Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Rifle cartridges - "It is time to cull the herd" Article by C. Boddington

Yup, hope they don't decide to cull my favorite round, it's only 121 yrs old and last year on it's 120 the birthday,I used it to bag my first elk with an appx 400 yd lung shot on a young cow.Long live the 8mm mauser!

Of couse if "they" do decide to cull my favorite,I'll never notice.I load mine to near 30/06 levels,and I believe The domestic ammo producers can't get it right anyways!
Hank

'06 OK
12 ga OK
but .38 Special revolver?

Better rounds for the task, no?

I think he meant that to be absurd (or at least severely limiting).

BMT

Why cull only cartridges Mister Boddington, we can go farther and cull some firearms too...Lever action, semi auto and why not, single shot. Can cull some manufacturers too. US President Barak Obama and Miss Clinton could like the idea...May be you stand too much time filming in Africa, too much sun is not so good.
In my poor small country, France, we had a congress man who had project of a law that was saying: two firearms are enought for hunters (and it's stricly right) but we also need only one TV or one car and so on. Thank God his law did'nt pass. But Boddington ideas can give some others, more dangerous, to your congress men!

TNriflemann; I'm with you! I don't own a 6MM, but I know guys that do.

Mr Boddington must be starved for writing material.

Not likely I really give a shxt about what some putz thinks should be 'my list' of choices.

I agree that Mr Boddington seems to be running out of something write about. You can bet that he doesn't have a rifle in one of those cartridge handed down by his grandfather or he wouldn't so quick to cull. Ammo is just brass, lead, and powder to the manufactures. I wonder if he thinks that Europe, Africa, and South America should cull the 7x57. Maybe 1/2 of the rifles on those continents. He probably wants to cull the Sav 99 and the Win 94, also. Oops, it's too late for those.

Next month he will probably explain the "need " for wildcat cartridges.
whelennut
I think maybe there are too many gun writers!

"SETTING THE RULES
The first rule is: Don't write me about this story. Write the editor instead, because it was his idea. Seriously, although my friend Jerry Lee asked me to do this piece, I've been thinking about it for a long time, because I honestly believe we have way too many factory cartridges. With new ones coming along all the time, something has to give.

I don't expect everyone to like this story. We all have our favorite cartridges, and if I happen to attack one of your pets you're going to be mad at me. That's okay. It's not really a subject where total objectivity is possible, on either your side or mine."

-----------------

Guys, guys, guys.....
CB prefaced the article, not sure why we're getting our undies in a knot over this......No one here EVER has an opinion on anything - self included....

Glad you brought that up,Skane.
Craig seems like a good guy to me.

Actually, I enjoyed the article, as I have all of Craig's work. A lot of thought obviously went into it, Although I don't agree with him on many points, he's right about many. However, the main reason to keep everything and add more is because we're all nuts (or looney) about rifles and cartridges. As witness one of Craig's favorites, a left-handed custom bolt action 8mm RemMag with a 28" barrel he's carried sheep hunting and many other places as well. The man's a certifiable rifle looney, too.

to all,

let's "cull the herd" on bureaucrats & politiciians & KEEP the calibers.=========> chuckle.

especially .401 wsl.

yours, PrestigeGunleather

Boddington is a deuche... and Sundra wrote that same article like 7-8 years ago... nice to see an original idea come through a gun rag.

Not to be redundant--but, well, yeah, I will be.

His editor assigned the article. Craig didn't think up the subject--which will be written up over and over in gun magazines as long as gun magazines exist. And it will always be a valid article, because so many new cartridges are introduced, over and over, like "new" recipes at IHOP.

And look what happened! A bunch of guys got on the Internet and bitched about it--and I'd bet 75% haven't read the article, even though a link was posted. This means that interest was stirred, so gotcha.

His only real mistake was the one many shooters and gun writers make: The .257 Roberts is a fine "short action" cartridge, and has been since its introduction, despite a lot of rifle loonies who believe otherwise.

Whether that means the Bob should survive is another question.

I don't see why any cartridge needs to go.

In my opinion, its the damn insanity around the SP NBT BTT TSX ACCUPART CL BC XTP TPO Reduced Recoil, High Velocity loads in 5 different weights per chambering that has gotten out of hand. In one search I found Able's has 50 different rounds for the .270 Win and Midway has 60.

More cartridges. Less bullshyte.

I've no need to read the article. I've already culled the herd. Hell, I never had a "herd." I figure a 30-06 will do it all. But then I've never subscribed to the golfer-approach to shooting, ie., a correct club for every situation... damn near Un-American I know

Now if we could just get you to hold onto a rifle for more than one season.....(grin)

Pre-64 in transit (grin).

Ailein: That's an interesting perspective but the truth is that there's an enormous amount of overlap amongst cartridges.None of them are any better than the bullets they shoot. I can make the 30/06 a chump-change big game cartridge tommorrow,utterly worthless,and a 7/08 THE gunto reach for,just by changing up the bullets that I feed them.

So the discussion on the bullets is worth FAR more than the cartridges,which are nothing but brass bottles to hold propellant.....bullets do the REAL work, not the cartridges...

In fact, of all the components required to make a rifle go "bang", the one we can get along without...is the cartridge.The technology is already there...we call it muzzleloading.......but it is deliberatley kept dumbed down.

We need propellant;we need an instrument to contain and ignite the propellant and direct the bullet;this is called a "rifle".We do not "need" a cartridge,and we know the technology already exists for a "caseless" cartridge,that can be loaded from the breach instead of the muzzle,in the form of a solid propellant, holding a bullet,and can be ignited.Things like the 270 and 30/06 will cease to exist.....

Even today,Dick cassul is making cartrdiges with steel heads that will take more pressure than our conventional brass bottles; but even that technology could be behind the times...

With a caseless cartridge there will be no more "weak link" in the form of brass cases that can only stand so much pressure,which in theory means higher velocity because the pressure will be contained by the rifle,not the cartridge,which can only take so much pressure and will cease to exist,and is the weak link in the chain.....and still,once again, the bullet will do the real work....this is why Boddington is not off base.Someday,we will not need ANY cartridges.

Then,what will we talk about?

Tell us more!!