Bob,
"Unpopular" is EXACTLY what obsolete means. As I noted in an earlier post, the primary definition in an unabridged Webster's dictionary is "no longer in general use."
This does NOT mean .264's don't exist, or are ineffective--and that's definitely NOT what the author of the article said. Apparently I need to repeat what he wrote in the sentence just before using the fateful word obsolete: "Loaded with a 140-grain bullet, it's a dynamite performer in many ways."
Another word people often misunderstand is "moot." (You should get this one, because you're a lawyer.) Ask 10 people the meaning of moot and they'll say "irrelevant," but it actually means debatable, hypothetical or theoretical. Something moot CAN be irrelevant, but that's not the meaning. Similarly, something obsolete CAN be extinct or dysfunctional, but that's not the meaning.
Here's a parallel to the .264: For the past decade I've been driving a Ford F350 pickup made in 2000. It still runs great, partly because I maintain it well and partly because it's only used when the room and power is needed, as when pulling my 20-foot trailer or bringing home a dead moose. As a result it's driven less than 10,000 miles a year.
But it's obsolete, because relatively few F350's made in 2000 are in general use. I wouldn't get upset if somebody called it obsolete, just as I didn't get upset when reading the article, and leap to my computer to defend such a slur against my own .264.
Apparently, however, many shooters always stand ready to defend their cartridge's honor. We've seen this many times before on the Campfire, sometimes in similar circumstances, where something in a magazine article is quoted out of context, or people misunderstand some relatively innocent word.
In many ways this thread is much like the ".270 versus .280" threads that pop up regularly. It keeps going not due to any real substance but because rifle loonies like to argue about minutiae, even if they're mistaken about the minutiae. And I'm sure Rick Bin is happy, because lots of posts allow him to charge higher advertising rates.
Okay, I had my say. Now everybody can go back to defending the honor of the .264 against cyberspace libel.
