Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Cartridges That Are Vanishing

Why did the 284 Winchester and WSSMs not become a commercial success? I have no experience with the 25 WSSM but looks promising as a light deer and antelope round. I have a chance to by one, but wonder why it is not more popular? I had, until recently, a NULA 284 Win and thought it was a great combo, IMHO better than the 7 08, but brass became almost impossible to find! I had the same thoughts on the 7 MM WSM, thought it and the 7 mm SUAM where the bst of the bunch, but I must have been wrong, and yet the 280 AI is a home run!

Wssm cartridges have feeding issues. The original wsm owes its demise to the original creator Rick Jamison and his settlement with Olin over copyright infringement

7-08 is better than the 284 imho hence it’s still around in force

Yep. Kind of a no brainer...

284 is extremely popular for F class competition. Norma, Peterson, and now Lapua make brass for it. 7mm SAUM is somewhat popular in the same sport. ADG makes great brass for it.

When I read the title of this thread what immediately came to mind was the .250 and .300 Savages. Growing up in the 80's and 90's they were popular deer rounds. Not so much anymore. Seems the younger crowd doesn't care for 99s

Why is a 7-08 superior to a 284? That is a volatile statement.

Yes, many levergun calibers like the 307 and 356 Winchester. The 6mm Remington and 220 Swift used to be popular groundhog rounds, but the 243 and 22-250 seemed to put them out to pasture ( if they ever were popular to begin with).

The 6mm's are out selling the 243's on the internet!

Brilliant....

Hence the reason for your reply....

To me the dog turd of the bunch is the 223WSSM, was a bad design from the get-go

I have no experience with any of these, but expect the market sorts them out. If they significalkly outperformed the old "standards" they might still be around.

Looks to me like they have all disappeared.......................................

I have two 25WSSMs - one Winchester 70SS and a Browning Mountain Ti. Have used them on several whitetails and works as you’d expect - personally haven’t had feeding issues with either but have heard that they can have issues. It will not be around much longer unless some marketing guru convinces the public that it is vastly superior to the Creedmoor, PRC, etc.....😁

PennDog

I don't recall any feeding problems with the 25 WSSM in Winchester/USRA 70s, but I don't feel any great need to cycle manually operated rifles as fast as possible. I can count over 2K rounds of 25 WSSM fired from multiple Winchester/USRA 70s and another couple hundred 223 WSSM and 243 WSSM rounds fired from other Winchester/USRA 70s.

All of the Browning and Winchester/USRA rifles chambered in 223 WSSM and 243 WSSM had chrome lined barrels to extend barrel life, but you still can't overheat the steel under the chrome lining without damaging the barrels, I don't know if it worked or not, but they didn't put chrome lined barrels on the 25 WSSMs and mine don't seem to erode throats any worse than my rifles chambered in 25-284 or 25-06.

I think that the WSSMs failed for a variety of reasons. There was a lot of negative talk on the internet that was repeated many times over and probably served to scare some potential buyers away. I like rifles and cartridges, so I tried all three and really like the 25 WSSM. The WSSMs were redundant cartridges and the super short actions didn't lend themselves to being rebarreled for many other cartridges, but that doesn't bother me. Factory ammo was never that common and the best factory load for hunting medium game, the 110 grain AB, was discontinued long ago, leaving the 85 grain SBT for shooting varmints and the 120 grain PEP for shooting medium game. Both 25 WSSM factory loads are now made in seasonal runs that that tend to get bought up quickly and then sold at a premium price on-line. The Winchester/Olin brass did have thick necks, but Federal made component brass that has worked much better for me, so I made most of my 25 WSSM brass from Federal 243 WSSM brass.

We've got more different cartridges than we need and we have had for a long time (Yeah, I know, what's need got to do with it?) Every so often a company or individual comes up with an idea that they think will generate sales or ensure their spot in shooting history. The problem is, these great developments, if they offer any improvement at all over existing calibers, occupy a niche so narrow that they are only "appreciated" by a small subset of rifle loonies. That's not enough to keep them commercially viable. You will not convince Joe Sixpack that he should spend a bunch of money to upgrade to a tenth of an inch more, or less, of caliber and 120 fps more, or less in velocity to replace the rifle he's killed deer with for the last 12 years. He will be especially resistant to a cartridge that deviates, appearance-wise, from any "normal" cartridge. Yes, the 6.5 CM hit when the stars were aligned just so and made a big splash, Yes, it seems to fulfill all the promises of incredible accuracy. That's probably because it was supposed to be an accuracy thing to from the get-go and most of the rifles and ammunition offered for it are built with accuracy in mind. Still, from the practical standpoint of the requirements most of us have for hunting rifles, it won't do anything a 6.5X55 or .260 Remington won't do. Hell, my Sako 6.5X55 will shoot 130 AB's significantly and consistently under a half inch.

Yep, the neck was too short and the shoulder angle too shallow. Thus it directed hot gas in front of the case mouth, right where it would do the most damage to the throat. They also gave the barrels a 1-10 twist, when the obvious trend even then was toward faster twists. (They even asked a bunch of gun writers about the twist, most of whom advised faster.)Then Winchester promoted the .223 WSSM as the ultimate prairie dog round, when it fried throats VERY quickly in hot barrels.

However, I never had any problem with WSSMs feeding in the special short actions made for them, whether Browning or Winchester. In fact, I have a stainless/synthetic Model 70, the so-called controlled/push-feed model which basically copied the M1 Garand system. It works really slickly.

Bought it at a local gun store used, very cheaply, on the condition that I NEVER bring it back again for trade, or whatever. They even allowed me to look at the bore with my Hawkeye, and it didn't look too bad.

But it turned out the rifle wouldn't group ANYTHING under about 3", so I sent it to Charlie Sisk for a rebarrel. He put on a faster-twist Lilja, and it shoots great. But he also noted that the barrel and action threads were so mis-matched that while unscrewing the factory barrel, it essentially came off within half a turn--which was probably the major cause of the poor accuracy. Hard to get a rifle to shoot when the barrel's essentially rattling around in the front of the action.

It shoots GREAT with the new barrel, but I am not about to use it on prairie dogs. Instead it's one of probably too many .224 rifles used for larger varmints and smaller big game.

Probably depends more on your location. The .250 has never been popular up here although I think it was farther north where they hunt a lot of seals. The .300 Savage on the other hand is still fairly popular up here especially with FN people. Even the big box stores usually carry .300 ammo and they dont stock ammunition that doesnt sell.

I shoot the 300 Savage a lot in my 99's and a 700 Classic. I consider it to be a great 300 yard beer cartridge, which is about my self imposed limit. I works just fine.