Range Report What Barrel Length needed to get the most out of the .260
- Thread starter docdredd
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I've always been told 24" or more to really get the most out of the 260. That being said, I built a "short" 260 with a 20" barrel and don't feel it gives up enough to the longer barreled ones to worry about. I'm still able to push 123 Amax's to near 2900fps with great accuracy and have started working on 140 Hornady BTHP's but haven't chrono'd them yet. I'm expecting them to be running 2700-2750fps with H4350 when all is said and done.
I have two 260's that are 24" and I get 2780 and 2799 without pushing the load hard with 140 class bullets, and when I have pushed to the top of the load data I was 2830 and 2850ish. I have read of guys running 26-28" barrels in the mid 2800's to near 2900's. I'd bet 25" +/- an inch would be where big gains would start to diminish, but there are a lot of factors such as quality of barrel, type of chamber and freebore, powder and even brand of brass at play. Switching from lapua to winchester or remington brass drops me down about 25 fps with the same charge of H4350.
I'll start a thread in the Bolt Rifles forum as not to derail the OP's topic. It has turned out to be one of my favorite guns I own.
docdredd, Niles brings up another excellent point. The chamber specs and quality of the barrel are going to come into play as well when you figure on pulling all the horsepower you can from the 260. I've seen several barrels 4" or more longer than my 20" getting only another 10-15fps more with 140's than I am using the exact same powder/case/primer/charge weight. Then on the other end of the spectrum, I've seen 22" barrels that were smoking my loads by 50fps or more.
I get 2845 fps pushing 140 Hybrids with 42.9 gr H4350, SSA brass, and Winchester LR primers out of a 26" Bartlein M24 contour barrel with 5R rifling.
