I'm in the process of slowly gathering parts and hope to have a DPMS pattern .308 AR assembled by the end of the year. I already have a Mega 18" .308 barrel on hand, but now I'm seriously considering sending it back and ordering a .260 Rem barrel.



Are the DPMS offerings any good? I'm looking at this from Brownell's. 18", medium contour, 1-8.5" twist. My budget for a bbl is about $300 for now.



I plan on hunting deer, elk, bears, and paper with this rifle. I already have a suppressor and adjustable gas block. I'm also set up for reloading as I already load my own .308 cartridges. It seems like the best bet would be to purchase quality brass. I haven't done any research on reloading this cartridge yet.



Any thoughts or words of wisdom?

The .260 is an awesome cartridge;  its fast, flat, and accurate and if you said you were just looking for  something to take down deer and shoot paper I'd say go for it but for bigger game like Elk and bears I'd either go with the .308 barrel you already have or even move up to the .338 Federal. If $300 is your lucky number then check out DPMS's website.  They've got a 20" 338 barrel for $299.95.  

http://www.dpmsinc.com/20-Lite-Contour-338-Barrel_p_1294.html

260 is a great deer round, and a mediocre elk round.  Might as well build both.
I have taken two elk with a dpms lr308, pretty much dropped in their tracks.   A 260 may have given the same result, as the range was under 60 yds.       My LR is very ammo sensitive, runs great and very accurate with the right ammo, a club with the wrong ammo.

The DPMS .260 Rem. barrel should be a pretty good buy at that price...The DPMS barrels are usually made on Wilson Arms barrel blanks
and are usually quite accurate. The 8 or 8.5 twist rate are where you want to be at with just about any .264/6.5mm caliber round like
the .260 Rem.

I believe the .260 Rem. with a 20" or longer barrel is perfectly capable with the right loads for the game that you are looking to hunt with,
while granted it may not be the best  round for Elk or Bear in a perfect world, It just comes down to making a accurate well placed shot
with the correct ammo/projectile...If guys have made 400 plus yard shots and have taken Elk sized game cleanly with a 6.5mm Grendel
then the .260 Rem. should be even more effective with a good shot...

The primary reasons the .260 Rem. (and the 7mm-08 as well) is such a great all around cartridge is the down range/long range accuracy,
low recoil, and excellent penetration over a wide range of velocities...

There are quite a few loads listed in many of the modern re-loading manuals offered today like the modern reloading second edition by the
well respected Richard Lee (newest edition 2011) and is a easy to read and well laid out re-loading manual.

Good luck.

The barrel in question is the one DPMS uses on the .260 Rem Lightweight Hunter.  If it had a PTG reamer run through its breech, I personally would never buy it, but I wouldn't buy a production barrel for .260 Rem in the first place. For your purposes and budget, it's probably more than adequate, but I don't like probably when dealing with barrels.

I had GA Precision do my last .260 Remington AR barrel, and it's one of the most accurate rifles I have ever owned.

As far as terminal ballistics are concerned, the .260 Rem trashes .308 and is more comparable to .30-06 in terms of retained energy, which it also will out-perform.

For large game, literally millions of moose have been killed with 6.5x55 Mausers in Scandinavia, and .260 Rem is hotter than that cartridge in its legacy form, pushing the same bullet weights.

Hit probability is much higher with a .260 Rem than a .308, and flight time to target is shorter. Wind drift is a different world with .260 Rem, as is trajectory.  

.260 Remington with a 129gr premium hunting bullet will beat a .308 165gr premium hunting bullet by 275yds for retained energy, with faster impact velocity throughout the flight path, meaning better expansion threshold advantages no matter what the range is.

The idea that .260 Remington isn't adequate for big game simply is refuted in numbers that exceed scientific baseline standards by factors measured in exponential numbers, not a few decimal places. On top of that, you have a little less recoil and very pleasant shooting rifles, that also have the capability of reaching out into ethical long range hunting.  No long range hunters I know would even bring up .308 Winchester in a serious discussion about caliber selection.

DPMS makes good barrels, but guys have had issues with less than stellar accuracy using certain powders that other .260 barrels like (4831 SC for example).

I would start with a load of 35 grains of Alliant Reloder 15 behind a 140 or 142 grain bullet with that barrel - you won't win any speed contests, but it will be very accurate.  My DPMS bull 24" is .5 - .75 MOA with that load (using Sierra Matchkings) all day and is still supersonic out past 1,200 yards.

My first .260 Rem was a DPMS LR-260, and it shot mediocre at best.

Probably one of the only factory 22" barrel .260 Rem AR10's I would consider buying would be the Armalite AR10 in .260 Remington, which is a great rifle out of the box.  With load development, my buddy is printing 5 shot groups at 300yds into 3" in pretty bad wind.

He has higher hit count on a 1500yd gong with that rifle compared to a custom bolt gun .260 Rem with 26" barrel, and that bolt gun is a laser.

He did a bunch of work to the bolt to clean it up, including the lugs, the firing pin hole, extractor shelf, ejector, lapping, bolt face truing, polishing, etc.

LRRPF52, I was hoping you would respond.



Any other barrels you would recommend? Forget about my budget for now. Someone brought up Black Hole Weaponry barrels that seem like they might work for my application. I was thinking about an 18" barrel. There will be an AAC SDN-6 hanging off the end. It seems online that 24"+ barrels are very popular, but that's a little much for me. Trying to keep this thing somewhat maneuverable out in the field.

A medium profile 20" BHW barrel with a 1:8 twist and a 5/8-24 muzzle thread may be a good compromise and it would be budget friendly...

Just a suggestion...YMMV.

Good luck.