Thought some of you might be interested in my experience with a McGowen barrel I bought from Jim Briggs at Northland Supply. I finally got to wring it out today and my after-action report is as follows.

I picked up a new LRPV here in Cody in 22-250 with the sole intentions of putting a 260 Rem chambered barrel on it. Jim had a McGowen Savage pre-fit SS 28 inch heavy varmint barrel in 260 Rem in stock & ready to ship. Jim was great to work with and did exactly what he said he would do for me. I bought a McCree Precision barrel nut wrench and 20MOA extended base from McCree -- another guy who was fabulous to deal with! I installed the barrel -- first time ever for me -- with zero problems. I head-spaced with a full length sized case from one of my other 260's as minimally as possible.

I loaded some miscellaneous rounds of varying bullet weights to fire-form the brass to my chamber -- totaling 75 rounds. Not being a big believer in barrel "break in" I fired 15 rounds then thoroughly cleaned the barrel. It cleaned up easily and well so I fired another 60 rounds before heading home to clean it again. Once more, it cleaned very easily and quite quickly.

Now I got down to business. I neck sized only using an RCBS die, trimmed & prepped the brass per usual, broke out the H4350 and started loading. I used Rem 260 brass, Sierra 140gr HPBT Match bullets, CCI BR-2 primers, and 41.5 grs/ 42.0 grs/42.5 grs H4350. COAL was 2.795 with the bullets .003 off the lands.

I also necked down some LC Match .308 brass to 260 and loaded 120gr Sierra HPBT Match bullets, Rem 9&1/2 primers, and 37.0 grs RL-15. The bullets were jammed into the lands.

I think the pix will speak for themselves. I haven't measured the groups nor chrono'ed them, but I can assure you that 42.5 grs H4350/Sie 140MK/CCI BR-2 will be my go-to load in this rifle! I used a NightForce 8X32X56 Benchrest scope in Leupold QRW medium rings.

All in all I'm pretty darned pleased with the McGowen barrel and look forward to shootin' bug holes for quite a while longer!


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Rich Redovian
Cody, WY