Biggest cartridge flops ...

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WSSM's developed nothing new in a shorter package, in EVERY caliber.

In a few calibers it might have worked by I literally lost count of how many rifles and chamberings were available. The number that show up on discount retailers is telling.. they couldn't sell them and Winchester/Olin spent a fortune.

.327 seemed to have came and went at high speed. Lots of MFG's jumped on the bandwagon.
 
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Regarding the failure of the .327 Fed Mag. . . I think somebody better tell the buyers of those Ruger and Taurus revolvers in that it is a failed cartridge. Pretty much every one of the 327's that have been up for auction sold within the last 90 days. Around $500 for Taurus and around $1K for Rugers. Not like the 45 GAP's that go for fire sale prices...

It took a while but things are definitely picking up for that cartridge.
 
Onward Allusion said:
Regarding the failure of the .327 Fed Mag. . . I think somebody better tell the buyers of those Ruger and Taurus revolvers in that it is a failed cartridge. Pretty much every one of the 327's that have been up for auction sold within the last 90 days. Around $500 for Taurus and around $1K for Rugers. Not like the 45 GAP's that go for fire sale prices...

It took a while but things are definitely picking up for that cartridge.
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I agree Onward. I don't think we have seen the end of the .327.
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Keep in mind neither Taurus, Ruger nor S&W still makes any .327 Federal revolvers. That would explain both the demand and high price, just like with a Colt revolver.

Glock still makes the 37, 38 and 39.
 
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When .327 came out I was planning to buy the first .327 SP101 I saw (in a gun store). I had several .32 guns so it seemed a natural. I go to gun stores fairly often and given all the attention .327 was getting I figured it would be a done deal in short order. I still haven't seen one in person. Not the SP or any other .327. I've seen the ammo, but never a gun. I have seen .357 magnum 1911s and many other odd things but not that. I figure that window has closed.

To me a flop is something that is widely available to the target market but the market doesn't want it. E.g. S&W brand bicycles or the Zune. I saw a lot of stores pushing the short magnum rifles that don't seem to be around any more.

Thinking about it, wasn't there a whole mess of non-.223 intermediate power cartridges a few years ago? Like 6.5 grendel, 6.8 spwhatever, .50 beowulf, .300 blackout, etc. As far as I can tell some or all of these died when .308 AR-pattern rifles went mainstream, or during ammopocalypse II.
 
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HexHead said:
Keep in mind neither Taurus, Ruger nor S&W still makes any .327 Federal revolvers. That would explain both the demand and high price, just like with a Colt revolver.

Glock still makes the 37, 38 and 39.
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Thats true. But to Ed Ames's point as well the .327 Federal sold very well from the moment it was introduced. It demanded a premium from day one which only grew as it was dropped. I bought the only one I ever saw. Its a Taurus 85. I put .32s in it and gave it to my mom. For whatever reason after all of the marketing and anticipation they just never made enough to give it a chance. Yet. It could be a result of the wider Macro shocks the gun market has felt in the last six years. It could be because it has Federals name on it instead of a gun maker. But I don't think its a result of demand. High demand will not necessarily result in increased production, usually due to scarce resources or regulations. That is often short term. I think the .327 may see another day.
 
Wikipedia has a good read on the .480 Ruger. Sounds like the very weak loadings early on didn't give it an advantage over the already established .454 and it now competes with the new S&W Magnum bullets.

Thats a real niche market, even more so than the lever action market. The difference between success and failure in that market is pretty thin.
 
This thread is now making me consider varying degrees of flops based on target markets. I do not know a whole lot about gun smithing or the machinery. But I know a thing or two about marketing and messaging. I would think the WSSM debacle was far more costly of a flop for Winchester than the .480 has been or will be for Ruger. One was targeting a niche market. The other was trying to revolutionize how we kill deer. In my memory Winchester put a heck of a lot of resources behind the WSSM line. They also have the double whammy of the big bore cartridges in not only designing a cartridge for a niche market but also redesigning(or just strengthening) the 94 action in the process.

On a side note, my brother in law has a Winchester 70 in 300WSM. Fine gun and a fine round. That was before they went one step too far and added an s.
 
Ackley calibers are alive and well. Just not available to anyone who doesn't reload. I know of several who use say the .223Ack, .257Ackley, among others. To include those as "flops" would be to include thousands of one-off wildcat cartridges that shooters use. I thought we were thinking more of the commercially available loads introduced.

I do have to give the nod to the 222Remington Magnum. The .222 Rem survived as a accurate round, but the mag version just croaked with the .223/5.56 adoption by NATO.
 
.41 Action Express. Cause of failure? No USA big names offered it and the .40S&W was developed shortly after.
 
jerkface11 said:
Is there a bigger flop than .348 Winchester? Nothing else even uses that bullet diameter.
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I'll say the same thing I did back in post #75 the last time the 348 was mentioned:

While the 348's success has been modest, I wouldn't call a cartridge that was offered for 33 years in it's original incarnation and is still available in new rifles and ammo today 79 years later a "flop".

There's enough interest in the old girl yet that Hornady offers a plastic tipped spitzer bullet for it. Now there's something I thought I'd never see!
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Again, a "flop" is a cartridge that was NEVER popular, that came and went in a few years. The 9mm Federal was a flop. The 256 Win Mag was a flop. The WSSMs were a flop.

The 348 is a niche cartridge and it may eventually become obsolete, but if there's still enough demand that you can buy rifles and ammo 79 years after it was introduced, it's not and will never be a flop.
 
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I just thought of another one:

.32 NAA

I bought a .32 NAA barrel for my makarov but never installed it because I couldn't find brass or dies for this cartridge. Now that barrel is just collecting dust in my closet...

Looked like an interesting concept (kinda like a mini .357 sig round) but it never took off...

I think .25 NAA was an even bigger failure?
 
AMT 9mm Magnum

AMT 10mm Magnum

As far as I know nobody else ever chambered any guns for them, and AMT only made a few thousand. Which is sad, because the 10mm AMT makes the 10mm Auto look a bit wimpy...
 
Neo-Luddite said:
.45 GAP ~ no real niche to be filled, no real point but marketing.
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The 45 GAP has been mentioned a lot as a flop, and from an American perspective the round isn't popular and can't do anything the venerable 45 ACP doesn't already do.

However, in some countries cartridges used or ever used by the military are banned for civilian use. If you lived there, the 45 GAP would be just the thing; approximately 45 ACP ballistics without being a "military" cartridge.
 
.45 Gap.....followed by the Winchester/Remington SAUM, WSM, and all those short, fat belted fellows....pretty much duplicating what is already better, anyway.
 
.41AE vs the 10mm & .40S&W.....

I think IMI/Action Arms was the only gun maker really pushing the .41AE. It had decent ballistics & could have been a great CC/duty pistol caliber.
The major interest in the T&Es of 10mm sidearms then the extremely popular .40S&W(starting with Smith and Wesson's 4006 series & US police agencies wanting it).
The .41AE is much like the .40Super or the less known .400Corbon. :rolleyes:

I guess no forum members posted the big .451 Detonics pistol round. That was not very well received by the US shooting sports industry either.
The huge semi auto pistol with the "old school" red laser aimer that actor Arnold Swarchznegger waves around in The Terminator(1984) was a Detonics .451 caliber.

Rusty
 
Son in law's Best Quality Holland rifle in .244 H&H magnum. I refuse to load for it.
 
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