Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What are your favorite obscure cartridges???

I favor the .300 savage in my model 99. I will put it up against any .308 ever made. Dont understand why the .300 savage got such a bad rap...perhaps its proponents are dying off and the model 99 is no longer being made. ( a real shame that.) .250-3000 Savage is another good one...killed off by the .243 I expect.

Another good obscure/wildcat/fading away is the .338-06. I had high hopes but only weatherby chambers it and it is now the age of the short magnum. Anyone that does have a .338-06 sings its praises but it is probably a dying round.

My newest baby is the .264 win Mag. I confess to being a 6.5 afficionado from way back, but I love this cartridge. It is like a .270 on steroids. Great choice of bullet weights and just flat out shoots. Another casualy of the short magum craze.

I would like Mule Deer's take on this. He did a great article on this a while back. Anyone else got a take on this??? Mr. Howell??

I don't think the .300 Savage got a bad rap at all. More to the opposite in that it's very well thought of. It's just that the 99 was a top rifle pre WW11 and then the autoloaders became popular due to our army using them. Add the .308 Win to the market, which is just like a .300S, and that's the story.

I like the 6mm Rem Intl. for competition to 200 yds and the .358 Win for woods hunting. Other rounds would do well also.

I have tried the 264 WM and am trying one again. It's not easy. More rifle problems than cartridge so far.

Swede,

My .300 Savage is a Savage M20 (later model). I have several .308 Win rifles, and look on it as the successor of the Savage cartridge.

I like 6.5s too, my first was a 6.5X55. I shoot a 6.5-'06 now (my Western deer rifle).

I don't know if they rate the label "obscure", but they certainly are less common than many.

jim dodd

For you Savage 99 guys, I handled a model 1899 Savage in .303 at a local shop last week.

.300 H&H Magnum! My first real mag rifle and it is easy
on my rotator cuff while doing fine on bigger game at
reasonably long range -- no two canyons away but well within
my skill levels. I just don't need an ultra, or ultra short
mag and this old classic is just my style! Pity they aren't
made by the major companies anymore.

A Ruger one in a 26 inch barrel would be a real winner.

1B

It's weird, but I'm getting to really appreciate the 6.5-'06 Ackley. The 125-grain Partition at 3,200 flat is looking good for most any big game beasties I'm likely to bump into.



For many years, I was a real .338-'06 fan (wrote my first article in Handloader about it). All of my African animals, up to and including eland, were killed with a .30-'06. For the last couple of decades I've actually done the bulk of my killing with the .280 Ackley.



Hey, maybe it's time for a change, and right now the 6.5-'06 Ackley is looking very, very good.



Steve

I like the 257R, 250 sav, 6.5X55, 7X57Mauser, and 358 win. I think that the 308 and cal's based on that case, having ballastics of near the 06 took a lot of ctg's out of the game. Most of the old ctg's were 45,000 psi. The 308 is 55,000+. These new short mags, are at 65,000. Let's face it, velosity sells guns. I don't think that most people realize that you couldn't blow your nose on the real differance between the 300 sav and 308. I think that a 250 sav with a 1 in 10 twist barrel is a much more versitile ctg than the 243. I would like to see a 338/08, and 25/08. A man with a 7X57 is pretty well armed except maybe for the griz bears. I guess that in the last 20 or so years, game animals have gotten harder to kill. dingus

In the truly obscure category, I'm becoming enamoured of the 9x57 Mauser. I have two of them now, and would like to have a Euro break-open single in 9x57R, just for grins. The 9x57 served the .358/.35 Whelen role admirably on several continents for donkey's years, and is still as functional as it ever was. A 200 gr bullet at 2400 fps or a 250 at 2200 fps will pretty much kill anything killable, at least in my world. Another fading round I am working toward building a rifle for is the wonderful .356 Winchester...which produces pretty much the same effect in light, handy lever rifles.

I also have a Zoli combination gun featuring a 7x57R underbarrel -- the old Mauser round is actually fairly common and has a steady constituency -- but its rimmed cousin is a bit hard to come by.

Lately I've been doing a lot of prairie dogging with a .225 Win. (Sav. 340) and taking a goodly number of deer using a .25-35 ( Sav. 1899 and Win 94). I have a dream of going on a hunting trip with a bunch of like-minded friends using nothing but 100-plus-year-old rifles. Mine are 1895 Savage in .303 Sav, and several 1899 Savages in .303S, 30-30, .25-35, .32-40, and .38-55. along with the Win 94 in .25-35.
How many here still hunt with the Win 71? With this recent interest in old cartridges, I'd like to see the old .348 chambered in something new--as well as the .32-40 and .25-35. Steve

7x64 Brenneke. Mine's a Sako 691 with a S&B 6x42 I bought in Norway. I make no secret of being a total 7mm slut and this is a good one. The ballistic (and darn near case) twin of the .280 Remington dating back to I believe 1917. If this one had crossed the pond and caught on the .270 Winchester wouldn't have stood a chance! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> It's funny how much I read over here about the 6.5x55's use on Moose in Scandinavia, and it is popular, but I see lots more of the "serious" hunters over there, the guys who live it like us and go abroad such as to Africa, with the 7x64.

Steve, I fully agree with you on the 225 mine is built on an Martini weighs in at 19 pounds. I too would like to do a hunt with rifles at least 100 years old. My favorite presently is a Remington roller in a very obscure cartridge 12.7x44r. I also have a Savage in 303 it is really a parts gun and a couple side by side 12 guage shot guns built prior to 1903 as well as an original 1858 44 Remington revolver. I would like to try my 6MM Lee navy on antelope, I bet that has not been done in a real long time.

Bullwnkl.

Wy Swede,

You had to ask! The 9.3x62, 9.3x74R, and 9.3x57, of course. Did you expect anything else? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

However, in reality, I like about anything except the .223, .243, .270, .30-06, 7mm Mag, and .300 Winnie. Course after thinking about it, I mentally counted at least 12 rifles of the above mentioned calibers stashed away in my hoard. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> What the Heck? I am a hopless rifle crank! I admit it! I have a problem! What are the 12 steps?
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Well, the .250 Ackley Improved is my first wildcat, but so far, I really like it. I guess it could be called obscure. Getting 3150 with 100gr Hornadies, which worked good on the only deer I've killed with it, and 2938 with 117gr Sierras. I believe it will prove to be more satisfactory for me than my 6mm was. Come to think of it, I guess the 6mm was kinda obscure compared to the .243.

John

I'm in love with the .280.

WyomingSwede
Just cant beat the 8X57 and the 9.3X62.......
Charlie

My favorites aren't so obscure anymore, 45-70, 38-55, 220 Swift and 264 win mag. As for 9 3GUY, I think the first step towards recovery was admitting you have a problem, the second step would be getting rid of "all" of them, I can give you my address to send them to and you will be a happier man <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />.

The popularity of the 225 on this thread surprises me. That would be one of the first on my list. My "love affair" with it started when a local store "dropped off" over 50 boxes of red and yellow box ammo at the local dump a number of years ago. I then found an old M670 Winchester to shoot it in. I'd like to get a Ruger #1 barreled or rechambered to 225. It ain't necessarily better - it's just good.

I'd also like to get a 30/40 Krag in a #1.

I like the 300 H&H and am fascinated with the 35 cals. The 358 Win is on my rack and the 358 Norma will hopefully join it. The 350 Rem Mag in a Rem Model Seven or short Ruger 77 would really be icing on the cake.

Steve, those old 71's were a real game getting rifle. The 358 win is almost a dead ringer for it ballastically. Back in the 50's and 60's, this was the gun the alaskian guides used. That case was wild-catted to a number of 375, 40 and 45 cal ctgs. That was one serious rifle, and maybe one day I could afford at least the browning copy. dingus

My two favorite deer rifles are a Savage Model 99 in 358 and a Winchester Model 88 in 338-08.
Two excellent rounds for anything this side of 200yds.

My current favorite is the 356 Winchester. That round was my introduction to the Model 94 Winchester, as I just couldn't bring myself to buy a 30-30 <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'll take either a 356 or 358, depending on action.

My second favorite, the 308, certainly isn't "obscure", it just doesn't seem to get much respect on many of the forums. Folks want something different than the masses, and the 308 has been around too long <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

An obscure round that I really want, but don't have yet, is the 9.3x62 Mauser. Beats the 35 Whelan nicely IMHO, and that is coming from a 35 fan...