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And then there are those of us who are capable to way on out there.... 1000 yards give or take.

But again, its take what works... when hunting close I don't even use your 7x57, I use a 300/221 with subs out to 200 yards...

But I have a few "mags" for when I want to be capable further out there. And a few taht are capable to "mid range" or so.

And then there is the 22lr... that gets grabbed quite often for pigs, turkeys and whatever is legal, it would for deer too if it were legal...

Crystal ball: In spite of the current trend of Bic rifles, the future profits will be made on high end quality. Make them look good, shoot better than good, price them high and make less. Doubt if you will see a Bic rifle come out of Cooper. Chasing every John Doe to buy your rifles is a tough sell, when everyone else is chasing the same buyer.

The number of outdoor/hunting retailers will also decrease. I am concerned how many "bankruptcy's" the firearms industry can absorb.

Doc

captdavid,

By coincidence, I just wrote an article for GUNS magazine on why new cartridge introductions succeed or fail, but of course can't post it here.

However, one thing I've noticed over the decades is that new rifle cartridges tend to succeed when there's already some built-up demand. This occurs frequently when a wildcat (or type of wildcat) becomes so popular that the first widely-available commercial version becomes a success. Aside from really old wildcats like the .25-06 and .35 Whelen, there are four instances since World War Two that became big commercial successes:

.222 Remington. There was already considerable demand for a bolt-action .224 centerfire with ballistics between the .22 Hornet and .220 Swift. Eventually the .223 Remington took over the .222's slot, but that was due to being a military round. The .222 started it all, and was THE medium-size .224 varmint round for many years.

7mm Remington Magnum. There'd been plenty of activity in this area for decades, including some commercial cartridges such as the 7mm Weatherby, but Remington finally put it all together.

The .300 WSM. A bunch of people had been wildcatting short, fat, beltless magnums for several years, and some "proprietary" versions were available from smaller companies. But Winchester was the first big company to get it done.

The 6.5 Creedmoor. Various mild 6.5's that allowed high-BC bullets to fit easily in standard 2.84" short magazines had already appeared, but Hornady and Ruger did the same thing Remington did with the 7mm Magnum and Winchester did with the .300 WSM, making a commercial version easily available in factory rifles and ammo.

In contrast, there was ZERO previous interest in anything resembling the WSSM's. The .22-250 already dominated the hot .224 centerfire niche, and the .243 and .25 WSSM's didn't do anything new ballistically except fit in super-short bolt actions that couldn't be rebarreled to anything except other WSSM's.

A bunch of other cartridges have failed for similar reasons as the WSSM's. Somebody working for some company figured shooters really truly needed them, despite the fact that there'd been zero wildcatting activity in that area. But essentially, they turned out to be new wildcats that very few shooters wanted. Of course, some people bought them just because of wanting to be different, but that's not commercial success.

There's still too many old cartridges that I still don't have. (I'd take a 300 H&H over a short cartridge, but then short bolts don't impress me much.)

Then their's a Model 30 Remington that isn't in my gun cabinet and a Model 54 Winchester, a Model 71, a Model 52, a drilling, double rifles. And I lament about not having a Krag, a Model 99, a Browning BAR, and so many others.

The new cartridges, the new rifles - not much room in my safe for them. You can add plastic pistols and all the AR variants - I don't need nor want more of those.

And yes I like the Rigby more than the Remington 416 and I like the H&H more than the Ruger 375. The 06 is the best 30 caliber ever made, in my opinion, though there's still room for that 300 H&H.

Not wanting to disagree with the great one (MD) but would not the 708 fit that scenario. Captdavid

MD it was 95 in McAllen Friday, subliminal messaging (:

Not sure if you meant the scenario of a ready made demand or something gun makers dreamed up, but I think the 7mm-08 was marketed pretty heavily to silhouette shooters at first to fill an increasing demand. Silhouette was "the fastest growing segment of the shooting sports" in the early 80's and they wanted a lesser recoiling SA round that still threw heavy enough bullets with good BC to knock down the 500 meter rams. 7mm was considered the sweet spot of weight and BC in those days, we can see that 6.5mm or even 6mm has usurped that throne today for the really long range guys.

IIRC Remington first chambered the 7mm-08 in their Varmint Special and maybe one other variation, but they clearly had the silhouette guys in mind when they offered it. So they met a need and offered it to a bunch of fellows who would be more loony oriented than your average bunch of hunters and who therefore would be more willing to accept something new - particularly in the target games where everyone tools up and buys new rifles to copy last year's winner. The fact that it is a short action 7x57 with all of the virtues of that round for hunting is a nice plus.

Well said..

Beautiful post sir...

Jim,

Good points all, especially that the 7mm-08 became a factory cartridge primarily because of target shooters, not hunters. Which is exactly what happened with the 6.5 Creedmoor.

But like the Creedmoor, when hunters tried the 7mm-08 they liked it--and liked it even better after the Barnes TSX appeared. Before the TSX Barnes X's often didn't shoot all that well, fouled bores, and weren't abailable in many factory loads. Also, many big game hunters were still skeptical of hunting game larger than deer when using a short-action 7mm even with Nosler Partitions. But the TSX was not only more consistently accurate and solved the fouling problem, but convinced even many average hunters that smaller cartridges could work on larger game with lighter bullets that shot pretty flat.

Bullet development has had considerable effect on cartridge development, along with the standardization of the "short action" magazine at 2.84 inches. These days longer, high-BC bullets are driving a lot of cartridge design, the 6.5 Creedmoor being a prime example--partly because high-BC hunting bullets started to appear.

But a lot of older hunters are still going to believe very firmly that longer belted cartridges and much heavier bullets (often started at higher muzzle velocities) are the only solution. To a certain extent that's understandable, because those are the solutions they grew up with, back when "long actions" and cup-and-core bullets were the rule, and extra muzzle velocity the solution to longer-range shooting. Most humans tend to stick with what helped form their own history, whether haircuts, vehicles or the church they attend--which is why many hunters believe high muzzle velocity is the only solution to longer-range shooting: That WAS the solution ever since the appearance of smokeless powder.

However, hunting rifle and ammunition development did not stop 50 years ago, when many of today's older hunters were starting out. In fact it had changed considerably before then, good examples being Nosler Partitions in 1948--and 1950's Remington 722, which set the standard for short bolt-actions.

I like, own and use many of the older classic rifles and cartridges myself, even traditional muzzleloaders, including one flintlock. But unlike Lord Ripon, who in the late 19th century was still having custom outside-hammer shotguns made because he believed hammerless shotguns were an invention of the devil, I own several hammerless doubles, and even a couple of autoloading shotguns. Similarly, I don't believe all bolt-action development ended with the 98 Mauser (though owning and hunting with quite a few) or that all smokeless rifle cartridges since the .30-06 are redundant--despite having taken more big game animals with the .30-06 that any other single round.

If somebody wants to pick THEIR era as the apex of rifle development, why that's their right. But they should remember that many other people believed the same thing long before they were born.

Regarding the 3 WSSMs, IIRC, prior to their introduction there was a lot of talk about the inherent accuracy advantage of short/fat cartridges in the PPC mold.

I wonder if the WSSMs would have had more success if Winchester/USRA hadn't been on its last legs and if Winchester/Olin had offered standard/popular priced 75 and 100 grain factory loads in the 25 WSSM and a 75 grain factory load in the 243 WSSM.

Winchester/Olin's decision (failure?) not to offer a wider variety of factory ammo that might have better covered the spectrum of intended uses was, in retrospect, similar to the way Remington handicapped the 260 back in 1997.