1. The Winchester cartridges have greater capacity and will win the war unless Remington decides to produce the "off" calibers that Winchester doesn't go for. Remington is making a marketing mistake by only producing short carbines for their cartridges. Many people simply want longer length barrels and the associated velocity. They are not buying the rifles only for compactness.

2. Because of marketing, the new shorties will dig deep into the markets of the .30-06, 300 Win Mag, 7MM Mag, and .270 Win. But they will not replace the other cartridges. The new cartridges make damned tidy little packages with a few interesting selling points, but they will need champions in the gun magazines.

3. Since simple science shows that the much-touted difference in efficiency is marginal, the new rounds will have to show a more than marginal improvement in average accuracy for them to really start to overtake the old cartridges. If, for instance, the new WSMs begin to toss 3/4 inch groups from practically every factory rifle, the average joe will have a really good reason to consider buying one. That would be a solid 100 percent improvement in accuracy from what average factory arms now produce.

Disclaimer: These are only my opinions. They are not based in any marketing information gained at the hands of Remington or Winchester, and can be dismissed as speculation or conjecture by anybody who happens to disagree.

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Jay
"For God and Country"

Another prediction....I think the more companies will begin to offer muzzle brakes as an option for their rifles.

Perhaps match shooters will go for the short mags, like they do the 308?

Don't know. Are these short mags accurate, and, are they about the same efficency as the 308 or 30-06?

All things being equal, isn't it cheaper, and easier, to make a short action then a long one?

Do the short mags have the same capacity as the 308 or 30-06?

gs

quote:

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Originally posted by Socrates:
Doesn't a shorter action make for a more accurate, stiffer, rifle?

Perhaps match shooters will go for the short mags, like they do the 308?

Don't know. Are these short mags accurate, and, are they about the same efficency as the 308 or 30-06?

All things being equal, isn't it cheaper, and easier, to make a short action then a long one?

Do the short mags have the same capacity as the 308 or 30-06?

gs

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A short action should be more rigid when compared to a long action of the same make. As far as a rifle's accuracy goes, it is the cumulative effect of incremental improvements harnessed from the combination each and every component involved. So the more rigid action may contribute an incremental improvement to accuracy that by itself would be unnoticable, but in concert with many other incremental improvements, would be significant.

Sometimes a specific cartridge design is just more inherently accurate because of the velocity, the geometry of the cartridge, etc. Some short-action cartridges are notable in that sense. Case in point, go to the reloading pages and look at the 6.5-.284 figures. You could take a .338 Win Mag (my favorite), and build it to the hilt with precision machining, all the best componentry, yet even with careful load development, you wouldn't achieve that kind of accuracy.

The short mags have a greater case capacity than the '06-based cartridges. But
"efficiency" is a funny thing. Case capacity is almost always a story of diminishing marginal returns. The more powder you have, the less velocity you get per grain. The short mags are more "efficient" grain-for-grain than the long mags they contend with, but they are less efficient than most other cartridges with a smaller case capacity.

It is because of diminishing marginal returns that this lengthy .30-06 vs. 300 Win debate has raged so long. If the velocities of the two cartridges were directly and equally correlated to their relative powder capacities, the 300 Win would stomp the '06 soundly.

I have taken the following data from the Hodgdon webpage . This compares some various .30 calibers with 180 grain bullets and the fastest load listed. Here's how much powder, velocity, and fps/grain is obtained:

.308 Win: 46 gr@2706 MV= 58.8 FPS/GR

.30-06: 57.5@2798= 48.7 FPS/GR

.300WSM: 62.5@2959= 47.3 FPS/GR

.300 WIN: 81@3042= 37.6 FPS/GR

.30-378: 113@3412= 30.2 FPS/GR

To be sure, many will have gotten more for less out of their pet cartridge. I just throw these out for comparison and correlation. The relationship of diminishing marginal returns is almost a law when it comes to case capacity.