Interesting little round, that's liable to stick around awhile. To many rifles sold during the craze for it to go away. Great marketing, reminiscent of the .270 win and 7mm Rem Mag.
Sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about, on a couple of points.
First, the .270 Winchester did NOT take off when introduced in 1925. It survived, but did not become popular until years later, partly due to the introduction of the Model 70 Winchester in 1937, and partly due to Townsend Whelen, who liked it. Jack O'Connor's regard for the cartridge didn't make much difference until around WWII, when he became a monthly columnist for OUTDOOR LIFE, which was the thin-paper "outdoor" magazine sent to U.S. troops. That was a LONG time after 1925....
The 6.5 Creedmoor was introduced as a target round in 2007, and did OK. But it was only promoted as a target round for several years, which is why it remained relatively obscure. It started becoming popular among hunters after around 2010--when word-of-mouth got around that both factory rifles and ammo were very accurate, and affordable. I know this partly due to being a hunting-gun writer--who NEVER got any press releases about the 6.5 Creedmoor that weren't about target shooting.
Which is why I ignored the round until hunters started noticing it, and hunting rifles started appearing. Only then did the "publicity" start, and it was NOT from Hornady but hunting magazines which had to start publishing articles on the cartridge because readers wanted info. In fact, when I published my first article on the 6.5 Creedmoor in 2010, brass and ammo was still in somewhat short supply--and the long-term existence of the round was still somewhat doubtful. Which is why I worked out a method of fire-forming brass from .22-250 cases, and published it in that first article. (This turned out to be a waste of time, because within a couple of years 6.5 Creedmoor brass was everywhere.)
In fact, one of my magazine editors eventually grew weary of the 6.5 Creedmoor, and refused to run any more articles about it. This was around 2015--but he changed his mind a year or so later because readers were DEMANDING more info on the round.
About that time one of my South African buddies, a PH who also owned a big sporting goods store in Kimberley, told me that 80% of the new rifles he was selling were 6.5 Creedmoors. Why? Because even in RSA, local hunters had found out how well it worked, especially for "culling," killing game for the market-place. They could buy a rifle AND factory ammo that worked as well or better than anything else they'd been using, for less than most other rifles/ammo. And there are very few hunting/shooting magazines over there. Instead, as in the USA, the word got around due to hunters.
