260 Remington for Whitetail Deer. Max Range

[limige]

Yobuck I have yet to hear what you feel outshoots a 260 so vastly better? What bullets did your buddies use that failed? Because everything I've heard and seen about vlds shows they do the job long range. Frankly over 1000 yrds is really pushing it. There are too many factors against you and yes over 1000 yrds you need more bullet but on a deer sized animal it really isn't realistic for very many people to try. I think most of us are considering the 500-1000 yrds window. I would have to guess you would need something along the lines of a 338 Lapua at 1000-1500 yrds shots but I haven't researched shooting that far yet.


I agree with the majority . 260 rem or 6.5 creedmoor any day.

[new hunter]

This might help was given this to me so I will pass it down. QUOTE=big honkin jeep]Here's a pretty good article on maximum point blank range I thought you might appreciate. I may help answer the question of how high to sight your rifle in. I hope it helps BHJ http://www.chuckhawks.com/rifle_trajectory_table.htm[/QUOTE]

[yobuck]

Yobuck I have yet to hear what you feel outshoots a 260 so vastly better? What bullets did your buddies use that failed? Because everything I've heard and seen about vlds shows they do the job long range. Frankly over 1000 yrds is really pushing it. There are too many factors against you and yes over 1000 yrds you need more bullet but on a deer sized animal it really isn't realistic for very many people to try. I think most of us are considering the 500-1000 yrds window. I would have to guess you would need something along the lines of a 338 Lapua at 1000-1500 yrds shots but I haven't researched shooting that far yet.


I agree with the majority . 260 rem or 6.5 creedmoor any day.

since your asking me direct questions, consider my answers a direct responce.
ill tell you why i dissagree with the majority.
keep in mind my opinion comes from experiences, not from what i think or have been told.
let me again say i think the 6.5 is a very good bullet. for what your describing it should do well for you.
my reference to failure is with regard to wounded/unrecovered animals and not bullet failure per se.
that could largly be due to lack of energy on long shots especially with less than perfect hits.
a good hit in a vital area would of coarse change some of that even with marginal energy.
as for videos remember you only ever see the good parts. hunting isnt always pretty including long range.
my opinion of long range is anything from say 400 yds out to whatever. for some, 700 yds is very long and for others it isnt.

our camp is in n c pa where its very mountainous with the hills being fairly close together. therefore the vast majority of our shooting is ridge to ridge. from the front yard of our camp we can shoot at rocks from about 400 out to beyond 1 mile. some of the other places we
hunt nearby would offer similar oppurtunities. most of our shots at deer are under 1000yds. some might also be over 1500 yds.
this year we killed 4 bucks all being 8 pointers. we also missed 2. over the last 4 years weve killed 14 bucks including 1 year getting skunked. that covers the whole 2 week season. first week could see 6 to 8 and second week 2 to 4 hunters.
that is pretty much average for us. so multiply that over the last 40 years and you begin to see where im coming from on watching deer killed. its entirly possible to find a deer at say 650 and never have an oppurtunity for a shot till he's maybe 750 or even 800. so what might have been a fairly easy shot for your creedmore might now be a bit of a stretch and we havent even shot yet. dont forget those hills are tree covered and you cant shoot thru them. if he dosent stop in the right place you dont shoot. also when a bucks in rut which they are at that time of year they dont always cooperate very well. now if the scenario i just played out had started at 1000 yds it would be over for you before it even began. this is a real life situation ive described here. this stuff happens all the time for us. now i fully realize not all places are as ive described. but do you know that? what type situations could emerge where you will hunt?
shooting at distance at targets will sharpen your shooting skills. but thats where it ends because it does nothing to prepare you for hunting. this is part of the problem. guys buy guns and go shoot. since they hit the gong at 1000 they think their ready for anything.
now ill p--s some others off and answer another question for you. yes, for shots over 1000 larger guns are required. again, despite what
you might think there really arent alot of good choices. depends on how many guns you want. i have 3 with me all the time. i use what ever one fits. id be thinking hard about a 338 lapua. but while your at it you might just as well get a real 338. meaning 3000 fps or more with a 300 gr bullet. if you need to reduce bullet weight and therefore bc in order to achieve velocity, get a bigger gun.
by the way, "all of our shooting and that of all other pa long range hunters is done from a bench or a good rifle supporting tripod".
for that reason about 1/4 of our kills are by young kids or inexperienced adults. if you can shoot 1" at 100 "consistantly" you can kill
long range. let nobody tell you otherwise. right gun, right equiptment, and listen to what your told.

[stomp442]

Yobuck it sounds as though we hunt similar country except that mine is way to rugged and straight up and down to afford the luxury of a bench. We consider ourselves lucky if we can find a nice pile of rocks to prop our pack on to shoot from.

[wbm]

We consider ourselves lucky if we can find a nice pile of rocks to prop our pack on to shoot from.

LOL. Oh yeah! At least on the New Mexico side we have a pinyon or juniper to lean on....around where you are in Arizona that might be a luxury.

[limige]

I appreciate the feedback

[stomp442]

LOL. Oh yeah! At least on the New Mexico side we have a pinyon or juniper to lean on....around where you are in Arizona that might be a luxury.

Yeah yucca and occotillo cactus doesn't make the best shooting platforms.

[sniper15545]

Neither caliber is by any means a good choice for 1000 plus yards hunting situations,But the 260 is definitely a better choice then the 308. Nobody has shot a 308 more then me In both hunting and work and I can tell you that past 650 yards the 308 is less than impressive as a hunting caliber. grant it I personally would take my 340 Weatherby or my 300 rum for hunting these distance's. Beyond the caliber choice, Being a avid hunter for 40 years and many years of shooting for a living I only know a handful of people who should even be shooting at animals at these distance's.

[thermaler]

I use and load for a 6.5 284--don't get me wrong; I have long had my eye on 260 as another 264 bullet and 308 case reload option.

Looking in the Berger manual I see a very interesting claim that the 260 140 VLD generates "almost 90%" of the energy of a 300 WM 190 MK at 1000 yds yet 60% the recoil. Even when I run the numbers with a very optimistic hot load assumption of 2700 mv for the 260 I can't seem to come even close to that number (nor would I be hunting with a 190 MK in my 300 wm anyway).

What am I missing?

http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s388/triggerpull/300wm_zpsc7f7fe10.jpg (http://s1049.photobucket.com/user/triggerpull/media/300wm_zpsc7f7fe10.jpg.html)

http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s388/triggerpull/264vld_zpse9fe48b1.jpg (http://s1049.photobucket.com/user/triggerpull/media/264vld_zpse9fe48b1.jpg.html)

[LoneWolf]

I see guys pushing 175 SMKs at 2700fps out of the 308. I would expect more like 2900fps MV from a 260 with the 140gr VLD.

[thermaler]

I see guys pushing 175 SMKs at 2700fps out of the 308. I would expect more like 2900fps MV from a 260 with the 140gr VLD.I'm using Berger's own max velocity figures and rounding up for most of them. I load the 140 vld myself for my 6.5 284 but it is an "extreme" bullet and takes up space in the case.
http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s388/triggerpull/vld_zps7c7289d0.jpg (http://s1049.photobucket.com/user/triggerpull/media/vld_zps7c7289d0.jpg.html)
.30 Matchking 180 on the left--.264 140 vld on the right.

I'm not too worried about burning out the barrel on my 6.5 284--but the 260 looks especially attractive in the 300 to 700 yd range (something which is beyond my consistency skill anyway at this point).

[LoneWolf]

Guess that's why all the Ackley Improved versions have been coming out.

[stomp442]

I've helped load develop for a few friends of mine who have all purchased or built 260s and everyone of them is easily able to reach 2800+fps using 43-43.5gr H4350 and a Berger vld. Like I have said before the .260 is really a fantastic performer and works much better than most give it credit for. The energy claim by Berger may be a bit off but the .260 will achieve the same or better trajectory and produce wind drift very close to that of a .300 when even shooting the big heavy bullets.

[thermaler]

I ran the numbers again using your 2800 fps assumption--(I'll take your word for it that you actually chrono'd it) and I see you do in fact get about 800 flbs of impact--I know quite of few hunters hold that as the "unofficial" minimum for taking deer. Whatever advantages the load has over 300wm in terms of flatness of trajectory and wind drift bucking ability are negligible to non-existent at that range and beyond according to the calculators I use.

That's a pretty hot load too-- well past the recommended max--so I'd be too chicken to use that routinely even if I wasn't getting pressure signs.

My hat is off to you for being able to consistently put them down at that range! : )

[Stockrex]

so how far out will 140 vld stay supersonic out of a 260 at 2800 fps?

[thermaler]

http://i1049.photobucket.com/albums/s388/triggerpull/vld2800_zpse3b33fbb.jpg (http://s1049.photobucket.com/user/triggerpull/media/vld2800_zpse3b33fbb.jpg.html)
so how far out will 140 vld stay supersonic out of a 260 at 2800 fps?
One hot mamma fer sure.

[yobuck]

certainly the berger "appears" to be the superior bullet for long range performance.
but dont be throwing your smks in the toilet either as they also work very well.
we arent at all attracted to published data over things like wind drift. it is what it is
and we deal with it. there is also only so much we can do to improve upon a cartridge.
my argument is that as "hunters" we should attempt to put as much hurt as possible
on the animals we seek to kill at any distance but especially at long distance.
a 190 to 200 gr 30 cal bullet driven at 3300 fps or more will do that better than smaller ones
at similar speeds, and much better than those at lesser speeds. a large exit hole will hemorage
more blood leading to an easy recovery better than a small or maybe even no exit hole.

a case in point is the situation we encountered this past season. we hunt from fixed position lookouts
and always the same ones year after year. we have probably 20 or more we use depending upon sun conditions,
available food etc. this year a couple days before the opener one of my sons took a little scouting mission to a few
lookouts. when he came back his facial expression told the story. his only comment was listen to me this is where were going
first day and dont be giving me any sh-t over it. well it was a spot that would have been well down on the list for me but we went.
all of our hunting is done with large tripod mounted binnoculars some refer to as big eyes. about 8.30 am my son picked up a deer
about halfway up the hillside we were glassing. we couldnt see its head due to a tree in the way. it just stood there so i picked up and moved so as to get a different angle. he turned his head and bingo, a very nice rack probably the one he had seen earlier. we were
already set up with the gun ready except loading. we ranged the buck with a lazer at 635 yds. i watched the trace of the shot and
knew he hit the deer behind the shoulder facing us. the angle would have taken the bullet towards the off side hind quarter.
the bullet splashed in the snow behind the animal. the deer immediatly ran on a 45 degree angle uphill about 50 yds and stopped
where a good second shot wasent very possible due to thick small trees. i knew he was hit and hurt bad. at that point 3 more bucks
and a doe ran out of the area the buck had gone into and ran accross the hill. we switched shooters and without reranging sent a round
at one of those bucks which had stopped. a second quick follow up caught him high on a front leg just below the body. a third quick shot put him on the ground. the other two had moved off again and stopped about 100 yds further. it was then my turn since no one else was available to shoot. again no re range just shoot due to time. second shot put that one down after a quick evaluation of the first. obviously hurting very badly he stumbled down the hill and behind the tree line out of view. it had all taken less than 5 minits. the first buck had also stumbled down hill about 50 yards before collapsing leaving a blood trail visible to the naked eye at over 600 yds. the gun is a modified version of a 30x378 on a mark 5 action with a 30 " barrel in a bedding block and weighing just about 20# with the 8.5x25 leupold scope. the load was 98 gr of retumbo pushing the 190 smk at about 3400 fps. none of those animals were hit in "thee" perfect spot yet all died within a very short distance of where they were first hit.
now the question could be raised as to wether a 260 could have killed those deer. i would say in that case it no doubt could have. but again
back to the scenario i made in a prior post. what if the whole thing had started at 1000 yds?
you cant improve on dead, and smks have been making things dead for us for a very long time.

[thermaler]

I know other hunters who swear by MK's as well--but what are these bullets doing on impact? As far as I know they more or less vaporize and turn tissue to blood-shot jello--but that is apparently the attraction of them at longer ranges--a large area of traumatized meat being preferable to a "one that got away" having not quite hit the mark.

[Stockrex]

holy &^^% super sonic still at 1200 yrds, wow,
Thanks,

[LoneWolf]

Well back to the OPS simple question. What is the max effective range on whitetail Deer using a 260rem? Obviously there are better cartridges for 1000 and beyond, but the ops question hasn't fully been answered.