I woulda just bought it to replace the tang safety X57 Littlgirl appropriated.
I can give the short version.
Remington sucks.... see 6mm Remington, or 280 not the ackley as a reference.
they coulda went 6.5-06 or 6.5 X 57 but no... wow now your getting me going... LOL
C'mon, I want the long version, pretty please?
My fantasy of the 6.5x08 was that it should kick butt over the .243 which I have always been suspicious of when it comes to deer hunting. About the time it starts to kill well you get a bunch of jellied venison hematoma to go with your burger. Once Wisconsin pulled it's bureaucratic cranium out of it regulatory rectum and allowed rifles for deer Statewide, Daddies started buying their kids .243's. The .250-3000 and the .257 Roberts are deader'n mackerels. Gun writers in the megamagazines have convinced most shooters that rifles must be short actions as only a dinosaur would use a .30-06 length cartridge unless it resembles a Freudian cigar and has the H&H belt on it's posterior.
Then Wisconsin went full goose silly and started special "youth hunts" that in effect make it illegal for me to hunt squirrels on my own land on one of the best weekends in October unless I wear blaze orange. Then in a frenzy of deregulation, we now allow children of any age to hunt with an adult. So now Daddies are acting like beauty pageant Mommies and are dragging their 6 year olds out into the woods. Of course the target must be a 150 or bigger buck, all the better to post on Face Book.
Some guys would ask me what rifle they should get for their kids and I'd tell 'em a twenny two and take 'em squirrel and bunny hunting. "Oh I aint got time for that but we wanna go deer hunting. So I'd recommend a 7mm-08 and either reduced recoil loads or handload 120' or 130's in the 7 to about 2,300 fps. I would get the googley eye roll and they'd trot off to Bubba's Gun Emporium and buy a .243 with a munchkin stock and off they'd go with Boone and Crockett on speed dial on their smart phones right next to the video game for Jr. to play with in the heated blind when they got bored after half an hour.
My thought on the .260 was that it would make a light weight sporter with mild recoil, and using 120 to 140 grain bullets at modest velocity. Thus making a sterling deer rifle out to 250 yards which in my highly opinionated view is as far as any sensible person should be plinking at live critters unless they are shooting at you!
See Fiver, the long version aint difficult at all. Just let the pique out a tad and roll with it. Next we can talk about why Ruger thought a Mannlicher stocked rifle should have an 18" barrel instead of a much more beautiful 20" barrel.