Enjoyed the article. Page might have sold as many 6mms for the gun makers as O'Connor did 270s and the 25s lost out through no fault of their own.

I've owned several 243s and a 6mm Rem. IMO there's not enough ballistic difference to justify the 6mm Rem if you ever try to sell or trade it. 243s are easy to move, 6mm Rems. seem to take a while.

I remember when several people I hunted with jumped on the 243/3-9 variable scope bandwagon so they could have one rifle for deer and groundhogs. Then they found it was a good idea to have different bullets for each with different scope zeros. That's when a lot of the 243s became dedicated deer rifles.

I think the 6mm Rem has the edge over the 243, by the same margin as the 240 Weatherby has over the 6mm Rem. Matter of fact the 6mm come close to matching the 240.

I wished I hadn't read it. Now, I want a new 6MM.

He shouldn't be tempting a rehabbing reprobate Rifle Looney with articles like that.

I bought a 6 MM Rem. on Pages recommendation and used it as my only rifle for years. I killed several hundred Texas cull deer and lots of coyotes/pigs with it. It is a Ruger 77 flat bolt/tang safety with a 1500 serial # and 2x7 Redfield; brand new in 1969. It still shoots about 3/4" with 90 gr. NP handloads.

It has been retired and I now use a Ruger 77 long action tang safety in 6.5 Rem. with 125 NP for the same duties. More bullet moving a little faster; 3315 fps.

Page was a genius!

I bought a 700 BDL 6mm new when I was 14 with my lawn mowing money. Used it almost exclusively through high school and most of college. It's accounted for at least 10 deer and hundreds of rabbits and rock chucks. Bore is looking a little worn but it still shoots. I also have a model 7 blued walnut in 6mm that I bought off a guy 10 or so years ago. Now I'm thinking I need this years CDL SF limited in 6mm.

I love a 6mm but when I had a new custom longish range varminter built last year I went with a 243 because it gives me more room to seat the long bullets out. Both are great rounds.

Bb

I haven't been without a 6mm Rem since 1971 , now own 6mm Rem, 243 Win, and 240 Wby. I love the 24's

Same here wish the military and DOD would have planted a 24 on the 223 case way back...

Whelenman,

The 6mm comes close to the .240 only if you load it pretty darn hot.

With a 100-grain bullet seated to standard factory overall length, the .243's water capacity is around 50 grains, the 6mm's 52, and the .240's 58.

Of course, capacity will vary a little bit with brand of brass in the .243 and 6mm, but not enough to change the ballistics substantially. They are far more similar to each other than to the .240.

I enjoyed the article, John is a great writer, but its hard for him to hide the fact that he likes the 257 roberts better than the 6mm.

HA!

Actually, I just bought a really nice little Husqvarna .243 from the Campfire. It weighs 7 pounds with scope, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it shoots. (I already know the .243 can kill stuff....)

Nice article, but it did not make me want out go out and buy one.

I've never owned a 6mm. Even as a kid in the '50's, I was attracted to the 25's and not the 6mm�s. The 25's were under loaded, but still seemed better.

243 for me. Started with one when I was 14, and have come back around to it over the last few years. I can't see what it can't do.

Wish Remington would make a factory 6-06 or the 240Bee.

I have always had a soft spot for the 6mm. I have a .243 in the house these days and there isn't a whole lot of difference between them, but if I get any lazier, I won't want to load my own ammunition anymore, and the .243 has a lot more options in factory ammunition.

Dad spoiled me rotten in the 1970's with the gift of a 6mm Rem 700 BDL, topped by a 3-9x Leupold. Pretty interesting gear for a kid, and I put it to good use!

These days my youngest son hunts with that same rifle. Great little cartridge for vicious rodents as well as deer.

I had just started a .240 Wby. project and read the article with interest. In fact, the article was cut out and is in my .240 Wby. folder in the shop.

John researches his stuff carefully and it shows in his writings.

Thanks, John.

DF

Thank YOU.

Good read ,I Had read how marginal the 6mm's were for deer and had passed judgement by way of gun mag's. I wanted to get a 257 for my sons when my neighbor told me his rifle was a 6mm Rem and what a killer it was.He owned a orchard and had shot hundreds of deer in his life. He had even shot two moose at crazy long range. When I asked how far the moose ran an what kind of blood trails he said they didn't run they just sank down dead.
So one day at Wally world I saw two Rem model 7's youth in 6mm Rem on clearance for 180. dollars. I brought one home and loaded some 100 gr Nosler partitions for the insurance and my sons slayed deer and with extreme effectivness.
Well they moved up to other rifles and the 6mm sat in the safe. Then two years ago on the fire folks were singing praises for the 85 grain TSX so I bit and the first load of 46 gr of Reloader 19 shot into an inch.I got about a 105 yard shot at a small WT buck. He reared up and fell back and there was blood 6' up in the trees. That was a test case of one Barnes but with the Noslers too I no longer feel its marginal in any way for deer.
My youngest shot a doe at 281 lazerd yards and she dropped he said its early and I have never seen you shoot a deer.I had a husky 30-06 with 165 powerpoints and hit a large doe about an hour latter at 90 yards and she ran about ninty yards sans the top of her heart my son looked at me and said your gun doesn't killum like mine.

Its a sad day when Dad's '06 don't kill 'em as good as Jr's 6mm. Hahahaha.

John, I read an old article you penned where you lost a deer overnight with the 243 and the coyotes had gotten to it by the time you found it the next day. You said the incident soured you on the 6mm's.

I know that was years ago but what warmed you back up to the 6mm's, I'm guessing its the new bullets...

Heck, I just wish a major company would make the 6x45 a factory cartridge. Oh well its loaded by Cor-Bon and Black Hills and is a simple little wildcat with componets everywhere. I have a soft spot for the little 6x45 as its the only wildcat I've ever owned.

After some more experience I decided that one overnight deer was just one of those things.

It only went about 75 yards, but into really thick stuff, and there wasn't any blood trail. I was hunting with an older guy who didn't have much patience with my claim that the crosshairs were in the right place when the rifle went off. We were hunting in his pickup, and after looking for more than an hour he said he had to get home.

I didn't sleep much that night and insisted we go back the next day--and I found the deer within minutes, thanks to a magpie coming out of the thick stuff. Turned out I hit it perfectly, too, right through the top of the heart. The bullet (a 105-grain Speer Hot-Cor) also appeared to work perfectly, since there was about a 1" hole through the heart.

Since then I've seen a lot of rounds sometimes result in more or less the same thing, including a .300 Winchester Magnum loaded with 200-grain Partitions. As a result of those experiences (and others) I don't believe nearly as much in the difference between most cartridges as many people too--or I used to.

My change of attitude about the 6mm's hasn't been so much the new bullets but seeing a lot more game taken, with a lot of different rounds and bullets.

Makes a lot of sense. I've taken probably 20-25 deer and pronghorns with the 243 and always had excellent results. A few ran a little like you said but most went right down. I've never used anything but Cor-Lokts and Interlocks in the 243 but the critters didn't seem to like them at all...

John, see, that's because you didn't use a 6mm Remington, a vastly superior cartridge design. (Guess which variety of pretty much the same thing I use? )

Funny you should mention a change in attitude. I must have been 13 when Uncle Jack shot a doe at close range (under a hundred) with his new and much bragged up .243 Winchester. Between ribs in and out with no indication of expansion by the old Silvertip. I put it down with a .30-'06 (Grandpa's sporterized Springfield) using 180 grain factory somethings. Pretty much soured the whole party on the .243, certainly Jack as it looked like he was about to wrap it around a fence post. I don't think Jack's brothers who were part of the expedition would've let him live it down except out of kindness.

Fast forward almost 40 years, I'm back in South Dakota and decide to try the 6mm Rem. on deer, the one I set up for coyotes, just for fun. Darned if it doesn't just plain work and that old .30-'06 is the one that gets pulled out just occasionally for something different. Funny, a cousin's kids who were introduced to deer hunting with a .243 think a .30-'06 is about the minimum. I just smile.

Time and unnecessary recoil and rifle weight do odd things to a guy. Best of all, it's one of those six millimeters and not a damned .243.

nighthawk,

Ah, another one of those famous "examples of one"....

An awful lot of hunters decide they know all about killing power after a few dozen animals, because each instance is magnified. But if you see a few hundred (or a few thousand) taken, you become aware that "killing power" (like anything that depends on numerous variables) follows a bell curve.

Anything can happen at the far ends of the curve, whether dropping an elephant with a .22 rimfire to having a whitetail doe run off quite a ways after a heart-lung shot from a perfectly adequate deer rifle.

One of my favorite examples of one was a springbok I shot during a cull hunt in South Africa almost a decade ago. I was testing the then-new (and short-lived) 260-grain .375 Nosler Ballistic Tip. It had worked very well up to that point, dropping various animals up to over 500 pounds quickly, and penetrating deeply.

A pair of springbok came trotting along, a male and female, pushed by drivers on horseback in the valley below. They didn't look all that alarmed, so I tracked them and when they stopped I shot the male (or "ram" as they're called). He dropped right there, as you might expect from an 80-pound animal shot with a .375 H&H.

The ewe ran a little way at the shot, then stopped to look back at where the ram dropped. At the shot she took off running again, going close to 100 yards before slowing and then falling. There was a hole on the other side of the chest you could stick the end of a football in.

From that experience we might extrapolate that the .375 H&H isn't really enough for antelope the size of Labrador retrievers, or that it was a really good thing when Nosler bonded the 260-grain Ballistic Tip less than a year later, because it wasn't tough enough. Instead, all it meant was that sometimes bullet diameter, expansion and velocity don't affect animals the way we theorize they should!

Some creatures (and people) don't give up the ghost like others do.

True dat, John, or his lovely bride Eileen will have to tell you the story of her antelope buck in Wyoming sometime....it was apparently beamed down as a cyborg from a spaceship in the future...and mere bullets couldn't kill it!

I had a deal like that once as well, we called her the whitetail from hell. Lets just say that the brawl included my 340 and enough 250 Speers to take on a small country. And it was an Igloo deer if you catch my drift..

Dober

I had one too...a smallish mule deer buck in the Marias river breaks we dubbed " The Terminator"...

Nuff said...

That's a good story!

As many people have noticed, an alarmed or rutting animal is often harder to kill.

That particular pronghorn buck was severely "harassing" a doe. Eileen placed the first shot perfectly at about 200 yards, putting a 120-grain Nosler Partition from her .257 Roberts tight behind the buck's shoulder. Blood started pumping from the exit hole in a stream almost an inch in diameter, indicating one of the major blood vessels had been whacked.

After a light reaction to the sound of the shot, the buck started harassing the doe again. Eileen shot him again, pretty much in the same place, whereupon he quit bothering the doe and eventually bedded down, and then lay his head down. When Eileen and our friend Casey Tillard approaching him, though, his head came up and he tried to horn Casey. Eileen shot him again at least twice with the .257 before the buck finally decided to expire. When field-dressed, there wasn't any blood pooled in the chest cavity, because he had finally, totally bled out, over a period of several minutes.

From that we might extrapolate that a .375 H&H might be adequate for pronghorns--if it wasn't for that doe springbok in South Africa.

Yeah the Marias river critters can be tough, that's where I encountered the yote from hell also.

The Terminator bucks and such will test ones hunting/cartidge maturity just a wee bit.

Dober

True dat...Shari got one too...a nicish mule deer buck that finally augered in after 7 shots.....seven nice entrance holes in the chest cavity, seven nice exit holes...the " Swiss" deer...

Those Swiss are tough bastids...grin

Dober

A friend of a friend in northern Maine shot a big whitetail buck up there several times in the chest before it went down. I don't recall how many times for sure, but it was something like 3-5 shots ... with a muzzleloader.

I don't have the details of shot placement or bullet type, but given the amount of time it had to take to reload, I'm not sure it really matters.

WITH A MUZZLELOADER! Now that deer was a Masochist!

Now that sounds like a neat rifle!!!

I remember that story of the Cyborg Goat.

I've had one hog that was like that she took several shots from several rifles, ironically the final rifle that finshed the nasty affair was a 243. But I know it was just coincidence as all the rifle were adequate for Miss Piggy...

Got Savage 110 in 243 that I have had for 20 years. It's worn 3-4 scopes, shot 70, 80, 85, and 100gr bullets into very tight groups and has killed several deer. There is bluing wear on the bolt knob, safety, and trigger for good reason. Groups have opened up a bit (still under 1") and I figure it's f due to wear. I have shot the schitt out of it because it's accurate and doesn't kick like European soccer player. Never had to track a deer that I shot with it either. They have either dropped like a rock or I saw 'em fall. All deer were shot with (wait for it) 100gr Remington Core Lokts that were handloaded. One thing I have found with this gun is that you pick a bullet and about any powder and you'll get the thing to shoot like it's paid for it. Heck with 70gr Hornady SPs (which are very short for their weight) and 43gr of Big Game, Dad and I taking turns shooting shot a 7 shot group at 100 yards about 3/4". To me, that was impressive.

The 100 gr Core-Lokt's are what I have used the most too...

I hear ya LBP. Slap a deer in the important parts and get your knife ready.

Ingwe"s Swiss deer reminded me of my first antelope. I was crawling up an easy rise hoping to get a shot down the other side where a small group of antelope were grazing. Unknownst to me they were walking up the other side, almost straight towards me. Well before I reached the top, a nice, younger, but very shootable buck sky-lined himself right in front of me at about 100 yards. He turned almost broadside and stared at me, and posed like a statue. I was quickly in a classic kneeling position to clear the intervening grass and low sage and the first shot went. Not a flinch or the bat of an eyelash of reaction from the buck as the bolt action seemed to operate itself, the cross-hairs settled and the second shot was off.

Again, no reaction whatsoever. My mind reeled as the bolt operated itself again. "I can't believe I am missing." "Is my scope knocked out of wack?" "Am I shooting at a phantom? Did I actually see the buck move before I started shooting?" "Could I be shooting at a decoy?" And then the third shot was on its way.

Again, no reaction. Three shots in about three seconds. "Am I shooting blanks?" "I give up! Lord, what is happening here?" The buck is still staring at me.

As I stand up erect, the buck slowly crumpled straight down in its spot. Very dead.

On the Campfire several folks are fond of saying we never get to shoot 3-shot groups on game. Well, sometimes we do.

Nicely placed on the chest were three 7mm holes in less than two inches. On the offside, three holes only slightly bigger, in less than two inches.

This occured very early in my big-game hunting career. I wasn't familiar with antelope, and I hadn't seen "statue-mode" before. Also, I expected my 7x57 to just "Knock 'em right off their feet like the Hammer of Thor" shooting the high-pressure Norma factory load with their 150 gr semi-pointed "Torpedo" bullet. After all, Mr Bell shot elephants with his 7x57.

That bullet would probably be good on elk. And before someone squawks about a sky-line shot, I was well aware of what was in that direction (wide-open prairie for miles). For you Easterners, if you haven't hunted Wyoming-type terrain it is hard to imagine. Like hunting on the moon, with grass and lots of low thorny stuff. And the only other human (or vehicle) within miles was my hunting partner well to my rear. Had he been up close to me he might have seen the first bullet impacting the hair on the chest in a good spot and been able to tell me to just take a couple of deep breathes and wait for the crumple.

Every hunt gives us another chance to learn something about our bullets and about the animals we hunt, and how they can react many different ways to the shot.

Read it the other day. Good article, even if'n it was actually a thinly-disguised 250 Savage/257 Bob scribble. ;O)

Dube,

You saw that grin on his face with the speed goat, holding a Kimber Classic in .257 Bob. Like the cat that just ate the canary, feathers on it's mouth and all...

It WAS hard to tell that he was actually writing about the "other sixes" holding that Kimber...

Oh well...

Still a nice piece, that unfortunate detail, notwithstanding...

DF

It is the gaze of the shameless hussy, were they whiskered?

I've seen that on the faces of reformed snake oil salesmen, former bond hawkers and repentant sinners, fresh from the waters of redemption.

Treachery of the finest crafting. Note that he even drags Ms B into it, by noting the failure of the 90gr ETip? ;O)

Ah, yes, the agitators of the Internet!

Luckily, I have become somewhat immune to such nefarious nabobs of nonsense.

Can't fault a person for being a 25 caliber slut.

Can think of a lot worse...

Fixed it. Ran a sheet of heavy stock paper through the printer and pasted it over P. 72. Now sez, "A Veiled Homage To Nearly Forgotten Quarter Bores".

Makes more sense and won't confuse anyone that winds up with this particular copy, years down the road. Yep. Looks just about right now. ;O)


Have had a 24" CM .257 bull barrel in the corner for some time. Could never decide if it needed to be a 250 Savage or 257 Roberts barrel? If it were a sporter barrel, one or the other would've already "happened".

Yea, the 6.5/06 and 6/06 are reasonable case/bore volume ratios; the 6mms have been popular for a long time now and the 6.5s are coming on strong. Either or both seem a natural. Too close to the 25/06 and the 270? Can't be-- there are plenty of sick people out here!

Glad I didn't see your article John; I've been thinking 6, 6.5 for awhile now-- whatever it takes.

What model is it?

I haven't looked it up yet. Whatever it is, it's been rebarreled with a very slim 22-incher. The inside looks good through the bore-scope, but I haven't had a chance to shoot it yet.

Where can I read the article ? I tried going over to American rifleman but cant find it.

Page 72 in the August, 2011, American Rifleman.

DF

thanks dirt farmer,do i have to be suscribed to access the article online ? The only two articles i could see on there were an article about how bullets perform on game and rifle barrel cleaning.
Craig

Not sure about the online version. Maybe someone will chime in on that.

RKR

Love that 6mm Remington. Here's a shot of my boy with his first elk. Nice cow at 350 yards. The left shoulder hole is the exit wound from the 90 gr. E-Tip. One shot and she went about 25 yards!!

E-Tip , Accubond, then Partition.

Nice, looks like the makings of a late night though..grin

Dober

Mark it was a late night. Midnight to be exact when she was hung and skinned! Did it again the next night with a young friend of my son's who had never hunted before. He too got a nice cow!

Nice job, and nice cow!

John,
Nice work on the 6 article and the scopes, too. I bet you pricked some hackles with that remark on L/R bases. Snrk.
I especially cackled at the comment that the sixes zapped the 257s, even if it makes a certain amount of shameful sense. Still, the next two barrels on my "list" are a 6-250 and a 257 AI.

Dave,

Glad you liked the articles!

The last two rifles I've purchased (both within the past two weeks) have been a .243 Win. and a .25-06 Rem., both with custom barrels. So I'm not exactly a .25-only guy!

It was a good article.I kept waiting for the 6MM AI to be mentioned.

Still waiting.[That new 243 barrel will clean up,JB]

Glad you liked the article, but Why mess around with the 6mm AI when I already have a very accurate .240?

Because *rifle looneyism* is a terrible disease...

But the 6AI fits in a short action.

Since when do YOU need someone to help you justify a new rifle?

I found the American Rifleman link to John's article.

http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/other-6-mm-ammunition/

DF

Dirtfarmer I really appreciate your help.
thsnks,Craig

JB,

Would like to offer my thanks for the article as well!

As per usual, very factual, informative, and objective. And since putting it down, I have been obsessed with turning a perfectly good, yet inferior, .243 win into a 257 Roberts.....bastige....

Just hafta own one of those now...

Bob

HA!

The only real advantage I've found in the .257 is that "ordinary" 117-120 grain bullets tend to work very well, since it's almost impossible to push them fast enough to come apart on deer-sized game. They do provide a little edge in bone-busting over "ordinary" 100-105 grain bullets in the .243.

When using "premium" bullets their pretty much peas in a pod, though there might be a slight advantage to, say, 115 TSX's or 115 and 120-grain Nosler Partitions over anything available in 6mm. But it wouldn't make a heck of a lot of difference at least 99% of the time.

My wife deliberately shot a mature Montana whitetail buck through both shoulders and the spine at about 175 yards a few years ago with the .240 Weatherby and the 100-grain Partition factory load. The bullet went right on through everything.

Now, it probably wouldn't have on a cow elk, but then a 115-grain Partition might not have either. I did run into a guy from Bozeman who's wife put a 115 Partition into a mature cow elk. He told her to aim behind the shoulder, but somehow the bullet ended up hitting the shoulder bone, just above the big joint. It went through that shoulder, the vitals, and the other shoulder before stopping under the hide.

What does the OGW formula say about that?

As far as I can tell, it doesn't say anything about different bullets!

I had similiar reaction as BlackBart did after reading the 243win. Meaning perhaps I should have rebarrelled to a 257rob instead of 243win

Check out this link on the OGW and other theories of killing power, like the Taylor Index, etc.

http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/myths.html

DF

See the smiley I put in my post?

Ackley REALLY helped the 257 Bob.

I saw that tongue in cheek smiley face...

The link looks like a pretty thorough look at the various theories of bullet effectiveness. I haven't had time to study it much, but passed it on.

DF

Enjoyed the article.

Agreed there isn't much difference between the 6mm Remington and the .243 Winchester - I suppose I agree with whoever said the 6mm can be considered a mildly improved .243 - with tad more powder it will go a tad faster but the .243 is a tad cheaper to feed with cases and powder for folks who settle for good enough and it is good enough even overkill on varmints.

I had a .243 and my wife an otherwise identical 6mm stocked to fit her and I never saw any difference but I did find the .243 finicky - in those days I was checking case head expansion to tenths with a jig from one of the bullet makers and the .243 struck me as finicky.

After my wife died I bought a stock for the 6mm and kept it with both stocks. A neighbor's 6mm-'06 seemed to kill black tailed jacks just a tad faster - not any deader but during the last black tailed jack population boom - very early 80's - maybe a beat faster? Maybe not and any difference was just one kick or none. Likely I didn't use the best bullet for the purpose which may be an issue with a jack of all trades cartridge.

On the other hand I also agree with whoever said the average gun buyer when both the .243 and the 6mm were new didn't reload and didn't much know or care the difference in external ballistics and bullet weight.

Although certainly a loony at the time I was too young to be a rifle loony and I read Sports Afield with Pete Brown and Townsend Whelan over Warren Page and his guided hunts and foreign adventures. Then as now Sports Afield had some of the best writers smiley. Certainly I had never heard of Fred Huntington and his 6mm adventures at the time - though I was most impressed by Mr. Huntington when I did meet him decades later. So I agree with whoever first said the T-65(?) was touted as a wonder case design giving every bit of the performance of the .30-'06 (which it did in in military ball equivalents but that wasn't the way I read it at the time) so emotionally the .243 was 6mm-'06 - everybody knew the .30-'06 was better - read more powerful than the metric 7mm or 8mm cartridges - people were magnumizing bring backs with the 8mm-'06.

There has to be some emotional appeal to the .308 case or why the .25 Souper when the .25 Bob was already on the scene?