Thread: Redundant Calibres

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

some needed to go - I had a 30M1 carbine for awhile - used when mate and I went pighunting - damn useless caliber--as was the 32-20 - gutless both of them unless the pig was 6 feet away - once tried to shoot a stag at about 80 yards with 30 M1 - took 3 to get it despite all good shots - shame the 7x57 never took off in NZ the way it should have

Im a big fan of these smaller 30 cals the only proviso is they must be accurate which a lot of those older ones wernt

If I could find a 30cal hollow point rimfire like an over grown version of a 22 sub that would be tops
not to mention it would get around the no semiauto centerfires

but the likely hood of that probably went extinct with those buffalo mentioned above and making primed rimfire cases is a bit outside my skillset

Problem is today there is too much choice...back in the 1990s the USA churned out 24 new calibres in a year. By contrast the early New Zealand Govt. deer hunters made do with the .303 (open sights) for deer, goats, pigs and wapiti, and private hunters had WW2 surplus 8mm rifles available as well. Then the .222, .243, and .270 calibres crept in. A new generation of hunters now has the .300 RUM, 7mm RUM, .300 WSM, .325 WSM, .270 WSM, 7mm SAUM, 7mm WSM, .223 WSSM, .243 WSSM, .25 WSSM, .338 RUM, .375 RUM, .204 Ruger, .22 Grendel, .22 TCM, 6mm TCU, .28 Nosler, 6.5 PRC, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5 Grendel, 7mm LRM, .300 Blackout, .338 Edge, and the .450 Bushmaster. Really? Are these all necessary??

7.62x39 has become largely redundant in NZ

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

shame the 7x57 never took off in NZ the way it should have

after the war and at the start of the culling glory days i guess the guys , as good kiwis do , made do with what they could get (ex mil 303) later our market got flooded with 8x57s as the euro countrys were frantically using old milsurp parts to arm the world....... then we started getting calibres designed more for hunting. thats probably why the 7x57 never gained the traction it deserved

i think there are still quite a few out there being used they just dont feel the need to tell everyone how good the calibre is (like creedmore drivers)......one would almost say the creedmore is like the vegan cyclist of the hunting world............

that should stoke the embers.....................

Have a look at the list of cartridges (not calibres ffs!) in Quickload and mesmerise yourself at the sheer number of cartridges you’ve never even heard of.

So many odd little men in their sheds making mostly pointless wildcats out of perfectly good pre-existing cartridge cases. But, to be fair, wildcatting is a hobby like many other mostly pointless exercises and if that’s what floats your boat, then go for it. And of course it must be remembered that some of these wildcats have spawned globally dominant cartridges that are already decades old and probably won’t go out of production for decades more to come.

The way I look at today’s new cartridges, is not to focus on the cartridge alone but to look at the barrel twist and projectiles promoted along with it. There’s a lot of cynical commentary about marketing (aimed at Hornady mostly) but the fact is that their new products are very smartly designed and have absolutely raised the bar for some of the long-standing calibres. Efficient, accurate, competition proven and thoroughly successful in the field, easy to load, excellent factory ammunition (e.g. Precision Hunter). Compare the performance of Precision Hunter in 6.5 Creedmoor to the traditional 6.5x55 factory ammo and you’ve got a great example of how lots of small incremental improvements add up to make a thoroughly superior product.

Contrast this to Sierra, who in their efforts to keep up with Hornady made an absolute dogs breakfast of the launch of the GameChanger bullets, screwing up the twist rate recommendations for the long-for-calibre bullets (e.g. 90 & 100gr 6mm), with a design that is fickle at best (putting in nicely) with the short bearing surface and very long ogive.

Who won the battle of coloured tips? Red or Green?

If you’re looking for a recent example of a cartridge that’s on a one way ride to redundancy, look at the 6.8 Western. There’s a reason Hornady has been so successful with new cartridges (and bullets, and getting rifle manufacturers to adopt the chamberings). Winchester & Browning probably should have considered why this is the case before they spent all that money designing, manufacturing and promoting a case that’s pretty much disappeared in 6 months. Go check out the availability of 6.8 Western related products… if you bought one of those in mid-2021 I’ll bet you’re wishing you got a .270 Winchester.

Originally Posted by scotty

after the war and at the start of the culling glory days i guess the guys , as good kiwis do , made do with what they could get (ex mil 303) later our market got flooded with 8x57s as the euro countrys were frantically using old milsurp parts to arm the world....... then we started getting calibres designed more for hunting. thats probably why the 7x57 never gained the traction it deserved

i think there are still quite a few out there being used they just dont feel the need to tell everyone how good the calibre is (like creedmore drivers)......one would almost say the creedmore is like the vegan cyclist of the hunting world............

that should stoke the embers.....................

How old are you two, you have to be kidding. The 7x57 was quite popular, and theres still a bunch of them floating around. It just got overwritten by the .308 in new rifles, and then the imports were mostly British rifles like the BSA, which the 7x57 was very common, changed to the US, who didnt chamber it in new rifles.
The 7x57 didn't gain traction...

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

some needed to go - I had a 30M1 carbine for awhile - used when mate and I went pighunting - damn useless caliber--as was the 32-20 - gutless both of them unless the pig was 6 feet away - once tried to shoot a stag at about 80 yards with 30 M1 - took 3 to get it despite all good shots - shame the 7x57 never took off in NZ the way it should have

I thought the 7x57 did - when me and my mates upgraded from the .303 we all got 7x57's. At that time I thought they were two only two calibres (apart from .22).
Then one day my BSA couldn't hit a dinner plate (was well used when I got it) and I had to go into town and get another one - and I got a 7x57 BRNO 600. That was 1969 and it cost me $180 at Tisdals in Wellington. They had Remington's, Winchester's (mate had one), Sako's and BRNO (other mate had a ZG47) and I got the BRNO because it was the only one in 7x57.
I got into reloading that real quick and that's the gun I used for almost all my hunting - got towed everywhere that gun.
The other gun I got (1970's) was a sporting M1888 Commission rifle in 6.5x54MS I thought was a Mannlicher - and I got that because it had a 'tipp-off' scope in claw mounts. Had twin triggers on it and they confused me more than once, so it got left at home despite its 'handiness' until I made a single trigger for it.

Had other guns - had all the BRNO's in 7x57 (or most of them) and others that attracted my attention - even a lightweight Rigby, but I kept going back to the old BRNO - so that's what I still got ............ and the 6.5.

When I bought that BRNO I was working at the Hutt Hospital as I ended up in there after falling off my motorbike over in the Wairarapa - I liked the food ........... or something. The bike was quite battered, one handle bar up, one down and a slightly buckled wheel and I took that into town to buy my new gun. On the way in I got picked up by a cop and picked up a raft of tickets including no WOF, rego, bike license and something else - and that added considerably to that gun.

Anyway - never regretted getting that BRNO in 7x57, it never ever gave a hiccup, but I can't say the same for the scopes I put on it. It wore an East German Zeiss, Macro Ziel and other German stuff - and they all leaked (about 5 of them). So I got a 3X Leupold M4 from Din Collings and that sat on that gun for over forty years

Originally Posted by JohnDuxbury

How old are you two, you have to be kidding. The 7x57 was quite popular, and theres still a bunch of them floating around. It just got overwritten by the .308 in new rifles, and then the imports were mostly British rifles like the BSA, which the 7x57 was very common, changed to the US, who didnt chamber it in new rifles.
The 7x57 didn't gain traction...

basically what i was trying to say ........but obviously came out wrong i guess

oh and im not as old as i feel but getting there

I have 222, 250sav and 7 x 57. A few companies still chamber 222 and 7 x 57 but not many.

I read in a hunting book from culling days that the ammo handed out for 270w and 7 x 57 was too hard and didn't expand leading to poor kills. I think the same author had his mate driving deer up to Gulley heads where a few of them would empty 10 shot Enfield mags and poke the barrel into the snow for a cool down.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

Have a look at the list of cartridges (not calibres ffs!) in Quickload and mesmerise yourself at the sheer number of cartridges you’ve never even heard of.

So many odd little men in their sheds making mostly pointless wildcats out of perfectly good pre-existing cartridge cases. But, to be fair, wildcatting is a hobby like many other mostly pointless exercises and if that’s what floats your boat, then go for it. And of course it must be remembered that some of these wildcats have spawned globally dominant cartridges that are already decades old and probably won’t go out of production for decades more to come.

The way I look at today’s new cartridges, is not to focus on the cartridge alone but to look at the barrel twist and projectiles promoted along with it. There’s a lot of cynical commentary about marketing (aimed at Hornady mostly) but the fact is that their new products are very smartly designed and have absolutely raised the bar for some of the long-standing calibres. Efficient, accurate, competition proven and thoroughly successful in the field, easy to load, excellent factory ammunition (e.g. Precision Hunter). Compare the performance of Precision Hunter in 6.5 Creedmoor to the traditional 6.5x55 factory ammo and you’ve got a great example of how lots of small incremental improvements add up to make a thoroughly superior product.

Contrast this to Sierra, who in their efforts to keep up with Hornady made an absolute dogs breakfast of the launch of the GameChanger bullets, screwing up the twist rate recommendations for the long-for-calibre bullets (e.g. 90 & 100gr 6mm), with a design that is fickle at best (putting in nicely) with the short bearing surface and very long ogive.

Who won the battle of coloured tips? Red or Green?

If you’re looking for a recent example of a cartridge that’s on a one way ride to redundancy, look at the 6.8 Western. There’s a reason Hornady has been so successful with new cartridges (and bullets, and getting rifle manufacturers to adopt the chamberings). Winchester & Browning probably should have considered why this is the case before they spent all that money designing, manufacturing and promoting a case that’s pretty much disappeared in 6 months. Go check out the availability of 6.8 Western related products… if you bought one of those in mid-2021 I’ll bet you’re wishing you got a .270 Winchester.

6.8 western will probably do well if the next gen us army squad project goes ahead
its not looking likely tho but at the very least there should be a bit more development on high bc .270 bullets off the back of it

@Bill999 do you mean the westerner of the new SIG 277 fury. Both not the same but I know exactly what you mean about projectiles. the only thing is the newer ones usually need a higher twist rate and that is something 270s could've had for years, Same deal for one of my projects, 264 win mag. You will always hear me banging on about their twist rates. Its standard 1-9 from memory but a lot of the new projectiles need better than that as they are longer. They hype up the 6.5 man-bun as being able to beat it out past 400 as they can use the slipperier projectile even though they lose 2-300 fps. If the 264 had that it would mash it to bits.
400 is a long way for me I might add so I'm not worried. I'll take the extra horsepower up close.

Originally Posted by csmiffy

@Bill999 do you mean the westerner of the new SIG 277 fury. Both not the same but I know exactly what you mean about projectiles. the only thing is the newer ones usually need a higher twist rate and that is something 270s could've had for years, Same deal for one of my projects, 264 win mag. You will always hear me banging on about their twist rates. Its standard 1-9 from memory but a lot of the new projectiles need better than that as they are longer. They hype up the 6.5 man-bun as being able to beat it out past 400 as they can use the slipperier projectile even though they lose 2-300 fps. If the 264 had that it would mash it to bits.
400 is a long way for me I might add so I'm not worried. I'll take the extra horsepower up close.

I was under the impression that the 6.8 was the civi version without the two step case loaded to a lower pressure based on what a friend was harping on about how good they would be
I see where my folly was

I told him there was no need to wait when 270wsm exists already...... bar like you say the twist rates

one of my favorites I sadly think is pretty redundant is the 280rem/7mmexpress remington/7mm06
with 7mm08 and 280ai now basically more popular in every way

Originally Posted by Cigar

Without lever actions the 30-30 would be long gone. Same goes for ex-military rifles and the 303.

Maybe. But I shoot a modern 303. Also for break open or single shot rifles, rimmed cartridges like those work very well. With modern rifles made in the calibres, more modern performance can be obtained by handloading as they will not be older military actions. (Ruger #1 or Baikals. ) In particular the Baikals have the same action for 7.62x39 and 223 all the way up to 30/06 and 7.62x54R with the later being easier to load / unload due to being a rimmed cartridge.

Originally Posted by Beavis

7.62x39 has become largely redundant in NZ

Hmm…tons of that ammo sitting around.