The .260 Remington is the most recent attempt to create a popular 6.5 U.S. hunting cartridge. It's capable of taking a wide range of game but hasn't really taken off.

No 6.5mm cartridge, whether European or American, has done particularly well over here. The longest-lived 6.5mm cartridge in America is the 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser. It has never burned up the world, but at least it manages to hang on with a small but loyal following.

No other European 6.5mm has made even a tiny blip on the American market, and no domestic 6.5mm cartridge has achieved lasting glory. Of course you remember the .264 Winchester Magnum, a real rising star in the late 1950s and early 1960s that was quickly eclipsed by the 7mm Remington Magnum. The lone factory rifle in .264 today is Remington's Model 700 Sendero SF II, and it's a small miracle that factory ammo is still available.

And then there's the .260 Remington. It's a wonderful little cartridge. Like the .264 it took off like a rocket amid much hype, but it seems to have reached its zenith, with current sales rumored to be slipping badly--although it is making inroads among the AR-style crowd as a tactical and competition round.

The latest American 6.5 cartridge is the 6.5 Creedmoor developed by Hornady, but it's intended as a competition round for NRA highpower and long-range matches. (For more on this cartridge, see the September/October issue.)

If you happen to be a 6.5mm fan and an American hunter, these are harsh facts. But on the European market things are a bit different. The old 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer cartridge is still around, as are a number of other 6.5s we don't see over here.

The 6.5x55 generally holds sway in the Scandinavian countries, where it is still frequently used for game up to moose. The 6.5x68 is a special favorite among German and Austrian hunters and is quite similar to our almost-defunct .264 Winchester Magnum. And here's a surprise: The .264 Winchester Magnum remains fairly popular in Spain.

In the dawn of smokeless powder, the armies of Austro-Hungary, Greece, Holland, Italy, Romania, Sweden and others adopted various 6.5s, so it's no wonder the bullet diameter remains popular in Europe. The early 6.5mms were developed with extremely long, heavy-for-caliber military full-metal-jacket bullets, like 156 to 160 grains. By our standards today velocities were mild, but a century ago these velocities were compared to blackpowder cartridges, so they seemed to really sizzle.

Those long, heavy-for-caliber "solids" yielded unprecedented penetration. They were used to take all manner of game that, today, we consider far beyond the suitability window of such a small caliber. Captain C.H. Stigand, for instance, actually preferred the 6.5mm for elephant, as did W.D.M. "Karamoja" Bell. But later in his life Bell wrote that the 6.5s were a bit below the sensible minimum for elephant.

The most common 6.5mm hunting bullet today is probably 140 grains, with an impressive sectional density of .287. This is higher than the SD of the 150-grain .270 bullet, higher than all 7mm bullets up to 160 grains (the 162-grain .284 bullet has the same SD of .287) and higher than the 180-grain .30 caliber.

Provided bullet design and construction are similar, a bullet of higher SD will out-penetrate a bullet with a lower SD. If aerodynamic shape is similar, a bullet with a higher SD will have a higher ballistic coefficient than a bullet with a lower SD. The higher BC means the bullet will hold its velocity better, thus maintaining a flatter trajectory and resisting wind deflection better.