The last two rifles I've purchased (both within the past two weeks) have been a .243 Win. and a .25-06 Rem., both with custom barrels. So I'm not exactly a .25-only guy!
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
Would like to offer my thanks for the article as well!
As per usual, very factual, informative, and objective. And since putting it down, I have been obsessed with turning a perfectly good, yet inferior, .243 win into a 257 Roberts.....bastige....
The only real advantage I've found in the .257 is that "ordinary" 117-120 grain bullets tend to work very well, since it's almost impossible to push them fast enough to come apart on deer-sized game. They do provide a little edge in bone-busting over "ordinary" 100-105 grain bullets in the .243.
When using "premium" bullets their pretty much peas in a pod, though there might be a slight advantage to, say, 115 TSX's or 115 and 120-grain Nosler Partitions over anything available in 6mm. But it wouldn't make a heck of a lot of difference at least 99% of the time.
My wife deliberately shot a mature Montana whitetail buck through both shoulders and the spine at about 175 yards a few years ago with the .240 Weatherby and the 100-grain Partition factory load. The bullet went right on through everything.
Now, it probably wouldn't have on a cow elk, but then a 115-grain Partition might not have either. I did run into a guy from Bozeman who's wife put a 115 Partition into a mature cow elk. He told her to aim behind the shoulder, but somehow the bullet ended up hitting the shoulder bone, just above the big joint. It went through that shoulder, the vitals, and the other shoulder before stopping under the hide.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
When using "premium" bullets their pretty much peas in a pod, though there might be a slight advantage to, say, 115 TSX's or 115 and 120-grain Nosler Partitions over anything available in 6mm. But it wouldn't make a heck of a lot of difference at least 99% of the time.
When using "premium" bullets their pretty much peas in a pod, though there might be a slight advantage to, say, 115 TSX's or 115 and 120-grain Nosler Partitions over anything available in 6mm. But it wouldn't make a heck of a lot of difference at least 99% of the time.
What does the OGW formula say about that?
Check out this link on the OGW and other theories of killing power, like the Taylor Index, etc.
Would like to offer my thanks for the article as well!
As per usual, very factual, informative, and objective. And since putting it down, I have been obsessed with turning a perfectly good, yet inferior, .243 win into a 257 Roberts.....bastige....
Agreed there isn't much difference between the 6mm Remington and the .243 Winchester - I suppose I agree with whoever said the 6mm can be considered a mildly improved .243 - with tad more powder it will go a tad faster but the .243 is a tad cheaper to feed with cases and powder for folks who settle for good enough and it is good enough even overkill on varmints.
I had a .243 and my wife an otherwise identical 6mm stocked to fit her and I never saw any difference but I did find the .243 finicky - in those days I was checking case head expansion to tenths with a jig from one of the bullet makers and the .243 struck me as finicky.
After my wife died I bought a stock for the 6mm and kept it with both stocks. A neighbor's 6mm-'06 seemed to kill black tailed jacks just a tad faster - not any deader but during the last black tailed jack population boom - very early 80's - maybe a beat faster? Maybe not and any difference was just one kick or none. Likely I didn't use the best bullet for the purpose which may be an issue with a jack of all trades cartridge.
On the other hand I also agree with whoever said the average gun buyer when both the .243 and the 6mm were new didn't reload and didn't much know or care the difference in external ballistics and bullet weight.
Although certainly a loony at the time I was too young to be a rifle loony and I read Sports Afield with Pete Brown and Townsend Whelan over Warren Page and his guided hunts and foreign adventures. Then as now Sports Afield had some of the best writers smiley. Certainly I had never heard of Fred Huntington and his 6mm adventures at the time - though I was most impressed by Mr. Huntington when I did meet him decades later. So I agree with whoever first said the T-65(?) was touted as a wonder case design giving every bit of the performance of the .30-'06 (which it did in in military ball equivalents but that wasn't the way I read it at the time) so emotionally the .243 was 6mm-'06 - everybody knew the .30-'06 was better - read more powerful than the metric 7mm or 8mm cartridges - people were magnumizing bring backs with the 8mm-'06.
There has to be some emotional appeal to the .308 case or why the .25 Souper when the .25 Bob was already on the scene?