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

Mule Deer has addressed this question/point in a general sense many times.

Money! But not in a bad way, in a capitalistic way. Stuff that generates revenue sticks around. Unlike the good members here, not everyone who is a hunter is a gun slut. In fact the best hunters I have met consider their rifles/shotguns as tools. "Wipe down the crescent wrench and put it up until needed". These guys get by with one or two rifles for a life time and generally use boring old cartridges that just work and are available where ammo is sold. I own a 280 and can, with confidence tell you the one thing that it tangibly does that a 270 does not, which is cost 50% more per box of ammo!

I felt that during the short and shorter craze the manufacturers through a whole bunch of stuff at the wall to see what would stick. Whatever people buy will stick around. Some of the cartridges that didn't stick may well have been superior but not enough so for people to wander from what already works and is readily available.

I had a 264 built a couple years ago, and its an awesome cartridge. Not sure why it still gets no respect, especially since 6.5s are hot these days. I think part of the problem is the weird numbers published for velocity. Not sure how they concluded a 140 at 2900 is the norm. I am at 3200 with a 140 and I'm not redlining it. Pushing a 150 sierra at 3080 with a bc of over .700. It is only 18 moa of drop at 1000. Also, people seem to be hung up on everything needs to be in a short action these days...

30-06 is vanishing. You know, the one that’s in every gas station in the middle of nowhere?

Yes. Many are short sighted ! (sarcasm)


Jerry

Agree with 260 Remguy & Muledeer. My M70 243WSSM feeds just fine and shoots quite well too. Bought cheaply so worth a try! In fact I've had more issues with a the 300 WSM in a MRC1999 but thats not the fault of the cartridge but the poor manufacture of the actions at the time. These were the initial production run. They were all over the place! Some good some really bad. I got one of the bad ones.

6.8 SPC is vanishing

Historically, they were very popular in the Northeast from Pa. to Maine. They were also very well represented in Michigan. Until fairly recently, you couldn't go into a deer camp in any of these locales without seeing at least one or the other, and usually several.

Truth here. I'm a gun guy, but my hunting rifle sits until general hunting (deer and antelope) season. I have other rifles that I shoot much more for other purposes. I bought a hundred rounds for this rifle ten years ago. It's a lifetime supply.

Perhaps you guys could give me some pointers

I got a 100 .32-20 cases and, using the .25-20 dies, tried to resize to .25-20. I had a whole bunch of buckled and folded necks and shoulders, the fold is lengthwise as the material from what used to be a .32 diameter neck folds at some point and the rest becomes a .25 diameter neck.

I think I had a 16% failure rate, ending up with 84 cases or something like that.

is there another trick to getting reliable re-sizing? do we need a series of forming dies to go to .30, .28, .26 then finally .25? if so, who makes them?

Thanks

Poole

Seems like the case is more popular for wildcatting than it is in It's original form.

Here's what works for me: First, I use Imperial sizing lube and very little of it, around the top half of the neck. Second, I don't try to reform in one pass. I have no idea why it makes a difference, but I find I lose fewer cases if I run it in a little (maybe a third of the neck) rotate the case about 120 degrees, run it in again, another third, rotate another 120 degrees, run it all the way in. Honestly, if you're getting 84% the way you're doing it, I wouldn't worry about it. Once they're formed to your chamber, you can back off with your FL die a little and, with reasonable, .25-20 level loads, the cases will last forever. I would guess that, doing the way I do, I still lose 5 - 10 % of my cases, but I don't sweat it. I've found I'm going to lose some any time I do a very extreme case reforming. As an example, I probably lose 15 or 20 percent making .22 HP from .30-30's, but so what? At most ranges, you'll find once fired .30-30 brass for nothing, often picked up and put back in the boxes and left on the bench for whomever might want it. (My experience, anyway.) I've found I can reduce losses by a certain amount of "process engineering" in most cases, but it all boils down to how much time do I want to spend experimenting and how much do I need, how much is it worth to me?

I can't find 26CM anywhere

That's accurate but often doesn't have much correlation to the merits of a cartridge. Perfect example is .260 Rem vs 6.5 Creed. The .260 had a 10 year headstart, but Remington botched it about as much as imaginable while Hornady hit a homerun 10 years later with a virtually identical cartridge. Would imagine some Remington staff were kicking themselves when they saw what could have been possible with .260 rifle and ammo sales if they had done a halfway competent job with the .260 Rem. If the .260 was any lesser cartridge, it would have already been forgotten, but it's hanging on because with a 1:8" twist barrel a handloader can get similar results to what people can get out of the box with factory rifles and ammo with the 6.5CM.

6.8 what ? Never seen one...... smirk


Jerry

I often wonder what shape the .280 would be in if Remington hadn't botched the PR for it multiple times...

Many case studies could be written on how Remington botched the introduction of cartridges with tremendous potential. I'm trying to think of Remington cartridges that have fully lived up to their potentials, and I'm coming up with three: .222, .223, and .25-06. The 7mm Rem Mag may be more popular than the .25-06, but the strange 7mm Rem Mag pressure issues that have been reported take some of the luster off. The 7mm-08 has fared better than many Remington cartridges, but it hasn't been the overwhelming success that the somewhat similar 6.5 Creedmoor has been for Hornady.

The .260, .280, and 6mm Rem sagas illustrate how to take what should be all-time great cartridges and botch their introductions, and then the "reintroductions" for the .280 and 6mm Rem fell short, too.

This thread has so many opinions or may I say some of the same opinions expressed several ways.

It seems even the military can't keep one cartridge for very long, unlike the 30-06 or the 7.62x51.

Here's my opinion and it is worth all that you paid for it:

With umteen cartridges coming out there are bound to be cartridges leaving. Ruger, Winchester, and Remington are all doing it, hoping to get a sale with something new. But they can't do it all there's the AI club and the proprietary club and the small manufactures trying to make it. (338-06 for instance)

Some of the old great cartridges are getting a new dress and there's people wowing and wooing about how pretty the new dress is and I gotta have one of those, because all the cool guys have one. New cartridge's come out that match other old cartridge's performance. It is the same game over and over.

examples: 6.5x55 now is the 6.5 Creedmoor and the 7x57 is now the 7mm-08, the 375 H&H is now the 375 Ruger. How about the 30 Newton? There's many new 30 caliber magnums and really how much better are they than the 300H&H or the 30 Newton? For some, wow and golly gee, I gotta have the new one - it means more sales for the manufactures and they will happily make the new whiz bangs.

Evidently the new cartridge's sell new rifles, otherwise the manufactures would not be coming out with so many. For us loonies, how many 30-06's are we going to put in our safes (8 is my limit). But if it's a new cartridge then why wouldn't we need it.

Like I said, my opinion and it is worth what you paid for it.

I have a .25WSSM and it's right there with the .25-06 in factory form. Handloading is different. Mine feeds perfect. I don't expect them to be around for much longer.

I think the reason many of the Remington offers didn't blow up in sales is they always start off with slower than optimal twist barrels. Hunters missed out when the 6mm was expected to be for vermin, The .257 Roberts, while incredibly versatile has had limited offerings in bullet weights, .22-250 could have been way more popular had it been offered in a faster twist barrel earlier on . The 280 has merit, but they flubbed it, then threw the 7mm RM out there and could have made it better with little effort. Again, it wasn't really doing anything better. Some of Remington's offerings didn't really offer an improvement, and with lazy marketing nobody got excited to try them.

On the other hand, Hornady hypes stuff, spends money to market new offerings, and has done well. Point of proof, the performance of the 6.5CM is nearly identical to the .25-06 at normal hunting distances, as is the .270Win.

Hate to say it but my beloved 338RCM is no doubt destined for the island of misfits. The cartridge is extremely good but what really made it was the compact rifle it was chambered in, the Ruger compact rifle. Perfect dimensions and acceptable weight. Makes me sad but im still going to use it and its superior to the 338 win in handling and does the same job until the bigger 338 win starts throwing 250gr missles.

Ruger and Hornady could have pitched the 338RCM much better as an amazing compact elk, moose, and bear rifle but it arrived without much hoopla and it flopped, big belly flop. It sucks because it appears the whole lineup of middlebores fail miserably with only 338 win being mildly popular in the states. The rest 338 Fed, 338RCM, 338 Marlin, 348 win, 358 win, 350 rem mag, and 358 norma are all pretty much in the waste bin of history.

Meanwhile some of us are still plugging along with the 256 and 30 Newtons. 😎