The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Rifles Medium Bore Rifles Why all this "efficiency" concern?Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
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One of Us |
I read again and again about efficiency.....does anyone really care? IMO performance is the criteria and efficiency is a very distant issue in the choice of a cartridge/chambering. Why would anyone give a rats butt about efficiency? /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | ||
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one of us |
I suppose you are refering to post such as a 300WSM is more efficient than a 300WM? I agree, performance is #1 If I'm getting the accuracy and consistency I want along with the velocity desired, I could care less how efficient the cart is. Then we get into the can of worms of more inherently accurate carts  Reloader | |||
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One of Us |
I only own efficient cartridges. I'm not a big magnum fan unless I'm going after something really big that wants to kill me. I prefer a cartridge with moderate velocity which gives excellent performance with standard cup & core bullets. They shoot flat enough out to 300 yards for big game. They uses less powder. I like anything in the 308, 7x57 family of cartridges. The 30-06 has a great family and the 6.5x55 and 9.3x62 are a great rounds. Generally the efficient rounds are much easier to shoot well. I know a lot of people love the velocity magnums give but for most applications, I don't think they are needed. Just my humble opinion. | |||
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one of us |
I shoot the 6mm-06, Efficiency??? Same argument as bullet selection, and in most applications ballistic coefficient. Jerry "If you need more power or a different bullet, build another rifle." NRA Benefactor Life Member | |||
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| One of Us |
300 WSM not efficient compared to 300 WM if you have to keep typing it out though. What with that additional letter "S" in it. Write it out twenty six times and you used a whole extra alphabet's worth of ink. | |||
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| One of Us |
I recently had a brush with "efficiency" I'm doing load development for a .264 Win Mag and a 6.5 Creedmoor at the same time. Both with the 140 grain bullet. Creedmoor: 42.5 Grains of powder gives 2890 fps .264 Win Mag: 78 Grains of powder gives around 300 fps more. It takes 35 more grains of powder to get just 300 fps extra velocity. | |||
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one of us |
If we don't care then everyone should go out and chamber for everything built on a RUM parent case. Heck why would we even want a 250sav, 257Rob, etc when we could all just have a 257Wby or better yet 257STW or even 257-50. Until your case just gets so large that you can't burn the powder anymore you are still gaining be it a little for each bigger case. As usual just my $.02 Paul K | |||
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One of Us |
Paul- I don't care about efficiency one way or the other, but I don't own anything built on the RUM case. I don't care about absolute maximum possible velocity for a given bullet weight or diameter either, as it turns out. Nor do I care a whit about how light I can make a gun overall. What I do care about: "Is the cartridge, bullet, velocity, and accuracy enough to get the job at hand done?" Sometimes that requires more power or more velocity than other times. Most of the time, it means I can get the job done with something like a 7x57 or less. Other times it means a .30-06 or more. On still other occasions I prefer a .404 Jeffery or .450 Ackley Mag. If it wasn't for things like recoil, ammo cost, gun weight, retail availability, etc., I'd probably just carry a .404 Jeff all the time except for varmints. For those critters, I'd probably stick with the .219 Don Wasp., the .223, or the Swift, just because I like the rifles I have them in. But cartridge efficiency (power generated per unit of propellant) has NEVER, not even once, entered into my decisions as to what to carry or shoot. I have and load a hundred or more different cartridges in my various guns, but that's because I like playing with all the different toys, finding out how they perform, and so on. My country gal's just a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still. | |||
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Precisely....if efficiency was the issue, no one would own a 22-250.....we'd all be shooting the .22 Hornet or .218 Bee. Instead of shooting a .25-06 we'd be lobbing the .25-20 at things!....THAT'S EFFICIENCY! /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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| One of Us |
Another way to look at it is the amount of energy generated by a charge of powder. Recognize the definition of efficiency as the comparison of output to input. When we compare by caliber, the larger bore always wins. In this scenario, the .458 is champ, regardless of recoil, trajectory, or terminal performance, let alone action length or gun weight. Maybe efficiency isn't so important. ________________________ "Every country has the government it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre | |||
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| one of us |
Guess I care, I use efficency in my selections. That is why I'm trying to sell my STW use a 280 not a 7mag a 25-06 not a 257STW. I guess I look at itas a 25-06 does things a 25-20 can't. Is the 25-20 more efficent. Sure. But a 25-06 will do 99% of everything a 257Wby and 257STW will do with far less powder, blast and barrel wear. So Yes I choose the 25-06 because it will do what I want (a 25-20 doesn't) with less powder than a the larger cases. For the handloader a 257Roberts will do 95% of what a 25-06 can do. Yes Vapodog that is why I haven't built the 264wmag.  Efficiency is why I built a family of wildcats. That is why there was the Gibbs, Hawk, Howell cases etc.As usual just my $.02 Paul K | |||
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| One of Us |
a thread i have given some thought to before it came up. each caliber hole/bore can only handle so much gas volumn. after that you lose the efficiency of the cartridge but gain some velocity. more gas more speed just like a car. might just be why i don't own anything bigger than the ole0-6 and that was the wifes choice. if i were going to shoot something that required more energy i'd go ahead and just go to a bigger hole. maybe straight to a rifled 12ga. | |||
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More efficient rounds kick less, burn less powder, make barrels last longer, cost less, are quieter, have less muzzle flash, and kill just as well. So I hunt with a 300 RUM because the bullets go faster ..................DJ....Remember that this is all supposed to be for fun!.................. | |||
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| One of Us |
I haven't anything against efficiency, it just isn't how I select my cartridges. If I wanted an efficient .25 rifle cartridge, I surely wouldn't select a .25-06 (though I have two of them currently). I'd likely pick a .250 Savage...will easily take 95% of the deer I will ever want to shoot. Anyway, back to your quote above....having been alive and an active reloader/shooter when Rocky Gibbs was developing the Gibbs line of cartridges, I doubt that efficiency had anything to do with that line coming into being. Seems to me at the time everyone pretty much acknowledged that what Rocky was doing was developing cases to use the most powder that could be gotten into a .30-06-based case, in each bore size. And it could be done without the shooter having to buy a whole new barrel. Rocky re-chambered their existing rifles for them. He recommended loading them that way too. No dummy Rocky. He, as Roy Weatherby did, recognized "velocity sells". Rocky got (or claimed he got) the most velocity out of '06 cases (in his day), and Roy did the same with the .375 H&H Mag case. My country gal's just a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still. | |||
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One of Us |
 VD and AC have the right slant.   rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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one of us |
"Efficiency" was invented by the guy worried he is losing an argument with another over which cartridge is the best. This is how to use "efficiency" in a debate: Guy #1 My .310 Supercool is the best ever! Guy #2 Oh yeah?  Well, my .310 Ultrahot gets an extrea 150 fps AND is short enough to use the ever popular 222gr bullet! Guy #1 So what! My .310 Supercool is ..... more efficient.  Guy #2  Guy #1  Hope that helps.  Hunting: Exercising dominion over creation at 2800 fps. | |||
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No, I certainly don't. | |||
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  /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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Thank you so much for this post. I was wondering what purpose this thread served, other than Vapo taking a departure from his usually non-contentious personna. Your contribution has redeemed his truancy in my estimation. Excellent material. ________________________ "Every country has the government it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre | |||
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| One of Us |
Because guys like me can't understand the logic of having to have a rifle with an MV of 3500 fps, and 4000 ft/lbs of muzzle energy, capable of dropping an elephant at 500 yds, just so I can go out and shoot some 100 lb blacktail at 75 yds.... I handload to tailor my loads to a practical use for what I am using it for... I don't handload to turn a 308 into a 300 Weatherby. and for varmint guns, I get a rifle set up the way I want it and get the accuracy I want out of it.. I want to keep that barrel on it for as long as possible... the expense of replacement is secondary to the time involved to get the replacement to get to the point that the other was operating at. | |||
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I handload to tailor my loads to a practical use for what I am using it for... You know, that's what Vapo and I both said. We don't pick our cartridges or our loads on the basis of efficiency, but on the basis of what we need to get the job done ethically and humanely. At least I do, and the way I read Vapo and his history here at AR, so does he. Sometimes that takes a bigger cartridge, not a more efficient one. My country gal's just a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still. | |||
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AC, that was not said with a chip on my shoulder nor said with any malicious intention toward anyone. if it came across that way, then please accept my apologies... | |||
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| <Mike McGuire> |
When shooting is no longer a hobby for me and becomes a business I will worry about efficiency. | ||
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| One of Us |
No apology required here..... I think I may have done a poor job of explaining my point and I say this based on reading some of the posts. It was simply to say that of all the rifles I've ever owned (well past 100 center fires) not a single one of them was purchased for it's efficiency. Performance has always been the trump card in the decision. Not that it was the best performer but that it was completely adequate for the task intended as a mandatory requirement. I choose a .30-06 over a .300 magnum but certainly not for efficiency..... I own a .280 Remington but no 7mm Magnums.....and not because of efficiency. If efficiency was critical to me then I might have opted for the 7-08........and that's among the few cartridges I've never owned. I read so often folks claiming "bragging rights" to their "more efficient" cartridge and the whole thing is totally alien to me.....as I said.....it's never been even a small part of the reason I made or bought something. Years back, I built a 6 X 45 on a mini Mauser action.....not for the efficiency but to get around the law in Minnesota requiring a caliber over .230 for deer. I wanted a ladies rifle of little recoil and extremely light weight. The darn thing simply works great.....love it.... but not because it's efficient! No big deal....it's merely a term totally missing from my shooting vocabulary and I see others using it with some regularity. Merely curious why is all! /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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Moderator |
why efficiency ? In my cases (pun INTENDED) its a matter of cost and availibility ... the AR carts all fit in standard length actions, as well as the 550 express, delivering the MV of much longer cases in standard length actions you can basically build 3 rugers for the price of 1 built winchester actions ... Since there's no real replacement for displacement, and if you stay more or less "under" bore, the cost of the build drives how many guns you can play with! Oh, you meant grains burnt for ME? well, the ARs are also efficient that way, too, due to shoulder (vs 458 lott and 470 capstick) opinions vary band of bubbas and STC hunting Club Information on Ammoguide about the416AR, 458AR, 470AR, 500AR What is an AR round? Case Drawings 416-458-470AR and 500AR. 476AR, http://www.weaponsmith.com | |||
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| One of Us |
Good job, Duckear. HC is in the building so it's fixing to turn into a che and pre argument any moment now.  Aim for the exit hole | |||
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| One of Us |
i'm efficient - i shoot up alot of 22's | |||
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| One of Us |
Neat thread. Some people really have a naque at the printed word and inteligently get their point accross. rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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agreed....more fun for the dollar than any other cartridge! /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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One of Us |
I just work on being an efficient shooter. _________________________ Glenn | |||
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One of Us |
I couldn't give a shit. As long as I get a thwapp where I aimed............. There are two types of people in the world: those that get things done and those who make excuses. There are no others. | |||
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| One of Us |
And no apology needed here either, Seafire. I KNOW you are one of the good guys who is never malicious. And best wishes....you getting the same frog-drowner we are today? AC My country gal's just a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still. | |||
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A bit direct maybe.....but hitting the nail directly on the head! Love it! /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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| One of Us |
One case that would make sense is the .17 fireball compared to the .17 Remington. Alot more powder and heat, "less barrel life" for not a ton of extra fps. | |||
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| One of Us |
having given some more thought to this thread and my wife having read it over from her end of the couch [she] came to the conclusion that it [the efficiency thing] is just so's i can shoot more full power loads for less powder. errrr money. i think she said i was cheap, hard to tell who said it. it was the oldest daughter her voice sounds like the wifes with those three blankets over her head. i told her the oil lamp and computer screen puts out plenty of heat and light to do her homework by. dumb kids don't know how good they got it. we only had one candle for the whole house when i was a kid. | |||
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the only thing i don't like is when, in the very early morning, my gun goes off and the fire ball lets the game warden know i just shot a deer before the season opened.......that's not very "efficient" | |||
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| One of Us |
 OH OH ! I remember two efficients. 3 shots 5 quail and 5 hooks 6 rock cod. The Bob Whites were in VA and the fish near Montere.The effiency really kicked in when you measure bites per pound swallowed.  rogerOld age is a high price to pay for maturity!!! Some never pay and some pay and never reap the reward. Wisdom comes with age! Sometimes age comes alone.. | |||
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One of Us |
That's exactly what I wanted to say. ----------------------------------------------------- Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. Proverbs 26-4 National Rifle Association Life Member | |||
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The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Rifles Medium Bore Rifles Why all this "efficiency" concern?
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