Going a few rounds with rifle cartridges
It was 1906 when America’s greatest cartridge was introduced and adopted by the military. Soon it would be accepted by the average hunter, although the price of a rifle so chambered kept sales low. Gun owners as a whole didn’t trust a cartridge that didn’t have a close to half-inch hole down the barrel, and surely that tiny 30-caliber tube couldn’t be trusted on larger game or in heavy cover.
One of the great writers of his time, Elmer Keith, said that the .30-06 was barely big enough to down an emaciated coyote. The .30-06 has gone on to be a very successful round and the parent to other great rounds.
The factory 150-grain bullet, moving at 2,800 feet per second, shoots flat enough to hunt antelope and hits hard enough to take the largest big game that the lower 48 has to offer. While one might think of the old .06 as the first of the high velocity, flat shooting cartridges, and that it started the trend of pointed bullets and high-pressure rounds, this is not true. Paul Mauser’s 7mm was in the hands of the Germans well before the .30-06 came onto the drawing board. The .06 cartridge, chambered in the 03 rifle, cost the United States quite a sum of money because of patent infringement.
But let’s move on in time to 1925, when Winchester announced another great cartridge to the American hunter. This cartridge was little more than a .30-06 case necked to a smaller diameter, enabling more speed and better bullet co-efficiency at the cost of a lighter bullet. Now we start seeing some great rounds being offered to the public, like the newcomer the .270.
Gun owners are a funny group. Not only do they take pride in the rifle they shoot but also in the round the rifle uses.
There are still those who use the big heavy slugs moving at a snail’s pace. They argue that the heavy bullet bucks brush better than the light and faster rounds. I’m not sure this is true but I do know that speed adds to a good co-efficiency, which adds up to less drop than what is attained with those slow-moving rounds. The .30-06 used by our grandfathers probably outsells the .270 but more high-grade custom rifles are chambered in the .270 round. Most, if not all, readers of this article know my favorite round is the .270. I have always felt the .270 shoots as flat as the .243 and hits like a 30-06. Now that’s a hard combo to beat. The statement is a fact as the 130 grain .270 shoots flatter than the 100 grain bullet from the .243.
Arguments about calibers and how they perform have been with us for a long time and carry a little truth along with more than their share of pasture patties. Take the new hotshot on the market, the 6.5 Creedmore, and compare it to the old 6.55 Swedish Mauser. The Creedmore invariably comes out on top but this is not because of some great design. It is because it is loaded to a higher pressure. Take a 129 grain 6.5 bullet and load it in the Creedmore, and another from the same box of bullets and load it in the Mauser. If the barrel length is equal and pressure is the same, then the performance will be as close as you can get. There is no magic, and the rules of physics always take over. Now, let’s look at the 6mm and the .243 and decide which is better.