A "bad" rifle caliber/cartridge?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Go to Walmart. Look behind the gun counter at the ammunition they carry.

The calibers they stock, those are the good cartridges.

The ones you don't see; only of interest to the fanatics.

(Which incidentally, I suspect I am.)
 
The cartridge sizes that have been around for 70+ years will be around 100 years from now. The new exotics you read about in the gun mags will, save for a few, be history. As someone above said, if it is WSM it's near dead.
 
Missing in action...

Whatever happened to the 8mm Remington magnum? It's just about declared dead, isn't it? :confused:
 
i wouldn't spend my money on a .270 winchester when i can have a .30-06
Click to expand...

Does that make the .270 a bad caliber?

30 T/C seem like it never took off the way it was expected to
 
I'm about this < > close to broke. And they don't sell Savage anyhow.

But I will be at Carter Country on Treschwig tomorrow afternoon and I'm scared I'll be this <> broke!!!

Oh yeah, a buddy keeps saying .260 when I say .243. But I already saw .260 is dying....
 
"Is that a joke, or are you for real?"


His 6.5x55 Swede will do everything he can do in N. Carolina (and almost all other states), and it will do it very well.

Larger is purely pointless at best and possibly counterproductive.


:cool:
 
His 6.5x55 Swede will do everything he can do in N. Carolina (and almost all other states), and it will do it very well.

Larger is purely pointless at best and possibly counterproductive.
Click to expand...

I agree that the 6.5x55 will be a great deer cartridge for the poster. However, when you said anything "greater than .286" in diameter faster than a MV of 2800fps", I immediately thought "30-06", which seemed a bit awkward to accuse of being bad.
 
Hi Matt...

My personal opinion - the 30/06 is pointless and quite often counterproductive.
Click to expand...

Are you referring to deer hunting in this sense, or just shooting in general?

Being a long-range target shooter myself, I have come to love the cartridges which can push a high-BC bullet to near 3000FPS or above. I feel that the 50BMG is one of the greatest cartridges available for this purpose.
 
just some

Heres a few that went away fast
17 mach 1v
17/222
17 Remington
218 bee
219 wasp
219 zipper
225 winchester
33 winchester
 
Using the .223/5.56 cartridge as a mainline military round. Military personnel have been complaining about using this wimpy varmint round for an anti-personnel cartridge since the late 1960s and they're STILL doing complaining about it being a bad idea for a rifle.
Click to expand...

Really? I simply don't hear people in my unit complaining about 5.56mm. Especially not the ones who've killed bad guys with it -- they seem particularly happy with it.

When it first came out the military personnel would switch from the .223 rifle to an enemy AK-47 rifle or something else. I opted for a 7.62 NATO rifle. And, now, they still forget where they dropped their M-16s/M-4s to get to use an AK-47 or something else. Wake up, Uncle Sam. Listen to the troops.
Click to expand...

Really? It's strange that the super-cool kids who can pick whatever calibers and weapons they want, and who know as much or more than anyone on the planet about actual combat performance of military small arms from firsthand experience . . . primarily use 5.56mm carbines. If it's good enough for JSOC, I suppose it's good enough for the rest of us . . .

As for troops ditching their issue weapons in favor of AKs . . . simply doesn't happen, at least not with any frequency at all. Particularly not among combat arms units where guys actually rely on their individual weapons to actually put rounds on bad guys, etc.

This does bring up a point -- "bad" rifle caliber? 7.62x51/308 for general military service rifle use. It's a great round for MGs, for longer range precision rifles, and for civilian hunting . . . but pretty much an utter and absolute dud as a general issue rifle round.
 
"Are you referring to deer hunting in this sense, or just shooting in general?"

Anything.

It doesn't take a .30 caliber, or a .50 caliber, to put holes in paper... even at long range.

My comment is not against velocity - it allows for calibers like the .22/250 or .243 or ..25/06 or 260 Remington or 7mm Mag. or the 30/30 or .35 Remington. It simply eliminates anything over .286 traveling above 2800 because, again, in my opinion, they are pointless and often counterproductive. Anything that needs to be done in North America can be done without ever going above the 7mm/08, and certainly not above the 7mm Rem. Mag. That's fact.

:cool:
 
I suppose the 7.62 Nagant rifle suggested above was the pistol cartridge. I gotta say that the 7.62x54r Mosin Nagant is one of my favorite, very versatile, cartridges.
Click to expand...
Yes, it is a very anemic pistol cartridge that was used by the Russians 100+ years ago up until WWII. It shoots a 100 gr bullet at about 750 fps. Just powerful enough for a Russian officer to shoot a deserter in the back as he ran away. Its only saving grace is the fact taht the 1894 Nagant pistols chambered for this round are pretty neat guns.

I agree taht the 7.62x54R is a decent round.
 
Anything.

It doesn't take a .30 caliber, or a .50 caliber, to put holes in paper... even at long range.
Click to expand...

Shawnee,

There is a problem that long-range target shooters run into with middle-of-the-road cartridges. That problem is flight time. Flight time translates largely to wind drift and bullet drop. The only way that you can reduce flight time out to a distant target, is to use bullets with a very high ballistic coefficient, and moving at a good velocity. You can load high-BC bullets into a .308 Winchester, but they still aren't moving at a good velocity. So while they will retain energy, they won't yield any low flight times at 1000 yards. The 6.5x284 is probably the best 1000 yard cartridge below .30 caliber, but the BCs aren't the highest available out there.

Now examine cartridges like the 338 Lapua, 416 Barrett, and 50BMG. These are cartridges which will spit out a bullet of BC 0.7-1.0+, and do it near 3000FPS or above. The flight times and thus performance to 1000 or 1500 yards will mutilate any of the standard calibers you speak of. Because of this, there is a great use for them. And, they surely aren't counterproductive, knowing the type of accuracy they will produce at those ranges. Better accuracy equates to a better target cartridge, pretty simple. I think maybe you need to examine realistic uses of other cartridges, outside of the standard bubble you may shoot within.
 
30 T/C seem like it never took off the way it was expected to
Click to expand...

Hee hee, I'm sorry, but that one made me laugh. Just WHO, besides the most optimistic people at T/C, actually expected a cartride to take off that is redundant to .308 win & .308 Marlin and .300 Savage, a non-magnum round, when Americans are demonstrably, incurably afflicted with magnumitis, and with the low marketing budget that T/C has? That one was as easy to predict as a failure as a Cubs post-season.

I think Shawnee has an attitude problem. Does nothing please you Shawnee? - you remind me of these lyrics:
http://lyrics.astraweb.com/display/...ricas_least_wanted..everything_about_you.html
:p

I do agree with you though:

Anything that needs to be done in North America can be done without ever going above the 7mm/08, and certainly not above the 7mm Rem. Mag. That's fact.
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

M
  • Locked
The Most Versatile Rifle Cartridge For Anywhere (Everywhere) In North America Is...
2 3 4
Replies
79
Views
7K
Art Eatman
A
High Plains
New and old cartridges doing (nearly) the same
2 3 4
Replies
86
Views
3K
wombat13
W
N
  • Locked
Most "efficient" cartridge for each caliber?
2 3 4 5 6 7
Replies
156
Views
4K
Bcwitt
Bcwitt
F
  • Locked
New Rifle
Replies
16
Views
2K
cdb1
cdb1
M
  • Locked
tryin' to fill a gap with the wife's new rifle
Replies
5
Views
442
Sharps Shooter
S
Back
Top