What New Fangled Rifle Rounds do You Think Will Stick Around?

[shotgunshooter3]

In the past 5 or so years we've seen a slew of new rounds coming out to fill various niches. Some are starting to cement themselves in the mainstream, while others either remain a niche round or fade into obscurity. Of these, which rounds do you feel have the potential to stick around vs. fade away? I'll start:

Stay/Become More Popular:
7mm PRC (like a 7mm RM but better, with Hornady's marketing machine behind it)
6mm ARC (near .243 Win performance out of an AR platform, enough said)
.350 Legend (this one surprised me, but I underestimated the demand for a straight wall hunting cartridge that fits in an AR)

Hang in there, but remain a niche round:
300 PRC (not enough real world improvement over the other 300 mags IMO)
6mm Creedmoor (doesn't do anything a .243 can't)
.400 Legend (doesn't improve enough on the .350 Legend)

Fade Away:
.224 Valkyrie (An immensely capable round by any measure, but I don't think the average AR owner is interested in ANOTHER .224" round for their rifle, despite improved performance)
6.7 Westerner (It's too bad that they selected the .277" bullet. IDK what they were thinking marketing a long range hunting round using a bullet diameter that can't reliably penetrate a backroads stop sign)

[Jay]

I’ll agree with you on the 6 ARC. I think that cartridge would have a much stronger presence in the market if it wasn’t for bad timing.

It was released in 2020. I started looking into it shortly thereafter and decided I wanted one. Right around the time we hit the last major ammo and components shortage. Brass and factory ammo wasn’t available for that cartridge for a long while. No sense building or buying a rifle that you can’t shoot. So I held off. I think a lot of people did. It didn’t have a chance to show what it can do.

It’s only been the last year or so that ammo and brass has been more available. So it’s really been the last year or so that folks have started looking at it more. I think it will rise in popularity and stick around.

We did some testing with it earlier this year. It works surprisingly well in the real world. Seems to be trickling into LE work. It’s a pretty impressive little cartridge. I ended up doing the Howa 1500 mini action in a chassis. With the ability to load to higher pressure than a gas gun, I like it. it’s become probably my favorite, go-to rifle for hunting. Low recoil and surprisingly good penetration.

I had high hopes for the 6mm Creed. Seems the 6.5 won there. Which I can’t make sense of.

I really didn’t think the 350 Legend would work out. But it kinda seems to be. For those who don’t load their own and buy ammo for deer season, I suppose it works.

[Chiro1989]

My .338 Federal is barely hanging in there, PITA to load in my Kimber, 22 Creedmoor was a pleasant surprise at 80 gr this past Texas trip for pigs, I keep sticking to my .30 cal stuff and am happy.

[Bigslug]

I see a lot of "Meh. Whatever".

When it comes to the fire-belching, barrel-burning, shoulder-bruising, retina-detaching cartridges that were created in a quest for the flattest trajectory, the simple fact of the physics is that you MIGHT be able to generate an effective point-blank trajectory to 350-400 yards on a very large game animal IF you hit the problem with every trick in the book. Realistically, that concept tops out under 350 yards, and beyond that, you're ranging and clicking in. We have A TON of cartridges that already do this pretty well - and many of them are over a century old; just pick your terrain and your recoil tolerance.

The Millennial's "But it fits in an AR!" mania is moderated by the fact that short actions suck. It takes so much powder to throw so much bullet with so much speed, and there's only so much performance you can wring out of a 1.6 liter four cylinder engine. When you limit that to an AR-15's mag well, you're going to end up with a bunch of rounds doing about the exact same thing. When I funded Zee's very effective assassination of Hogzilla a few years back with a 62 grain Barnes TSX in the AR's standard 5.56 NATO, it pretty well cemented in my mind what I was already coming to grasp - shot placement and effective penetration are a lot more important than anything else we can scratch our heads over. I can plink cheaply with 5.56 using surplus M-193 spec ammo; I can take medium game with 5.56 by swapping in a good bullet. If I want to hunt elk, it'll be with something outside that class of rifle. The .300 Blackout MAY be the answer for those seeking bigger bullets in the AR platform for hog eradication, as it kinda, sorta equals the 7.62x39 without a lot of component changes to the AR system, but it won't have the cheap/everywhere appeal of either the U.S. or Russian service rounds.

There's maybe a little more room for tinkering in the new category of rounds designed for hunting in the "straightwall cartridge" states, but ultimately you'll have the same problem - the imposed size and dimension limitations will basically leave us with a bunch of rounds that, on paper, look a hell of a lot like the .44-40 of 1873. Such a round might be legal in State A, but not State B, and the rest of the nation will yawn and keep hunting with their .30-06's. Those rounds will therefore be "niche" from Day One.

Madison Avenue keeps trumpeting "NEW!", but it really is just same diameter, same weight, same speed with a different label . I'll grant that when smokeless powder dropped in 1886, it led to about 60 years of making the guns sturdier, but for hunting practicality there's only so much Kool Aid they can push.

[Big Al1]

Sorry, I haven't got out of the early 20th century yet!! But that turty out six has possibilities!!

[breamfisher]

So, this thread is going like I thought it would...

[GrapeApe]

Stay around/popular:
6.5 Creedmoor
450 Bushmaster
6mm ARC
6.5 Gredndel

Hang in there:
350 Legend
7mm and 6.5mm PRCs



Fade away:
260 Rem
338 Fed
12.7x42mm (non-trademarked name for the 50 Beowulf®)
458 SOCOM
30 Super Carry

[Wambli Ska]

I didn’t comment because I’ve always put platform ahead of cartridge. Scores of different cartridges overlap in performance and that’s fine.

I was looking for a a Kimber Hunter rifle for a few months. Was hoping for a 7mm-08 or a .308 but I found an amazing deal chambered in 6.5 Creed. And while Zee, a guy I trust implicitly, in his knowledge of rifle rounds and performance is not a huge fan of the overall cartridge I read his reasons and they didn’t apply to my task.

I just wanted a good medium game rifle in an ultralight platform. And since he has posted scores of successful kills with his guns chambered in 6.5 Creed rifles have no doubt this rifle will perform perfectly for the role I have assigned to it.

Hell I’m such a fan of platform over cartridge that I even bought a gorgeous commercial FN Mauser chambered in .270 even though I wasn’t looking for a rimfire gun

All this to say, I’ve never rushed to buy a gun because someone in a Marketing role has assigned miracle like properties to a new proprietary round. But I’m not against buying a gun chambered in one of those rounds if the platform suits my needs or taste.

[shotgunshooter3]

I didn’t comment because I’ve always put platform ahead of cartridge. Scores of different cartridges overlap in performance and that’s fine.

Oddly enough, I am the exact opposite. I personally put what I want to use the platform for, and what cartridge works for that, at the top of my list, and then I start filtering down by what platform does what I want.

With that said, logistics are a HUGE part of my personal consideration, starting with commercial ammo availability coming in second after cartridge performance. It may be a farfetched scenario, but I want my guns to be in common chamberings that I can find on the shelf (in normal times) in most places in the US if I somehow lose my ammo when going somewhere to hunt or shoot a match. Similarly, I prefer well established platforms with a good supply of parts and/or after market options.

Fortunately, for most of my realistic uses, well established cartridges and rifles fit the bill nicely.

[shotgunshooter3]

So, this thread is going like I thought it would...

It is pretty interested to compare and contrast the responses I'm getting here to other forums with different niche users accounted for.

[Wambli Ska]

I guess I'll say the 6.5 Creed will definitely stay based on popularity of sales, especially during the last panic. Now 6mm Creed was available at the local SW in any quantity you needed right through the panic, so was the .350 was gathering dust on shelves in 3 different stores. Not sure what that means. On another front, I've been watching the same bags of .357 Sig brass on a rack in 2 different SW stores and on sale on the site for a couple of years now. Frankly that one surprised me, I always taught it would do Ok. It was not a round for everyone since recoil was on the side of stout, but its not so crazy that you can successfully manage it given any level of decent training, and on paper it's pretty impressive. I liked it.

BTW even mentioning the .357 SIG will date my interest in new-fangled rounds. I must admit I pay little attention to anything coming down the line until it gets mentioned here or other sites I frequent by folks I trust. Reading about it in marketing publications like G&A and other magazines/sites is not in my list of to-dos anymore and has not been for a while.

[Zee]

Marketing.
Paint a pretty picture. Damn the truth. And the Lemmings will follow.

[Wambli Ska]

Marketing.
Paint a pretty picture. Damn the truth. And the Lemmings will follow.

In a nutshell

[Admin]

I agree with Paul on the 6.5 CM and .450 Bushmaster- I think those have staying power.

No idea why, but I wish the .327 Federal Magnum had more staying power, but it's pretty obvious that one is dying.

[jwv2023]

There are already hundreds of cartridges out there that are beyond tried and true. They have been around for decades. You don't have to even try to guess if they will be around in the future. They will be. The advantage is the ammo for these cartridges is ubiquitous. You will be able to find it anywhere. If you hand load, you can customize your ammo anyway you want.
If a young guy is looking to buy their first rifle, the availability of ammunition should be your first consideration. I won't disparage any cartridge. Heck, they will all kill what you're shooting at. You need to shoot enough to be good with your rifle to accomplish that goal.

[Freezer]

The 360 Buck Hammer is another example of Remington Pooping the bed. Though ballistics for the Buck Hammer are better than the Legend it came too late and will not work in the AR platform. It will go the route of the 327 Sig.

The 8.6 Blackout is an interesting concept with a 1 in 3 twist rate and ballistics similar to the 35 Remington. Though designed to fit the AR platform I just can't see a market for it or the 400 Blackout.

[Elk Creek]

The heart and soul of new cartridge development has always been
Reloading. With component availability and price being where they are right now innovation will be crammed down our throats with better marketing.

[Freezer]

The 360 Buck Hammer is another example of Remington Pooping the bed. Though ballistics for the Buck Hammer are better than the Legend it came too late and will not work in the AR platform. It will go the route of the 327 Sig.

The 8.6 Blackout is an interesting concept with a 1 in 3 twist rate and ballistics similar to the 35 Remington. Though designed to fit the AR platform I just can't see a market for it or the 400 Blackout.

I messed up. It's the 327 Federal and 357 Sig. Neither have any future.

[Bigslug]

The heart and soul of new cartridge development has always been
Reloading. With component availability and price being where they are right now innovation will be crammed down our throats with better marketing.

The challenge to that innovation is that we practically only have four boxes in which to work, and none of the manufacturers want to tool up to produce beyond the 5.56x45, 7.62x51, .30-06, and .300 H&H action lengths with bolt-face changes. . .and if you look at the introduction of the .375 and .416 Rugers, plus the demise of the CZ-550, it's plain that they just wish that last category and its classic African cartridges would just go away.

The potential fifth box, which I think would have a great deal of promise, would be to return to the 7x57/8x57mm action length of the original military Mausers. This would have the benefits of getting out of the severely limiting short COAL's of the .308 Win family, while allowing near .30-06 case capacity through the use of non-tapered case bodies, and still having a neck length that is a little longer than the bore is wide.

Think about it: a 7x57, 6.5x57 or .30-57 Improved; a .308 Win or .358 Win with the neck length increased by an eighth of an inch and the bullets seated out to use that extra 6mm's of magazine space. If it gained enough ground, you could probably even make an "AR-10.5" to shoot them through.

[Elk Creek]

The heart and soul of new cartridge development has always been
Reloading. With component availability and price being where they are right now innovation will be crammed down our throats with better marketing.

The challenge to that innovation is that we practically only have four boxes in which to work, and none of the manufacturers want to tool up to produce beyond the 5.56x45, 7.62x51, .30-06, and .300 H&H action lengths with bolt-face changes. . .and if you look at the introduction of the .375 and .416 Rugers, plus the demise of the CZ-550, it's plain that they just wish that last category and its classic African cartridges would just go away.

The potential fifth box, which I think would have a great deal of promise, would be to return to the 7x57/8x57mm action length of the original military Mausers. This would have the benefits of getting out of the severely limiting short COAL's of the .308 Win family, while allowing near .30-06 case capacity through the use of non-tapered case bodies, and still having a neck length that is a little longer than the bore is wide.

Think about it: a 7x57, 6.5x57 or .30-57 Improved; a .308 Win or .358 Win with the neck length increased by an eighth of an inch and the bullets seated out to use that extra 6mm's of magazine space. If it gained enough ground, you could probably even make an "AR-10.5" to shoot them through.

An intermediate action would be amazing! I don’t see it ever happening though.

[jbp-ohio]

I thought the WSM's were going to be a lot bigger than they were....... So my guess wouldn't be any more accurate.

[PFD45]

I haven't heard from the Remington Ultra Mags in a while???

[breamfisher]

I saw 6.5 Creed, .350 Legend, and .450 Bushmaster in the local Walmart the other day. The first wasn't surprising, but the last two were.

In truth, for most woods hunting, the second two make more sense than the first.

[Elk Creek]

I haven't heard from Remington in a while???

FIFY……

[Zee]

I haven't heard from the Remington Ultra Mags in a while???

I still have my 7 and 300 RUMs.
Haven’t used them in a very long time. Would actually like to move them for something else I’d use more often.