for most game in Texas. It kills way above what one would expect. No magnum necessary.
For larger game I really enjoy my 9,3x62, flat out works. Simply hasn’t caught on well in the US it seems.

The 7-08 is slightly more powerful than the 7MM Mauser. Walter "Karamojo" Bell killed several hundred African elephants with a 7MM Mauser.

The 7mm-08 is a great cartridge

I think the 35 Whalen is one of the best one shot killing rounds I have ever used . It hardly ruined an meat

260 rem, great cartridge, bad marketing and the initial factory loads were anemic

25-06 There seems to be a lot of quarter bore haters out there but I love mine.

Roger that.

The big brother to the 243. That's a hot sunny beach.

The 35 Whelen is the only cartridge I have ever dropped 3 pigs with one shot with. Had plenty of doubles in my life, but only one triple.

When i was young, i remember someone talking about a 30-40 craig? So was that any good?

30-40 is a good round, if memory serves it falls a little below 308 in power, but is a lower pressure round. Americas first smokeless powder military round and I think America's first smokeless round period. The Krag rifle proved to be less good than the Mauser so the US wisely copied the Mauser in the 03 springfield and a few years later adopted the 06 cartridge for the rifle., as it could handle a higher pressure round.

All this is off memory, so if I messed up the facts a little, roll with it haha