I currently have an older palmetto complete ar chambered in 308.  Its been a fun/good gun but I am looking for more out of it and would like to swap the barrel out and make it a 260.  I have been looking at various barrels out there and reading about issues people have been having with gas systems and 260 builds.

I am wanting atleast a 20" barrel, preferably 22 or maybe 24".  Are the plus 2" gas systems that the JP barrels sell needed?  If not, lilja currently has 260 barrels in stock with a rifle length gas system.  Will my current bolt/firing pin from palmetto work or do I need to swap these out?  

Thanks
Alex

260 Rem is a 308 necked down to 6.5mm. Only thing you'll need is a barrel, everything else is the same. Unless you want a heavy ass rifle I'd stay with a 20" barrel. You also don't need to reinvent the gas system. Flat shooting round, very accurate with 139 gr scenar bullets . Good luck and post pics!

I went with a 24" Heavy Varmint barrel from Shilen Barrel Company.

Rifle length gas system
.936 Gas block
Comes with matching bolt and firing pin.



Unfortunately, I still need to put a piece of glass on it, so no real range report.

Thanks.  I just wanted to avoid going down the rabbit hole of feeding and gas system issues if at all possible, especially spending that much on a barrel.



How long is that handgaurd?

I built my first.260 R with 22 inch BHW barrel with rifle gas and never had a problem.  However, I wanted a 24 inch and when I got one from X-Caliber, I went with the +2 gas length for reasons I still don't fully understand.  Senior moment I guess when I ordered.  Due to various occurrences,  I have not had a chance to shoot it, let alone do a load work up yet, but I doubt I'll have any problems.  It seems the 6.5 C and .260 can use both lengths with impunity.  If not, I'll make it work one way or another.  It's not rocket surgery to relocate a gas port, especially when going shorter.  There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Personally, I would stick with a 20" or 22" barrel length with a rifle length gas system, anything longer starts becoming a
bit too heavy for a field rifle unless you plan to use it as a bench rifle...

Finding ammo in stock or at the LGS is going to be challenging in lesser known cartridges like the .260 Rem...you will
likely need to roll your own to get top performance out of the round and to make it more cost effective...

It's a great round to be sure, and in the AR platform it may need some tweaking especially with the gas port diameter
which some barrel manufactures don't get right (either under gassed or over gassed). If under gassed you easily enlarge
the gas port, if over gassed then you'll need to add a adjustable gas block to meter/tune the gas flow.

Good luck.

I will be handloading for the rifle, no worries about having to mess with store bought ammo.

I picked up a 24" lilja barrel and am just waiting on my gas block to get here, then I will be able to get everything put together.  Ill try and get a few pics up of everything.

Beautiful rifle but that barrel is a truck axle. You ain't carrying that bitch around much!

Maybe because it's a heavy varmint gun?

Says it's a "heavy varmint barrel". Didn't say it was a "varmint gun". Just commented on what he wrote genius.

I went with a 15" Windham Weaponry handguard.

No kidding!

That's the only drawback with a heavy Varmint or Bull barrels.