I don't think that it was of a case of what happened to the Swift as much as the change in shooting opportunities left it behind.
Decades ago when the Swift was the hot number the main use was for long-range targets such as woodchucks, crows and other varmints that folks usually only got the occassional shot at. Then starting a few years ago shooters discovered Prairie Dog shooting and ground squirrel shooting and all of a sudden there were a ton of people who took up shooting them.
It did not take most folks very long to discover that a couple of hundred rounds or more a day was hard on the barrel life of the Swift. Between that and the introduction of plastic tipped bullets all of sudden you had smaller chambered rifles, such as the 204, 223, etc, that could reach out and touch stuff just like a Swift but at less recoil, noise, disruption of sight picture, and a much longer barrel life.
I am not taking anything away from the Swift, it is impressive for the occasional shot but it is more horsepower than needed in most cases.
drover
