New .260 Remington or 7mm-08 - I'm Still Trying to Learn

M

Mike H

New member
As some of you may remember I'm a new rifle shooter, handguns only prior to that.

I had intended buying my own weapon for a forthcoming deer hunt, but in the end I'm going to borrow an old .303 British, which I'm reliably informed kicks like hell (those Brits must be tough).

Meanwhile I'm still trying to get it right first time in terms of caliber selection. I've just got through reading an article by an accomplished hunter who said that before the new Remington .260 he always started new deer hunters off with 7mm-08, a round that improves the long range balistics of the parent .308 Win round, but that the .260 has almost identical performance and milder recoil for the novice shooter. He was shown (well his wife was) taking Wildebeest with the .260, is it all that or not.

Regards,

Mike H
 
Hi Mike welcome to the shooting fraternity here. Your choice of caliber selection for your first rifle depends largely on what you want to use this rifle for. Rifles are kind of like screwdrivers you need a phillips head for some jobs, flathead for others etc.

Now having said this, it seems you want a rifle mainly for hunting rather than target shooting or competition etc.

as far as 7mm-08 or 6.5mm-08 I rather like the parent cartridge better than these two rounds. Why? A .308 could very easily be employed on just about everything North America has to offer in the way of hunting. Brass and ammo are cheaper and easier to find.

Of course the .308's mamma (the .30-06') can hunt everything in North Am. also.

But for a gen purpose rifle I like the .308. Note there is a reason Col. Cooper chose this caliber for his all purpose "scout" rifle.
 
I agree that the .308 works well for a general purpose rifle. The 7-08 though has the usual enhancements in performance that come with the 7mm round (flatter trajectory and more energy at greater distances). The problem though is that the 7-08 is available commercially in only a few expensive hunting loads. In contrast, the selection in .308 is excellent and made to suit a variety of tasks. Nothing against old-time British rifles, but a new bolt-action in .308 will make your day for many a day to come. For most uses, the advantages of the 7mm don't outweigh the convenience and performance of a .308.

As for the .260 Remington, it is still too new for a decent appraisal of its advantages.

[This message has been edited by Trevor (edited March 28, 2000).]
 
Well, I'll ramble around this subject and try to be useful...

The .260 would be better than a .243. A .243 will kill a deer, but there's little margin for error if you make a bad hit in a less-vital area. The .260 would use a heavier bullet, but not so much weight that the recoil would amount to much.

The .7mm-08, to me, is about halfway between the .243 and the .30-'06, which ain't a bad place for a deer-hunter to be. The usual 139-grain bullet is a bit less recoil than the usual 150-grain of the '06 or the .308, and just about as effective, for all practical purposes.

About the biggest factor, I think, might well be the "cost of gettin' good". That is, there's a lot of cheap .308 ammo around. If you don't handload for any pet rifle, doing enough shooting to get really, really comfortable with it can get expensive.

I'm a handloader, so I would choose the 7mm-08 over the .260. It's mostly because of the great number of choices of weight and style of bullet.

Another aspect of the .308, should you take up handloading, is the availability of cast bullets, which are very, very cheap compared to jacketed. You can load light, which makes for a lot of shooting with little recoil and at low cost...

Hope this hasn't roiled the water too much...

Art
 
Mike,
I would question the reliability of the persons who claim the .303 is such a punishing round. I can say without any hesitation that it is no worse than the .308 and is a very effective round for deer-sized game with good ammo. Both the .260 and the 7/08 will do the job if you do your part.(And so will the .303)
 
patrickt66,

Are you responding to a another thread? <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I would question the reliability of the persons who claim the .303 is such a punishing round.[/quote]What person would that be?

I read this thread down to your post and don't know what you're talking about.
 
This ( perceived recoil ) is an area of real interest to me as I have a condition where the neck vertebrae have calcified to the point they are nearly fused. I have always had major headaches following shooting sessions with anything more powerful than a 25-06 with the exception of the old tapered case 300 H&H. ( If I shot rapidly, I could get off three rounds from my 458 before it felt like my head would split. )

As I understand it, the problem's been "kicked around" for years ( pun intended )and attributed to at least 3 factors:

a) total foot pounds of recoil
b) recoil velocity
c) rifle ergonomics

in short, how hard does it kick, how fast does it kick, and how awkwardly does it do it.

If I recall correctly, from 20 - 25 ft.lbs. is about what the average guy can handle without flinching if all else works right. That is in the 308/30-06 area.

The recoil from various marks of 303 was fine until they brought out the No. 5 ( or Jungle Carbine ). That lightened the rifle's weight enough to cause well trained soldiers to have problems with it. And what is the first thing that a SMLE buyer does? Sporterize it to the equivalent of a No. 5.

Also, a lightened weight rifle increases the speed the durn thing comes back at you, so you take more of a slap than a shove. My dad always hated the 270 while he tolerated the '06, and loved the 300 H&H because of the heavier but slower push that lets your body give a bit.

Finally, a whole bunch of things as to fit and comfort make a difference. Like shooting a metal buttplated rifle wearing just a t-shirt vs. a recoil pad with heavy clothing and a parka on.

My suggestion is go out and shoot the thing and see if the kick hurts too much. Maybe it doesn't kick that much, but it doesn't fit and kicks in just the wrong way for you to handle. If it does, borrow a different rifle. Find out what you want before buying. Remember the 7x57 killed elephants by the hundreds by WDM Bell.
 
Art: you make a good point. My info from Finn Aagaard states Bell "had a delightful five pound 6.5x54 on a Romanian action by Fraser of Edinburgh sent to him, but that the 6.5 solids would often bend on the bones of an elephant and deflect off course."

He then reverted to his trusty 275 Rigby ( aka 7x57 with 173 grain solids ) for jumbo.

--------------------
"I'm a 3 legged man with a 2 legged woman, being chased cross country by a one legged fool..." You can have your leg back now Art!
 
Sensop: Try reading the seminal post of the thread: ".303 British, which I'm reliably informed kicks like hell (those Brits must be tough)."
 
Sensop: I believe he may have been referring in his initial post to information imparted him about the 303's teriffic kick by some "Billy Joe Bob redneck"* crackerbarrel commando down at the local sporting goods store or bar.

Some people seem to need to brag up how tough and manly they are and after a few pitchers a thirty round clip through an AR15 is more punishment than 15 rounds with Mike Tyson.

* I am sure there are no more and no less of the "Billy Joe Bob redneck" types in Maine, Texas, Oregon, Montana or Minnesota as in the deep south. The southern species is just the one everyone recognizes immediately so I used it as an example.
 
I don't recall saying that the friend of my Uncle who is loaning me the .303 was a Billie Joe Bob redneck crackerbarrel commando, just that he believes the kick of a .303 is beyond its apparent caliber. I doubt that an individuals perceived heavy recoil of a moderate caliber would be boasted about anyway, more likely the opposite would be true.

Mike H
 
Anyone got a foot to spare? Seems I already have two in my mouth and it's time to open my mouth a little wider so number 3 can fit. And I'd almost made it a week without making a jackass out of myself.
 
Mike H: Implicit in "Man, that gun kicks!" is the unspoken "but I'm man enough to take it!"
smile.gif


So Billy Joe-Bob keeps on "practicing" with his oh-my-God guaran-damn-teed bear-killer and ruining the eardrums of everybody at the range--and developing the dangdest flinch anybody ever saw...

Never a dull moment, Art
 
Mike H:

For deer hunting, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the old British .303. In original condition, unsporterized, the rifles don not "kick" much at all. Of course, this is my personal take only.

For general purpose use, I would put, in first place, the 30-06 in a full size rifle. Ammunition is available most anywhere and factory loads run from about 125 grains or so to about 220 grains, with several different bullet types.

Second choice would be a .308, again in a full size rifle. There are truly a myriad of other calibers, and rifle types, personally, I prefer a bolt action, so one can well and truly choose what they like.
 
It just hit me that the 260 Rem ( 256 bore /264 groove ) is actually much closer in specifications to the 25 caliber ( 250/258 ) than to the 7mm or 28 caliber ( 277/284 ). In fact, the 6.5mm was sometimes called the 256.

If the 260 Rem is considered a successor to the 257 Remington-Roberts, and with the premium bullets available today...

Old Karamojo might just have stayed with the 6.5. Wonder how long til CZ comes out in that caliber?
 
Thanks Guys,

and hey Rusty, when you take those feet out of your mouth you sure sound like you know what you're talking about
wink.gif


I've decide I love rifle shooting in spite of its complexity. If you add up all the different hunting bullet designs, weights and calibers it becomes the equivalent of giving each game animal a name. Someone out there likes to make it complicated for us newbies.

Best

Mike H
 
I wouldn't hesitate to check out the .270 either. It does tend to "slap" more than "kick" but its also widely available and very adaptable cartridge.

If you're looking at one rifle for the next few years, and you don't know what or where you'll be hunting, you probably can't go wrong with the .308 or 30-06, though.

I've honestly never shot anything in the 6mm class, but it seems like these would be limited, and not great general purpose rounds.
 
Mike H: I used to be very good with a pistol, ( silhouette )but couldn't practice for a number of years. Then I was aghast how little of my skill I retained when I picked the pistols back up. At the same time I tried out a new rifle, to find that I could still do with no practice and a rifle almost everything I'd worked so hard to be able to do with a pistol. Instant convert to rifleman from pistolero.

As far as knowing what I'm talking about, I should. Other kids got through high school geometry when they found out it could be used to figure out cubic inches and cam grinds. With me it was case capacity, internal, exterior, and terminal ballistics and energy and velocity equations. P. O. Ackley and the Powley Computer ( in slide rule version ) and the E6B ( Aviation Computer ) consumed all the time I didn't spend on the study of human ( female ) anatomy.

And though I didn't realize it til today, I owe P. O. Ackley for having a father during my teenage years. When I was 13 and my parents divorced, my dad had the money to drive from Al Tahoe ( now South Lake Tahoe ) to Salt Lake City and pick up two identical Ackley custom rifles except for caliber. One was a 243 and the other a 22/243 ( this was about 1963 ). One night a guy tried to break into a car on the commercial property we owned and lived on and I watched as my dad grabbed one of the rifles and a handfull of ammo to arrest the erstwhile felon ( and blow his head off if he gave my dad the excuse ). It was night and in the dark he grabbed the 22/243 rifle and the 243 ammo. No one got shot that night and my dad ( a reserve deputy ) never had to convince a D.A. it was justifiable homicide. Back then that's just what might have happened too!
 
Gee, Walter, the "seminal post of the thread"? I'll do that! I looked up and down and just didn't catch it the first time. But I'll be sure and read the seminal post of the thread from now on. You betcha!

Let's see here ... oh yeah, seminal, here it is, seminal adj: of, relating to, or containing semen.

Nah, I don't think so Walter. You go ahead.

[This message has been edited by sensop (edited April 01, 2000).]
 
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