Competition Calibers - Why are .257 & .277 calibers under developed?

[Ned Ludd]

So which came first, the bullet or the cartridge?

As has been mentioned, the folks at Blackjack bullets felt like the lack of high BC offerings in the the .257 cal realm provided an opportunity to fill that niche. Their very high BC 131 gr design looks promising, but I have no idea exactly how many people are jumping on board and using it. Bullets in .257 and .277 cal certainly fall within a caliber window where it should be possible to come up with very high BC designs that aren't so heavy in overall weight that they can't be pushed to reasonable velocities without generating excessive pressures, or requiring very long barrels.

The more important question is not whether highly efficient and precise .257 or .277 cal bullets could be designed (they could), but whether such designs would provide any benefit over already existing designs in 6mm, 6.5mm, 7mm, etc. If some new bullet design didn't provide some advantage over existing designs, why would anyone go to the trouble of buying a new caliber barrel, possibly a new reamer, sizing dies, or any of the other equipment necessary to load the "new" caliber? There generally has to be a pretty strong incentive for shooters to go to that extent, performance typically being the best motivation.

 

[NateG]

Not only suffering from "if you don't build it, they won't come", the .257 and .270 have another problem even if someone did build a good (for whatever value of 'good' you want) match bullet. You'd be building your gun around one bullet. And if it didn't work... well, that's an expensive tomato stake. On the other hand, if you plan to shoot, say, a 155 Hybrid out of your 308, and can't get it to work (I've found that bullet to work in everything I've tried it in, but bear with me...), then you can still try the 155.5 Fullbore, the 2156 Sierra, 155 Scenar, 155TMK Sierra, or even the old 2155 Sierra. (As well as less-commonly used Noslers and Hornady 155s) That makes it very unlikely that a good barrel won't find *something* it shoots well.

 

[BronzeArcher]

Shot a few F-Class matches with the Berger VLD in 25-06 1 in 10" varmint rifle. It was OK, and a good opportunity to start the discipline with a rifle I already owned and had an accurate load for. But the barrel didn't last long, and though it was a great learning platform, it was not competitive with most dedicated F-Open rifles. I stepped down to a fast twist .223 without any loss of BC and got much longer barrel life. I'll probably build a .260 Rem when I want/need much higher BC bullets.

The sweet spot between barrel life, accuracy, speed, and BC is a delicate balance. But in approaching it, I have a strong preference for cartridges for which Lapua makes brass and several of the top manufacturers make very good match bullets. There's just not that much room between 6mm and .260 or .260 and 7mm for any meaningful advantage.

 

[greisdor]

If the Tubb 115 6mm Dasher works then why wouldn’t the Berger 117 25cal GT do just as good? With an 8 twist barrel you should get better barrel life.....

 

[Pablo]

IMHO the reason is much simpler than the reasons stated. It's all about marketing to a World Market instead of just a domestic market. The metric system reigns supreme overseas. Most of the world operates on 6mm, 6.5, and 7mm. If I wanted to make money off of bullet designs and manufacturing equipment that's where I would focus. The other thing is for target shooting purposes lighter bullets limit recoil and have better basic accuracy than rifles that shoot heavier bullets. I think we'd all be shooting 22's in SR BR if you could see the bullet holes at 200 yds on a hot miragy afternoon, since we can't we have 6's. In the USA the market is very limited for for 25 and 27 caliber bullets, fact is we don't need them, that's why there aren't any.

 

[Huntslow]

Just like with the 6.5 Creedmoor, if someone with deep pockets developed and marketed a .257 Palmisano, Pindel and Creedmoor cartridge (I will copyright that later today) and rifle, it would do well. Remember that 6.5 cartridges did not do well in the US (even the .264 Winchester) for a very long time. Need is different for many uses and people. Few of us need a "King of 2 Miles" rifle and cartridge but they are out there are gaining popularity. If TRUE NEED were the only issue then many cartridges would never have been developed

 

[Romulus]

The trouble with splitting a difference is that you can get a better overall option going up or down depending on what you seek. Splitting a difference is a compromise measure. By definition that means you get less compromise on either side of it.

And if you can live with the tradeoffs of a less compromise? Better option.

And it's useful to remember that the rest of the world is metric, so having 6mm, 6.5mm, and 7mm makes a lot of sense that .257 and 277 doesn't.

There is a common notion that splitting the difference will provide a linear notion of downrange performance.

Well, 6mm and 6.5mm are very established and fleshed out. There is not a lot of room for development left in these calibers unless certain things are tweaked which would also scale to other competitive calibers.

With our 1st release of the 131 ACE we have created a situation where the 1st high performance commercially available 257 bullet will now outclass any 6.5 bullet offered by 10-12% in wind deflection, less drop, and increased downrange energy.

This is simply fact - take a 6.5 parent, neck it down to 25 cal, and no 6.5 bullet can keep up in any metric except a wider selection of ballistically inferior bullets.

This is only our first bullet release. The second and third will double down on this result.

The proof in the pudding, is that Berger has unofficially announced their entry into the high performance 257 ring, so all the fence sitters that worry about building a rifle around one high performance bullet will be running out of excuses soon enough. This is the tell that the dominos are starting to fall and in a few years we should have appropriate factory rifles like 1:7.5 25-06, 1:7" 25 Creedmoor, 1:8 257 WBY, etc.

257 is nearly untapped - that it is already ballistically advantageous to 6.5 will only become more apparent in the years to come since there is so much untapped room in the caliber.

High BC for weight, more available muzzle velocity, and lower recoil.

If you crunch the numbers it is hard to beat 6mm inside of 700-900 yards depending on Density Altitude, it is insanely hard to compete with properly designed 257 from 1000-1500 yards or more, and then 7mm takes over very well from 1500-2000 for hit %'s.

6mm will always have a place but for folks that like or need to run a low recoil rifle well to 3/4 mile, 257 is already and going to start seeming like the late bloomer you passed up in high school that turned out to be a smoking hot mama.

: )

 

[CaptainMal]

Quality bullets, case size and design all are not the best for results. Surely some case can be designed and bullet sourced to be competitive in the different venues of competition shooting.

YOU be the one to do it and then share the results with others.

 

[Hohn]

There is a common notion that splitting the difference will provide a linear notion of downrange performance.

Well, 6mm and 6.5mm are very established and fleshed out. There is not a lot of room for development left in these calibers unless certain things are tweaked which would also scale to other competitive calibers.

With our 1st release of the 131 ACE we have created a situation where the 1st high performance commercially available 257 bullet will now outclass any 6.5 bullet offered by 10-12% in wind deflection, less drop, and increased downrange energy.

This is simply fact - take a 6.5 parent, neck it down to 25 cal, and no 6.5 bullet can keep up in any metric except a wider selection of ballistically inferior bullets.

This is only our first bullet release. The second and third will double down on this result.

The proof in the pudding, is that Berger has unofficially announced their entry into the high performance 257 ring, so all the fence sitters that worry about building a rifle around one high performance bullet will be running out of excuses soon enough. This is the tell that the dominos are starting to fall and in a few years we should have appropriate factory rifles like 1:7.5 25-06, 1:7" 25 Creedmoor, 1:8 257 WBY, etc.

257 is nearly untapped - that it is already ballistically advantageous to 6.5 will only become more apparent in the years to come since there is so much untapped room in the caliber.

High BC for weight, more available muzzle velocity, and lower recoil.

If you crunch the numbers it is hard to beat 6mm inside of 700-900 yards depending on Density Altitude, it is insanely hard to compete with properly designed 257 from 1000-1500 yards or more, and then 7mm takes over very well from 1500-2000 for hit %'s.

6mm will always have a place but for folks that like or need to run a low recoil rifle well to 3/4 mile, 257 is already and going to start seeming like the late bloomer you passed up in high school that turned out to be a smoking hot mama.

: )

I disagree that 6.5mm is 'fleshed out" because honestly nobody has really explored high performance 6.5mm in the US until the 6.5-284 came along. Nobody envisioned 264 win mag or 6.5x55 as a target round and relatively little development was occurring on target projectiles. Pushing high BC bullets at higher speeds is still a relatively new phenomenon in 6.5mm. The 6.5 creed has stimulated high BC 6.5mms and there's a whole new wave of development occurring.

If 6.5mm was "fleshed out" then why are we seeing new bullets of higher BC emerging still? 153 A-tip. 153.5 and 144 Bergers are essentially brand new.

At some point, we're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as we shuffle between recoil, barrel life, and windage. Unless there's some step change along the spectrum (i.e. I went from not being to spot misses vs being able to spot misses) then we're talking about tiny movements along a continuum. And it may be that in some cases those tiny increments are worth the high cost of niche bullets, wildcat cases, etc.

Ultimately the ballistic capability of any caliber is limited by what we can stabilize without blowing up. Otherwise we'd load 140gr 6mm bullets in a 5 twist Loudenboomer and push the pressure limits. It's BC*speed regardless of caliber. BC is tied to SD which is nonlinear with caliber. That's why you don't see 22 cal bullets with SDs approaching what 7mm can deliver, for example. It's possible that 25 cal is a magical difference that gives much higher BC for a given MV because of what will stabilize at twist rates that don't explode bullets.

But if the argument for .257 boils down to a couple tenths of a mil or a 200 rds more barrel life, it's a pretty tough sell. To entice people, the value proposition can't just be that it shoots slightly inside something else or is slightly flatter (moot for target shooters of known distance) or that it has slightly better barrel life. Rather, it must be enough of an improvement to justify whatever inconveniences and costs come along with it.

More power to you on developing high BC bullets in .257. But until and unless some major initiative comes along to particularly specify it (i.e. like the 277 Sig Fury military round is doing to the largely irrelevant-for-targets 277 caliber), it's a serious uphill climb.

 

[Romulus]

Sales #'s suggest the uphill climb is over.

The mass market will only pay attention when factory rifles and ammo exist. That won't be overnight, but will come in time.

Competitors are taking up the 10-12% wind deflection advantage and increased hit %, hunters are taking the extra few hundred pounds of Kinetic Energy, and both enjoy less recoil than the previous 6.5 offerings.

There are 20-30 good 6.5 bullets covering the range from 135 gr to 156 grains - the first 257 offered gives shooters a ballistically superior option and the next releases will double down on that trend. As you mentioned, the major mfgs are releasing new bullets all the time - but they aren't moving the goal post of any end results. They're the ones "splitting the difference" offering new grainages with no end-use ballistic advantage over previous offerings. If the WEZ hit % doesn't increase with a new iteration bullet fired over a similar powder charge, it very well could have accuracy or consistency improvements, but offers no real improvement to the caliber ballistically.

If 6mm goes over 118 grains in a high BC design the loss in MV due to mass and more importantly due to BSL will cancel out whatever BC gain may be found.

If we are discussing "fleshed-out" as the state that not much or any additional downrange performance will be advanced, 6 and 6.5 are indeed fleshed out. If we are discussing that the mfg's will release new bullets that approximate more of the same, they never will be fleshed out.

10-12% wind deflection is not "slightly" to a competitor who missed steel or an x ring by a few %.

The competitive advantage of 257 is there for medium and long range competition and hunting - it is basically an inevitability shooters and mfgs will tap into it once awareness spreads.

Awareness for mass population is TV and Print Marketing. For Competitors it is getting beat.

After this year's NF ELR Challenge I had about 10-15 guys come up to me and let me know they're going to build 25's after seeing what they can really do up against 6.5, 7, 30, 338, and 375 to 2000 yards.

When Berger releases their new 257, the TV and Print Marketing awareness will get a large injection to the mass market.

 

[Catfur]

5.56, 6.5, 7 and .308 all had very important, turn-of-the-20th-century-era military cartridges chambered in them. At a time when militaries favored long, heavy bullets, this meant that commercial gunmakers chambering these rounds made them with fast twists to stabilize these long bullets. .25 and .277 calibers were introduced without any military backing and they were introduced for speed, so manufacturers never put fast twist barrels on them.

Without fast twist barrels on readily available commercial-market guns, bullet makers never made long, heavy, high-B.C. bullets for these calibers. Without any long, heavy, high-B.C. bullets, no gunmaker wanted to bother changing the twists on the guns they made.