Should I rebarrel to .308 or .260?

[Duff]

I have a heavy barreled Savage that continues to give me fits. I'm going to continue to work with it, but my patients have all but run out. Initially, I figured I'd just rebarrel to .308 Win, heck I've got the dies, bullets, Lapua brass, ect. But maybe the .260 would do what I want with less recoil? (not that I mind the recoil of the .308)
I want a rifle that I can shoot out past 400-500 yards (maybe out to 1K but not in matches-just for fun) and not burn 70+ grs of powder. Targets will be steel plates, paper, and maybe deer or p.dogs. Primarily, just dinking around with long range precision /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif I always figured the .308 would fit the bill nicely, but maybe I'm bark'n up the wrong tree? Other rifles I have are Rem 700 VLS .223, AR15, Rem 700 .25-06 AI, Rem 700 .270, Win 70 .300 Win Mag and few misc. rifles that aren't for serious target work. Any suggestions? Thanks-Duff

 

[James Jones]

First off let me say that I'm a 30 cal fan most of all but if you look at the balistics between the two with say a 140gr A-max for the 260 and a 178gr A-max for the 308 , both will get you to 1000yds , the 260 has a shorter time of flite which help with the effect from the wind and the high BC bullet has less drop which equals a little more margin for error in the range estimating department and all this with less recoil
and the Lapua bras you have will work great for the 260 all you need is a new set of reloading deis for the 260 and one neck sizing die in 7-08 to help neck the cases down
personaly I'd recomend having the barrel setup the conventional way like the Rem700 it'll do away with alot of headachs and help out in the accuracy department.
NOTE: the Savage action can be just as accurate as any other bolt action , the floating bolt head is a little bit of a pain in the blue printing department but it can be done so the bolt face is square with the lugs wich fit into the new blue printed action lugs recesses

And don't overlook the 243 Ackley , it can do a hell of a job at 1000yds but maybe on the light end fo deer past 400yds

 

[Michael Eichele]

The 308 in the real world with the 190 SMK will give even a 6.5x284 a serious run for its money. The 308 barrels will out live most of the 264 cals many times over.