You were meat shooting and fired less than 80 rounds a year? The 6.5-284 will run a 140 out at 2900 from a 24" barrel no problem, it just seems to need the longer barrel to achieve the 3050 or so that it is capable of, it only seems to match a 260 in the shorter barrels.
For me, even though I go through a lot of rifles I want a reasonable barrel life because by the time I have finished playing with them from new they will have fired 200 or so rounds.
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