The idea that sheep hunts require super long-range cartridges is mostly myth.

Photo above: Boddington and Steve Hornady with a good Dagestan tur, taken with Hornady’s .280 Remington. Hornady has done as much mountain hunting as anyone in the industry, mostly with the .280 Remington.

According to Grand Slam Club Ovis (GSCO), an organization that keeps records on such things, just over 2,100 hunters have taken at least one each of the four North American wild sheep. That’s 8,000 North American wild sheep!

In this group were 75 bowhunters, plus half-dozen muzzleloader hunters. The rest have used an eclectic array of calibers. Experienced sheep hunter George Lawrence III recently took one each of our four North American rams with a .30-30. But my Grand Prize for “most unlikely sheep rifle” goes to Charlie Ren, who guided hunters to desert bighorns in 1930s Sonora. Clients included Grancel Fitz, Frank Hibben, Jack O’Connor, and my uncle, Art Popham. Ren relied solely on his open-sighted 1899 Savage .25-35.

It’s a myth that all sheep and goats are taken at long range. So many rams taken with archery tackle and short-range arms shoot holes in the legend. With a scoped centerfire rifle, nobody plans for a short-range shot, but it happens. Now, if you know your range is limited, you plan your stalk accordingly. There will be rams you cannot approach, so you keep glassing, reading the terrain.

So, I don’t buy that hunting sheep and goats requires long-range shooting. Yep, shots average longer than close-cover whitetails, but not farther than elk, mule deer, or caribou. Thanks to Asian hunting, I have taken a lot of sheep and goats. One thing about mountains: They don’t change much from one range to another. The tall Asian mountains are more open, but you can still stalk. If you can’t, you might have to wait, or seek another opportunity.

I figure my average shot is about 250 yards, much the same for elk, mule deer, and caribou. Sure, there have been “take it or leave it” shots at twice that distance. Many more long shots have been passed. And, there have been very close shots!

I go into a mountain hunt prepared for the worst, hoping for the best. I spend time on the range ensuring my rifle, scope, and load are set up to handle shots at least twice as far as I’m likely to actually shoot. In Mongolia in 2018 we shot six sheep and ibex. Those mountains are big and open, and severe wind complicated some opportunities. Even so, the average shot was less than 250 yards.

Being ready for the worst instills confidence, and sometimes you need all the capability you have. You bet, I’ve stretched the barrel now and again. Not often, because a cooler head prevails. You realize you can get closer. If not today, maybe tomorrow. Mountain animals move little at night, so leaving them at last light and trying again at dawn is often sound.

 I don’t consider sheep or goats “superior game” in any way, but there are practical and psychological considerations. Hunts for most goats are less expensive than most sheep. But, except for resident hunters, there are no “cheap” mountain hunts. Even for residents, drawing a tag may take decades. There’s a lot of pressure, and when the shot comes, you don’t want to blow it. Sensibly, you try to make the shot as certain as possible.

Sure, misses happen. I’m not a good enough liar to say that I’ve never missed! But, although I’ve had plenty unsuccessful mountain hunts, I’ve never had a failure because I missed. So, I’ve passed “possible” shots as too far, or unreadable wind. It’s always best to pass “possible,” wait for “reasonably certain,” and avoid unnecessary chances. If undisturbed, mountain animals are unlikely to leave a mountain system, so there’s strong rationale for biding your time and waiting until a good stalk is possible, rather than risk blowing them out.

Although their vision is superb, sheep and goats are not as wary as deer. The real trick: You must first conquer the mountain! So, there is an opposite dynamic. Once you get to the top (and the top after that), and are moving into position, you really want to take the shot. Because: You can’t imagine doing it all over again the next day, and you aren’t sure you can! Many shots at sheep and goats come at the end of a long stalk, when you’ve pushed your limits. Many important hunts culminate at the tail end, after successive long days. Better make it good, because, even if there’s a tomorrow, you’re at your limit and there’s no coming back.

This topsy-turvy psychology dictates that you must have absolute confidence in the cartridge you choose and the rifle that launches your bullet. Not all shots are difficult, but there’ s too much at stake. Most experienced mountain hunters settle on one cartridge and rifle that works. It may not be perfect, if there is such a thing, but it’s a comfortable and familiar combination, like Charlie Ren’s .25-35!

In the recent American Hunter, I noted with pleasure that my old friend John Zent, NRA’s Director of Publications, recently completed his four North American wild sheep with a fine desert bighorn. John and I came into the business about the same time, and have been friends for forty years. Few in our industry have had the determination to create and pursue such opportunity; among living gunwriters and their editors, I think just Jim Carmichel, John Zent, and me. So, Zent’s desert ram is a big deal. Their website carried a synopsis, and I was interested to learn that John’s four rams (plus extra), were all taken with the .300 WSM. Nearly twenty years ago, on his first sheep hunt, Zent found his comfort zone and has stuck with it. I have not been so loyal or steadfast. 

The .300 WSM is a good choice; a recent Weatherby winner also prefers it. I’ve never done any mountain hunting with a .300 WSM, but I have used its fast little brother, the .270 WSM. Often, I default to traditional fast .30-calibers, .300 Winchester and .300 Weatherby Magnum. There are more modern and “better” fast .30s, including the .300 RUM, .30 Nosler, and .300 PRC. For many years, the .300 Weatherby Magnum was a perennial favorite among serious mountain hunters. It still is, but in recent years some have shifted to newer case designs like the RUM and Nosler (which is based on the RUM case shortened). I accept the greater efficiency, but since mountain hunting is first about confidence, I haven’t shifted.

Another thing about sheep and goats: They aren’t much different the world over. In the Old World, chamois are small, and the Asian urial sheep are also small (read: smaller targets, more accuracy). The biggest Asian sheep are larger than ours and some of the Asian ibex and turs are big and blocky, but not significantly larger than a big Rocky Mountain billy or Texas aoudad. No sheep or goat anywhere in the world is as big as an elk, or as tough as a bear. So, in the “pure” world of sheep/goat cartridges, and despite my own frequent choices, I’m not certain .30-caliber power, bullet weight, and recoil are needed.

I want velocity, for downrange energy, wind resistance, and confidence that comes with flat trajectory. There are lots of options. I’ve been happy with faster 6.5mms (read: minimum 140-grain bullet at 3,000 fps). I used the .270 WSM on several mountain hunts, and I’ve used the .270 Weatherby Magnum, both awesome. Winchester’s brand-new 6.8 Western has great promise, not as fast as the WSM, but based on extra-heavy bullets that, until now, no .270 cartridge has enjoyed. That said, I have yet to be on a mountain hunt that the old .270 Winchester couldn’t handle, including the largest-bodied Asian sheep and goats.

Many serious mountain hunters compromise between the 6.5mms and .270s, settling on fast 7mms. My old friend Joe Bishop used a 7mm Remington Magnum for almost all his mountain game; so did Bert Klineburger, who, together with his brothers, pioneered so much Asian mountain hunting. I’ve used various fast 7mms but, as with .270s, “magnum” 7mms are not essential. Jim Carmichel and Steve Hornady did most of their mountain hunting with the .280 Remington, a great choice. If I were to start over, I’d give serious thought to the suddenly popular .280 Ackley Improved, and for sure I’d have a look at the 6.8 Western.

It’s a bit late to start over so, for the mountains that remain to be climbed, I’ll mostly stick with old favorites, .270s and old-fashioned belted .30s. With cartridges (and rifles), familiarity doesn’t breed contempt; it breeds confidence. When you’re on the last ridge and there’s no coming back, you must know your rifle and cartridge can handle the shot you must make, whether close or far.

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International hunting travel is different, but still possible, in the era of COVID.

Photo above: Boddington tracking buffalo between palm islands in Botswana’s Okavango Swamp in 1985. Botswana is open, and elephant hunting will resume this year. Unfortunately, there is no longer any hunting in the Okavango.

My rationale (“excuse,” if you prefer) for my first safari was to get Africa out of my system once and for all. It didn’t exactly work out that way. Africa has a way of grabbing you and not letting go. In the forty-four years since that first African experience, I can almost count on the fingers of one hand the years I haven’t hunted somewhere in Africa.

When I was younger, there were a few years when I couldn’t afford it. I also took a couple years off so I could make appearances in the Gulf Wars. Otherwise, I’ve been to Africa almost every year, and enjoyed every minute of it.

One of the years I didn’t get to Africa was our unlucky and unlamented 2020. I had plans, for sure, but they dissipated in the viral-laden mist. But it hasn’t been the end of the world. I’ve had the rare opportunity to reset a bit and reflect on past hunts, even spend time going over old photos. In the era before digital cameras, I spent thousands of dollars annually on film and processing. When I went digital those costs vanished, but I had thirty years of black and white proof sheets and thousands of slides in file cabinets. I’d like to say they were perfectly organized, but why lie?

I hope most of us had “pandemic projects” to keep us occupied as this thing dragged on, stuff we’ve put off (for years). I had some good ones: I built a shop and set up a new reloading bench, with the opposite end for studio photography. Another project: I went through all the old photo files, and I found good images I hadn’t seen in years. At the end, I had several hundred slides scanned at high-res, now added to digital storage. These were from all over, not just Africa, but many were from safaris long past, some in areas no longer available, and with absent friends.

They brought back a lot of fond memories. I’m fortunate to have a lot of great African memories to fall back on. I can’t imagine how I might feel if 2020 was supposed to be the year that I took the Great Plunge and embarked on my first safari, only to have it snatched away. Many were in that boat, and I’m sorry.

Fortunately, Africa and her wildlife are still there, and the life-changing experience of safari still awaits. At this writing, Africa is reopening fast. My crystal ball is no better than anyone else’s, but I expect travel and access to steadily improve. Some countries are fully open (sort of); others with more restrictions. 

We all have different views of pandemic politics, and COVID-related risk assessment is a personal thing. However, if we wish to get on with our lives (and if our lives include travel), there are real considerations to deal with. I didn’t get on a commercial flight for ten months. When I did, I was required to wear a mask. I took a “selfie” and posted it, and one of the first comments I got went something like “How could you buy into this stuff? I have lost all respect for you.”

Well, if you choose to stay home, that’s your decision. Depending on age and health, some of us should stay home for a while longer. But, if you choose to travel, you will wear a mask on common carriers; you won’t board without face covering, and you’ll keep it on. I find the mask claustrophobic, but you get used to it, and in public, in much of world (and on public carriers), masking is now simply a fact of life.

So is testing. In order to fly internationally, at this writing you must have a negative PCR Covid-19 test—within a specified time frame—in order to board. (72 hours before departure seems most common, but this varies and is subject to change.) You must also have another negative test (also with a time limit) to get back into the U.S.

These are things you must think about and plan for, and, although nobody likes to hear this, you must be a bit flexible. In February, Donna and I had a trip planned to Uganda, rescheduled from last year, and we were looking forward to a great buffalo hunt. We watched the Super Bowl at a neighbor’s house, just four people in a large room, no raucous gathering, everybody healthy. Out of the blue, one of them came down with COVID. Suddenly, we weren’t going to Uganda. It’s irresponsible to travel if you know you’ve been exposed. You don’t want to pass it along but, even if you prefer to be completely selfish, do you want to be ill in a foreign country, and have to quarantine there in order to get home?

These are practical concerns. We did get tested, remained negative, and rescheduled our trip for mid-March. So, hopefully, while you’re reading this, we’ll be stalking buffalo on a hot, sunny day in Karamoja. But we have to run the viral gauntlet once more. The airlines are good about rescheduling, but these days one shouldn’t even think about non-refundable or non-changeable tickets. The virus is still out there, and there’s no guarantee a test will come back negative. Also, the time-date-stamped test results are unarguable. Time required to get test results varies with area; it’s essential to do your homework and get tested so that you can get the results back before your flight but, as with the test itself, there’s no guarantee. Be flexible!

Same thing on the other end: You must be sure you can get tested and get results before you head home. This is just one more logistical challenge hard-pressed outfitters must solve, and they are. After a terrible 2020, operators able to resume are fully aware of this requirement and figuring out the best and surest ways. Just ask the questions before you go, and be certain of the answers.

Travel routing has also changed, and will continue to change. I’m writing in late February, still early in the game. South Africa officially opened to travel on October 1, 2020. In southern Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are also open. This is great news. However, at this writing, U.S. citizens are still not allowed to travel in or through various European countries. Flights and potential routes are thus much more restrictive! In this infancy of reopening, flights through the Middle East have been popular, and our routing to Uganda is Turkish Air through Istanbul (a great airline for travel with firearms).

From a practical business standpoint, airlines must view travel restrictions as opportunities (as well as barriers). They are working aggressively to open new routes, but this takes time. As the year unfolds, there will be more direct flights into Windhoek, and I just learned that Air Ethiopia (another fine carrier) is opening a direct flight from Addis Ababa to Beira in Mozambique. For safari travel, I have always recommended using an experienced gun-savvy travel agent. In these times of COVID, with things evolving quickly, this is even more important.

If you lost a safari last year, don’t give up. Things are improving, and as the vaccine(s) become more widespread, the curve should accelerate. Whether we make it to Uganda this month depends on the vagaries of a tiny little virus, but, for sure, I won’t go through 2021 without getting my “Africa fix.” This will be a great safari season!

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Thoughts on what works, what’s popular, and what’s trending—based on a small sample of Kansas deer hunters.

Photo above: John Sonne used his .30-06 to take the best buck of the 2020 season on Boddington’s Kansas farm. With a 40-yard shot, you could say he was overgunned, but the buck was moving in thick cover, where it’s a good idea to have plenty of gun and bullet.

I recently wrote about the continuing (and seemingly endless) procession of new cartridges coming out these days. It isn’t anything like the ridiculous flood of new unbelted magnums we saw at the turn of the millennium, but there are still too many, and they come too fast, for any one writer to wring them all out. And, as gunwriters, do we really evaluate cartridges?  Especially hunting cartridges?

The late Bob Penfold was a pioneer outfitter who essentially put South Pacific hunting on the map. In his younger days he did a lot of writing for Australian shooting and hunting magazines, and I’ll never forget what he said to me one day: “Mate, you American writers take a new rifle, cartridge, or bullet out and shoot one or two deer, and call it ‘field testing.’” In Australia, which has serious overpopulations of various feral animals, the situation is a lot different. “Over here,” he went on to say, “when we get a crack at something new, we go out and shoot fifty or sixty pigs or feral goats. Now, that’s field testing!”

We can do range testing, either exhaustive or cursory, and we can work up loads and shoot groups or ring steel to our heart’s content. However, with our short seasons and limited bag limits, it’s difficult and expensive to acquire significant field experience with any single cartridge, bullet, or load, whether new or old. I’ve never forgotten Penfold’s words, and I’ve kept them in mind whenever I find myself waxing a bit too eloquent on the near-magical properties of something new, or new to me.

That said, some extrapolation is valid. I first used the .264 Winchester Magnum in about 1965. I have not tried all of the new 6.5mm cartridges, and don’t need to in order to know how a good 140-grain 6.5mm bullet at about 3,000 feet per second performs on game, which, depending on who does the loading, is roughly the speed of the 6.5-.284 Norma, 6.5 PRC, 6.5 SST, the new 6.5 Weatherby RPM, and undoubtedly a bunch of other 6.5mm wildcats and proprietaries I don’t even know about. I can make the same comparison with the several 7mm and .30-caliber cartridges that (more or less) emulate the velocities of the 7mm Remington and .300 Winchester Magnums.

Benefits of modern case design are real. More efficient cases produce more energy per grain of powder burned because of a smoother burning curve, which is conducive to accuracy. However, I’m probably not going to spend time with a dozen 6.5mm PRC rifles to prove that the group average is better than the average groups I get from my .264. I’m not even sure a dozen rifles would prove it, because that .264 has an exceptional Obermayr barrel, and it shoots, despite archaic belted case and unpopular, near-obsolete cartridge.

This fall I hunted with a Springfield Armory Waypoint in 6.5mm PRC, the first time I’ve messed with that cartridge. The rifle is very accurate, and accounted for several whitetails. On game, the 6.5 PRC performed much like my old .264 (which is not damning with faint praise!). I have not yet squeezed the trigger on a .30 PRC, which should perform about like my .300 Winchester Magnum. Nor have I used a 30 Nosler, which should perform much like my .300 Weatherby Magnum. In time, perhaps I’ll try these or other newer cartridges. Maybe the rifles I try them in will be so spectacularly accurate that I’ll be an instant convert. Maybe not! I concede better case design, which, with barrels and ammo of similar quality, should produce better accuracy. But a blanket statement that new cartridges are “better” is a tough call to make.

These days, I have limited interest in proving the point. If I were a competitive shooter, even the slightest accuracy edge might be worth pursuing. As a hunter, for the handful of game animals we take each year, not a big deal. So many cartridges, and so few days afield! Some hunters are rapidly drawn to the latest cartridges. If they’ve made their choices based on serious study, without blindly accepting all the stuff that’s out there, they may see improved performance. Even if real improvement is illusory, confidence counts for much. However, a lot of hunters continue to rely on the old, reliable combinations. For sure, this isn’t wrong. In terms of the degree of precision required, hunting is neither benchrest nor 1,000-yard competition. If you already know what works for your hunting, why make a radical change?

For about a decade, my Kansas neighbor and I have been hosting deer hunters during our short rifle season. They come from all over, ten or a dozen a year, and I look forward to seeing the selection of rifles and cartridges they bring. It’s a small sampling, not meaningful data, but I consider it a minor bellwether of trends. If you believe what we read, you’d think the 6.5mm Creedmoor is the only deer cartridge left in America, but it wasn’t until the 2019 season when young Brad McCarty brought the first Creedmoor we’ve seen. By then I’d joined the Creedmoor Club myself!

Other than advising hunters that our terrain and stands don’t offer long shots, we don’t put anything out there to influence rifle/cartridge decisions. However, literacy is required to negotiate the Kansas permit application, and I suppose my own preferences aren’t altogether unknown. We tend to think of the Creedmoor as appealing to younger shooters, so it was also surprising that, for the 2019 hunt, Lee Murray, over eighty, turned up with another 6.5mm Creedmoor. We were checking zero; Lee quickly added that he’d also brought a .30-06. I wasted no time in saying I was glad he’d also brought a “real gun.” Seriously, the Creedmoor is adequate for any shot (and any buck) we have, but we haven’t seen it much. And, only once ever, has anyone brought a cartridge below .25-caliber. In 2019 that was Erin Tremaine’s .240 Weatherby Magnum, the only time I have ever seen the .240 used in the field.

Among our two dozen stands, the longest possible shot is less than 300 yards. In 2019, we had a couple of deer taken at about 200 yards. In 2020, no shots exceeded 150 yards. At such distances, with good shot placement, almost anything will work, and most centerfire cartridges shoot plenty flat enough for our conditions. We do see a lot of faster cartridges. Even though this does not apply to the heavy timber in our southeastern corner, Kansas has the reputation for wide open country and longer shots. Thus, it doesn’t surprise me that every year somebody brings a fast .30, usually a .300 WSM or .300 Winchester Magnum. We’ve seen several .270 WSMs and the occasional 7mm Remington Magnum. In both 2019 and 2020, we had 6.5mm PRCs in the field. Considering we’ve seen only two 6.5mm Creedmoors, this is interesting.

The 2020 “cartridge crop” was, well, sort of normal, and, just perhaps, what you might expect to see in a lot deer camps throughout North America. Three of our hunters carried the .30-06; two had .270 Winchesters, and two more .308 Winchesters. Extra-fast cartridges included a 6.5mm PRC, a .300 WSM, and a .300 Winchester Magnum. Having been here before and knowing our conditions, Larry Tremaine shot his 2020 buck with a Marlin lever-action .45-70.

I’m sort of an extra, taking a leftover stand after I get everybody else out, and looking for a cull buck. As much as I would like to, I rarely risk my buck tag with an iron-sighted rifle. Fine for the distance, but in timber the light comes late and leaves early. So, until my buck tag is filled, I usually carry something with an optical sight. In 2020 I carried a scoped Savage 99 in .300 Savage. By the way, everything worked just fine; under our conditions, it’d difficult to make a bad choice!

One of the .308s was a Browning BLR lever-action. This is the first year we’ve seen more than one lever-action among our buck hunters, and that made three! We hear that the all-American lever-action is selling well and making a comeback, so maybe that is a small bellwether.

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Some of the cartridges developed in recent times are great—but many are simply redundant.

Photo above: A very mature Georgia whitetail, taken with the Springfield Waypoint in 6.5mm PRC. The 6.5mm PRC is ballistically similar to the old .264 Winchester Magnum, but in most rifles with equal barrels is likely to be more accurate.

As we grow older, it’s almost axiomatic that we become more like our parents, whether we wish to or not. When I was a young writer, it seemed that the older writers were all curmudgeons (some lovable, some not!), while the younger crew quickly embraced the new whiz-bangs. Jack O’Connor was among the more outspoken in pooh-poohing brave new cartridges–especially the magnums that grew in popularity in his later years. He remained quite happy with his .270s, and the 7×57 and .30-06.

Still, in a 1960s letter to Bob Chatfield-Taylor (of the .416 Taylor), O’Connor listed the rifles he currently owned–including 7mm Remington Magnum and .300 Weatherby Magnum! Younger writers have probably always been more lavish in their praise of new cartridges than old-timers. It’s probably natural that younger people more readily embrace new stuff, while older folks are more skeptical. Also, of course, younger writers are hungrier, and more desperate for something to write about.

In a business with no mandatory retirement, gunwriters continue until infirmity dictates. So, it wasn’t so long ago that I was a younger writer, and I relished a new cartridge that gave me something to write about. In the quarter-century from about 1980 I was involved in most new cartridge introductions. Through the 1980s and most of the 1990s it was a trickle, and many of the introductions were exciting, such as the .35 Whelen (1988); the resurgence of the .416 (both the .416 Remington and .416 Weatherby Magnums in 1989); and the .260 Remington in 1997.

Then, in just a few years from 1999, came an astounding spate of short, long, extra-short, and fat-cased unbelted magnums. There were full-length Remington Ultra Magnums, Winchester Short Magnums, Short-Action Remington Ultra Magnums, Winchester Super Short Magnums and, a couple years later, the Ruger Compact Magnums. Among them, I make it fifteen fat-cased unbelted factory cartridges of various case lengths, all carrying the “magnum” moniker. Boy, did we have a lot to write about!

Cartridge design today is well advanced; it’s unlikely for engineers to make genuine mistakes in performance characteristics. And, since most serious shooters have access to reliable chronographs, there isn’t much blue sky in published velocities. So, factory cartridges pretty much do what they’re supposed to. In terms of what they were designed to offer, all of these cartridges are “good.”

However, performance and marketing success don’t always go hand in hand. Shooters have preferences in bullet diameters, velocity parameters, and actions (which require cartridges of finite dimensions). And we all have different recoil tolerances. So not all of us were gonna like all fifteen of these new unbelted magnums. Also, the obvious: None of us could possibly have a need for all of them.

In the early 2000s the procession of new cartridges seemed endless. The American hunting and shooting markets are not unlimited. It seemed unlikely that we could absorb all of these brave new cartridges. Some would prevail, others probably not. I’m pretty sure I predicted this. But, at the time, my job was to write about them, and tell folks whether they did what they were supposed to do (they all did). It was not my job to predict which would be winners and which would be losers. Inevitably, there were both, and several of those unbelted magnums are already gone, with some of the shortest production runs in American cartridge history.

Since then, the flood of new factory cartridges has slowed to a trickle. Except for the occasional flurry, that’s the way it has been for a century, with very sporadic new cartridge introductions. That’s probably the way it should be. Between design, tooling, production, and marketing, bringing out a new cartridge is frightfully expensive. Although there were some home runs in that unbelted magnum blizzard at the turn of the millennium, I can’t imagine the cost.

These days, without a constant flood of new cartridges to write about, guys like me must try to be a bit more creative (or retrospective). I don’t want to be curmudgeonly (like the older gunwriters I grew up with!), but I tend to think we have about all the centerfire cartridges we really need, and there’s a lot of redundancy in performance. Hmm, maybe I am becoming a curmudgeon! Unlike my younger days, in recent years I’ve been slower to embrace new cartridges among today’s slow trickle. And, as a writer, I no longer bombard manufacturers with “me first!” pleas.

In this past year, most uncharacteristically, I have spent a bit of time hunting with several fairly new cartridges, including the 6.5mm Creedmoor, 6.5mm PRC, and .350 Legend. The 6.5mm Creedmoor is certainly not “new,” but its rise to stardom has been recent.

I have been publicly (and curmudgeonly) outspoken in my lack of enthusiasm for the 6.5mm Creedmoor. I will not reverse myself. It’s a wonderful example of performance redundancy: Ballistically, it is almost identical to the .260 Remington, and similar to the old 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser. That is not damning with faint praise: Both the .260 and 6.5×55 are great little cartridges. However, especially in these days of pandemic shortages and political uncertainty, there is much to be said for popular cartridges (which translates to widespread availability).

I do own a 6.5mm Creedmoor. Great little cartridge, and it offers the advantage of a short, efficient case so, in short actions, it does well with longer, heavier bullets. Because of this, and with the inherent burning efficiency of shorter (and thus relatively fatter) cases, it is probably a better long-range target cartridge than the .260 Remington or the older European 6.5mms. At medium range it is not a better hunting cartridge, and (at least in my opinion) none of these milder 6.5mms carry enough energy to reliably take big game at long ranges.

Depending on size of game and one’s personal definition of “long range,” the faster 6.5mms definitely do. As we know, there is now a spate of them. In part, this is because the Creedmoor’s popularity awakened new interest in the 6.5mm, and bullet selection has greatly expanded. I haven’t used all the new 6.5mms and I probably won’t. But I’ve used several, including the fastest, the 6.5mm Weatherby Magnum and 26 Nosler. This fall, I’ve used both the 6.5mm PRC and the proprietary 6.5mm SST (Sherman Short Tactical). Both (if I can be forgiven a curmudgeonly comment), are ballistically similar to the old .264 Winchester Magnum, introduced in 1958 and hovering on obsolescence. Honest, I had a passing thought that I should rechamber my .264 to a newer case design. Fortunately, the impulse passed! My .264, with a great barrel, is very accurate. And, built on a rare left-hand Santa Barbara Mauser action, it feeds perfectly. It would probably shoot as well with a modern case design, but feeding could be an issue, and not worth the risk.

Unless you’re a serious rifle crank, non-standard (wildcat or proprietary) cartridges are problematic, but the 6.5mm PRC is interesting, with a short, efficient unbelted case, intended for use with today’s long, aerodynamic 6.5mm bullets. This fall, I’m using it in a Springfield Waypoint, a super-modern “tactically inspired” rifle that shoots great. Performance is, well, no different from what I get from the archaic .264, roundabout 3,000 fps with a more-or-less 140-grain bullet. I figure this to be the 6.5mm “sweet spot,” much better downrange performance than is possible with the Creedmoor and its ilk, but not as much muzzle blast and recoil, and not as finicky as the fastest 6.5mms.

Winchester’s .350 Legend is a classic “purpose-driven” cartridge, intended for use in the (now five) important whitetail states that allow “straight-wall” (and thus relatively short-range) centerfire rifle cartridges in lieu of traditional shotguns with slugs (and muzzleloaders). It is sized to be adaptable to AR platforms, and also other actions. The many American .35-caliber rifle cartridges have traditionally used .358-inch bullets. The Legend uses slightly smaller 9mm bullets (which were standard in European rifle as well as handgun cartridges). This allows manufacturing efficiency, and also lower cost practice ammunition using 9mm pistol bullets.

Larry and Erin Tremaine brought a .350 Legend AR to our Kansas farm last year and took multiple does with it. I haven’t personally used the Legend for deer, but I’m applying in Iowa (which now allows straight-wall cartridges), so I have a Mossberg Patriot in .350 Legend. Although not as fast as the .358 Winchester, it’s faster than the famous old .35 Remington, neither of which would be allowed under straight-wall-cartridge rules.  So, I have a Mossberg Patriot in .350 Legend, and I’ve used it to take several wild hogs, very effective.

There are many brave new cartridges I haven’t used, and I certainly won’t get around to all of them. But I’m still willing to try new stuff–provided it makes sense.

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