Cartridge Types with Declining Popularity

[46and2]

I don't think the Weatherby 6.5 RPM even got out of he gate! Never seen brass or dies?

My arsenal includes 25 plus different rifle chamberings from Ackleys to RUMs, WSMs wildcats to Roy Weatherby's cartridges to fancy Black Gas Rifles.

The last month however I just started to build a classic Remington 700 in 30-06!
Found a beautiful 1981 Walnut CDL stock with the brass pin! I think it started as I was reminiscing about hunting with my dad and looking up and seeing him carry his 700 30-06 , he was my hero back then. My chores in the fall after school was prepping 30-06 brass for us to load when he got home from work.

Guess we all gotta grow up sometimes, lol.

 

[jdh47]

I think many cartridges have been regional and arms and ammo manufacturers make what they sell the most of. Many states hunting regulations dictate what hunters can use so that is what's catered to. If you wish to hunt pronghorn with a 45-70 then do it but do not expect the local hardware store to stock it. Cartridge development didn't stop in the 20's, 30's, 40's or 50's and it keeps going to this day. Some cartridges are useful and sell well so they chamber rifles for them.
The shooting public has many options today that they didn't have in years past and that's a good thing. It's a choice we all make for our shooting. The 220 Swift was birthed when there wasn't anything like it and has survived because it is considered useful to many even though the 22-250 will get you within 50 f/sec of it and brass is cheaper and easier to get. The same applies to the 6.5x55 vs the .260 Rem. and the 6.5 CM. The Military has affected many cartridges and rifles. When Teddy Roosevelt went to Africa he used a custom 30-06 and .405 WCF. The .405 is not very popular today but the 30-06 is still going strong.
As time goes on many more cartridges are added to the list and some will stand the test of time and many will not. It's what it is. The .243 pretty much killed the 250-3000 because hunters saw it as more versatile.






















































































































































































































































































































The shooting public has benefitted greatly from the research and development of cartridges. Manufacturers can tilt the scale by legitimizing many cartridges by making rifles and ammo for them. Just because many loadings have fallen into disuse doesn't mean they aren't beneficial. it's just that there aren't any factory offerings for them and not many people clamoring for ammo.

 

[Adam in WI]

I think it started as I was reminiscing about hunting with my dad and looking up and seeing him carry his 700 30-06 , he was my hero back then. My chores in the fall after school was prepping 30-06 brass for us to load when he got home from work.

Well hell, that's as good a reason as any

 

[kc0yef]

Yep when the 223 showed up the 222 all but vanished

And yet it held the record for accuracy for 40 years

 

[kc0yef]

6.5x55 Swede still going

 

[hogpatrol]

I think the african magnum calibers like .375 HH, .416 rigby and similar calibers from the golden era of colonialism.

Currently people hunt in Africa with modern magnum. So these cartridges are pretty much collector items.

Many of the cartridges you mentioned like 222 rem,30-06 are popular with senior hunters in Europe.

Post that first line over on the Africa Hunting forum and the reactor rods will run out of water, especially on the .375 H&H. Many African countries have a minimum of .375 for dangerous game and double rifles in those other "colonial" cartridges are still made and very popular and ammo is available there. Good luck in Zim or Moz getting ammo for a .375 Ruger or a .416 Remington.

Capt.Oblivious can give a rundown on ammo availability. IIRC, last time I was in a gun shop in Blomfontein, 7RM, 300WM, '06, .308, .243, .223 and DG ammo like the .375 H&H, .458WM and other legacy .4 caliber ammo was on the shelf. They even had Berger bullets.

 

[STOMP442]

My vote goes to the time tested and true 300 Savage. no doubt it is still being used. The days of seeing guys carrying around their model 99’s I believe is gone. even here in the tickets of Venango county in northwestern Pennsylvania where a long shot is 100 yards. My work takes me to all the back roads through Venango, Crawford, and Warren County‘s here in Pennsylvania. Even Amish hunters carry big scoped, bolt action rifles. I do occasionally still see a model 94 or a Remington 760 machine gun. I have entertained thoughts of building a Krieger barreled 300 savage but just never did it.

My dad used a Model 99 in .300 Savage on every hunt we ever went on. He only had a couple other rifles in the safe but I don't remember them ever being used other than the .22. My oldest brother ended up with that rifle when he passed but I have picked up a couple of 99s over the years. I have been thinking to myself that maybe I need to do an old school hunt and hunt deer the old fashioned way with a savage 99 and a Redfield 3-9.

 

[Bojo]

243 win 700adl 1964
308 win model88 pre64
30-06 Springfield 116 savage
That is my whitetail rifle options each year I pick a main and a secondary.

243 and the 308 get the nod this year as I ran the 30-06 for both NY and PA rifle seasons.

In the past I also had a 444 marlin that I used on deer drives as I suck at running deer through a scope , that thing with the factory buckhorn’s was a hammer , I traded it off for that mdl88.

One thing I cannot wrap my head around is all the oversized ultra high mounted tactical scopes guys use now. I prefer my objective lense being no more than 40 mm and mounted low as possible.

 

[Adam in WI]

I have been thinking to myself that maybe I need to do an old school hunt and hunt deer the old fashioned way with a savage 99 and a Redfield 3-9.

This old model 81 Remington is been giving me similar thoughts...

 

[TSFineGuns]

My 300 savage has become a handload only proposition. Ammunition is rarely seen.

Right. I recently grabbed my Model 722 .300 Savage from my father's. Couldn't find any of the ammunition for it though when I grabbed it. Spend about three (3) months trying to track some down online with no luck. Went to the WTB Forums here on AccurateShooter and found a gentleman who was willing to part with 100 cases. I just need to get the dies for the rifle now. I have the bullets (Hornady Interlock 150gr) and plenty of powders that are said to work in the .300 Savage. Just need to head over to MidwayUSA and buy the set.

Looking forward to shooting this guy again. Was my first deer rifle.

 

[Hammer]

not seeing as many 219 Donaldson Wasp these days

 

[Prose]

I find it very difficult to use anything beside my 6.5 creedmoor. I had a 260 remington first (and my 260 is more accurate), but it's just so damn easy with the CM and bullet choice allows me to tailor a load for anything.

This morning I was thinking that I ought to give my weatherby 30-06 to my nephew and I literally thought to myself, "What the heck does anyone need a 30-06 for? I'll have to rebarrel it to something modern so he uses it." Weird that it's come this far.

This is not to hate on one or be a fanboy of the other. I hate that I like the creedmoor and am sad that my 30-06 is never used. I don't think I expected to ever be on this side of the tracks.

 

[STOMP442]

I find it very difficult to use anything beside my 6.5 creedmoor. I had a 260 remington first (and my 260 is more accurate), but it's just so damn easy with the CM and bullet choice allows me to tailor a load for anything.

So how does the Creedmoor differ in bullet choice over the .260? It's the same bullet.

 

[Prose]

So how does the Creedmoor differ in bullet choice over the .260? It's the same bullet.

Better case design enables better performance with heavy bullets. Less bullet in case, ect.

 

[mauser284]

I never loved the 243. It's a 6BR with ten grains of wasted powder (and less barrel life) Sorry to say that cartridge is truly obsolete.

David

Well you got it backwards. Since the 243 Win became a SAAMI standard in 1955 and the 6BR not until 1978 you comparing backwards. Common though amoung people with so much confirmation bias they think they are always right! LOL

Not only is the 243Win able to shoot far heavier bullets at higher velocities it also does something that boggle the mind of 6BR owners and that is it feeds in everything from the lowly Savage 110 on up! It will feed from blind magazine, box magazine, rotary magazine all day with no real issues in bolt guns and semi-auto rifles! No shim kits or feed lip voodoo no sacrifices tot he god's of the 6BR.

I like what I know about the 6BR but was talked out of it by a lot of people because none of my exhisting bolt action donor recievers could be made to reliably feed 6BR in a repeater even in a short action. On the other hand it is simple to get a 243Win to feed even in a long action!

No the 243Win is not the perfect cartridge no such thing exists they are all compromises of one kind or another. The bigest issues with the 243Win and 25-06 are the idiotic barrel twists factory offerings in those chambering tend to ship with!

 

[mauser284]

In my old age I find it amusing that the "wheel" keeps being reinvented. Yes, a lot of great old cartridges seem to be falling away, the 257 Roberts for example. Ditto the superb 222, 30-06, etc.

This is not surprising to me at all. The gun makers are good at marketing "super ballistic" new calibers which very few have the skill to realize benefit of but it nice to think so thus these new "hot rods" sale.

I mean how hard is it to take deer with proper shot placement and any caliber with the minimal required energy to cleanly fall a deer. The key is proper shot placement.

For the one-gun big game hunter who wants to hunt deer, black bear, Elk and Moose it's hard to imagine a better choice than the 30-06. My ex-boss was born and raised in Wyoming. Him and his entire extended family hunted extensively throughout the West. Their guns of choice, the 30-06 and 270 Win.

The bigest problem hunters face is poor bullet choice, poor wind reading skills and lastly poor range estimations! For the last 30 years most of my deer have been taken with a 12ga with Sabot slug! Nothing romantic about it either. My single shot slug gun puts them down like a lead ballon every time. I do not think I have heard anyone talk about their custom single shot rifled slug gun on this forum in a while! LOL

No one putting together a pet load book of 12ga. sabot slug loads either! If the yuppie hunters get someone to make $1200 to $2500 shot gun actions and custom rifled 12ga. barrels watch out! We will have shotguns with Nightforce optics and guys shooting Elk from a helicopter with their $10,000 sabot slug rifled shotguns.

 

[K22]

The bigest problem hunters face is poor bullet choice, poor wind reading skills and lastly poor range estimations! For the last 30 years most of my deer have been taken with a 12ga with Sabot slug! Nothing romantic about it either. My single shot slug gun puts them down like a lead ballon every time. I do not think I have heard anyone talk about their custom single shot rifled slug gun on this forum in a while! LOL

No one putting together a pet load book of 12ga. sabot slug loads either! If the yuppie hunters get someone to make $1200 to $2500 shot gun actions and custom rifled 12ga. barrels watch out! We will have shotguns with Nightforce optics and guys shooting Elk from a helicopter with their $10,000 sabot slug rifled shotguns.

On my first deer hunt in the early 60's, I used my grandfather's 12-gauge shotgun with "pumpkin ball" shells which was common in my area where families could only afford one rifle which when to the dad of the house. These shells were round lead balls and of course, the shotgun was smooth bore and there was no scope. We hunted in deep woods cover, shots about 35 to 50 yards. I never got a deer with the shotgun, but my cousin did with his father's shotgun.

If my memory is correct, I got my first centerfire rifle in the mid 60's when I was in high school, a 243 Win Model 70. Took several deer with that one.

 

[XTR]

I recently saw a discussion of cartridges for elk and far and away #1 and #2 were the 300WM and the 7mmRM. I don’t think then7mmRM is going anywhere in the near future.

I think for practical medium game hunting some shooters have gotten smarter and realized that non-magnum short action capable chamberings are better answers. Then toss in shooting media hype and you get new 6.5s and 6s that are twins to older cases but are the current pretty girl at the dance. (Thus they all didn’t flock to the 243, 7-08 and the 260)

 

[DumpHollow]

I was in a LGS not too long ago chatting with the owner. He said that he read the gun magazines and just ordered whatever they were promoting.

 

[mauser284]

So how does the Creedmoor differ in bullet choice over the .260? It's the same bullet.

That needs to be asked in it's own thread to do it justice. Basickly the problem with the .260Rem is that they did not forsee the jump in ELD/VLD long heavy projectiles that kids like me in the 1980's had been begging for for decades. So many short action rifles cannot load from the magazine with the newer longer heavier ELD/VLD bullets even if you had a chamber cut for them. For about a decade you could not get on a gun forum without it being full of people that bought Remington Model 7's for their Ultra Light Mountain rifle build that suddenly figured out they could not shoot the cartridge and bullet combo they wanted to shoot. Even in the 700 line with short actions this was such a problem we now have the Wyatt box.

The 260Rem was just brought to market too soon, did not have the marketing push behind it that the 6.5CM had and it was designed before the modern ELD/VLD bullets exhisted. It was designed and marketed as a hunting cartridge not a target cartridge.

There is a guy that did A-B comparison with his Accuracy International not sure if it was AW or AE or which. It is one of the best articles I have seen since it was true A-B with same rifle just different barrels.

I have campaigned a 260Rem in F-Open and now have a rifle in 6.5CM to do the same. Most people on this sight have not put 5000 rounds or more through a rifle in 260Rem.

The bigest thing that the 6.5CM has going for it over the 260Rem is factory loaded ammo. It is slim picking for the 260Rem today if you have to buy what Walmart stocks! The 6.5CM makes far more sense today than the 260Rem but that is a combonation of people making poor purchase decisions and Remington not looking ahead.

You will also see a lot of people give the Remington Model 7 a lot of hate but really the real problem was their own ignorance. It is always easy to blame an object or someone else for your delima.

The 243 and 25-06 has suffered a like fate because rifle makers are idiots and think much like 1980's Detroit Auto industry. They kept kicking out the same slow twist rate barrels. No one wanted to pay to update and recertify them with SAAMI with faster twist rates "I assume" and bullet makers were not going to make bullets that factory rifles could not shoot! If you want a compettive 243Win you have to custom build one to get twist rates suitable for the best bullets on the other hand you can hit the easy button and buy a cheap offf the rack 6CM that will shoot the best 6mm bullets of today. So of course everyone will bad mouth the 243Win and praise the 6CM! I was shooting 115-117gr. Detacs what 20-30 years ago after David Tubb won nationals in Silhouttee with a 243Win shooting DTAC's. Amazing what we could do before Hornady came to our rescue with Propritary cartridges that do not do anything we could not do before in 6.5mm and 6mm. Shooters in High Power NRA Across the Course where shooting 6.5x55 for a long long time then they all died or switched over to Tubb Guns in propritary cartridges. Slight exageration on my part. As long as you do not need to fit a cartridge in a short action you would be amazed what can be done with the 6.5x55 with modern bullets, powders and ignoring SAAMI.



For a long time long range shooters suffered from a lot of snooty oh that is a hunting cartridge not a target cartridge sort of attitude. Just look at what you see with 6CM, 6 Dasher, 6XC, 6BR, 6GT, 243Win and on and on just listen to what people type and how they talk about these different cartridges. Facts and results do not matter nearly as much to most people as their bias and the bias of their peer's! You can hear the condesending tone dripping from their words. Some of them make really good points depending on their use but some of them just have so much bias nothing else will do.

If you want to see a group of followers with guru's, magical talismans, that need lots of group approval and validation get onto a sight like SnipersHide! Lot's of vertical intergration with sponsors, gunsmiths, and the like in a true echo chamber.

Here is a good article on the 260Rem http://demigodllc.com/articles/6.5-shootout-260-6.5x47-6.5-creedmoor/?p=1