After tinkering around with different bullets and powder I finaly found the fodder my .260 Encore likes. A Speer 90gr TNT on top of 49gr of H414. 5 shoot groups across the chrono averaged 3083

After getting it sighted in for the new load, my father-in-law and I went to a field that one of our farmer friends said he had seen groundhogs when he was cutting hay. We were still on the access road to the field when I seen a hog on the edge of it. I worked my way into the field and belly crawled the last 10 yards up a small rise. I'm sighted in at 1in high at a 100 so I put the crosshairs on it's neck. Squeezed the trigger and heard the unmistakable thwap of a hit. My father-in-law said .... you took his head clean off and patted me on the back. When we got to the hog the bullet entered between his left eye and ear. It didn't take his head off, just the whole right side. The shot was a paced off 90 yards.

I'm still getting use to shooting this thing, so my groups aren't were I would like them. I have only shot 66 rounds through it. 65 on paper, one in a groundhog. I need alot more trigger time, but I don't think I'm doing to bad for my first scoped handgun.

excellent ,congrats on the hog!this handgunning is addictive and fun also,just wait till you plug a deer or something.we have went a few times but on the farm we hunt the most the hogs seem to recognize the red toyota means 220 swift(my buddys gun)and we have not had any sucess(guess i need to take my truck or blazer)any how good deal and keep it up!jim257

Perry,
Congrats on first blood. It's a long, expensive road from here on out!!!
Cheers,
Dave

Way to go Perry! I have also been working up loads for my .260 XP100 Rear Grip. I found one load of 120grn Speer SP and 40 grns of IMR4895. It is shooting 2530fps and is shooting 5 shots in 3/4" groups at 100 and <2" at 200 yds. I tried another with Varget and the 120's. It is shooting better than the 4895 and at 2650fps.
I just purchased some 90grn TNT bullets and some 90 grn Sierra HP's. I will try your load data and see how it likes the 90grns. Hope the twist is good for shooting the light bullets. I sure would like to take some Prairie Dogs with it. I'm wearing out my .223 and .17HMR Contender on those Pasture Poodles. Good luck with your .260 and hunting this fall.


Mike

Thanks

jim, most of the fields we hunt we access it by walking to them. Never giving them bean eaters a chance to know we'er there. I still use my Ruger M77 MII target in 220Swift. Hard to beat that 18x on the real long shots.

doc, I can see what you mean. I look at Fox Ridge or SSK and go ... oh man I want that barrel and that one . Good thing about it, my wife loves to hunt. First time she shot her dad's contender with a 22lr barrel on it she killed a limb rat at 40 yards .... open sights.

Hawkeye, my barrel is a 1 in 8 twist and 17.75 in long so I'm getting close to rifle fps out of it. I'll start working on my deer loads soon. Going to see what the 140 gr SST does as well as the Sierra 140 gr soft points, with that twist rate I don't see a problem.

way to go!!! i use my 260 encore to take a 8 point buck and a 150 lbs doe...i load hornday 100 gr over 47 gr of aa4350

Perry,
With an 8 twist you will not have any problems with any of the 140 class VLD's. I have one 260 Rem and 2-6.5-284's. Guess you could say I like the .264 bore.

Great shot on the woodchuck! They are excellent practice for hunting, aren't they?!

That they are and from the reports I've been getting .... got my work cut out for me

Here's a list of loads I've tested today. I shot the 90gr speer loads again and got even faster FPS, this time the weather was different which I'm guessing the change. These are all 5 shot groups. 80 deg, sunny, no wind



90gr Speer TNT HP
49gr H414
3110 FPS

85gr Sierra JHP
47.5gr WW760
2972 FPS

140gr Sierra SPBT
43gr WW760
2587 FPS

140gr Hornady SST
43gr WW760
2570 FPS

All thhe loads shot good groups but the 90gr TNT and the 140gr SST have shown the best grouping. Loads I still need to test are:

140gr Sierra SPBT
42gr H414

140gr Nosler Partition
42gr H414

Just need another sunny weekend to get these tested. I really hope the Nosler comes out on top, but which ever one does, it will be a good load for these Northern Indiana deer.

Perry

PerryW, Have you tried the 120gr NBT. Just wondering

Not yet magman, but they are on the list