5 Neglected Rifle Calibers Worth Any Shooter’s Time
No less of a firearms guru than Colonel Jeff Cooper said that he felt there were way too many cartridges. He felt that perhaps six calibers could cover the range from practice to small to medium to large game. The question has been since then, which calibers. Over the past 150-years of centerfire rifle cartridges, each large manufacturer introduced their own ‘new and improved’ round to give the shooter the cutting edge. This led to such oddball cartridges as the .225 Winchester (only offered on a few Model 70s from 1964-66), the .303 Savage (only used in a few early Model 99s) and the .32-20 Remington (used in the Model 25 pump rifle of the 1920s).
Over time, these rounds sometimes caught on and other manufacturers started making rifles in their competitor’s net new caliber, saving themselves the R&D of developing their own neat-o cartridge that did the same thing. If this didn’t happen, odds are the round would die out.
In a world of rifle calibers that ranges from .10 Eichelberger to .950JDJ, it’s a bit of an understatement to say there’s whole a lot of chamberings for shooters to chose from. While millions of rifles are made in popular choices such as .223, .30-.30, and .270, there are some equally fantastic rounds out there that are not as readily available because they just don’t get as much love from shooters as the rest. These hard-hitters have endured the test of time and are still around, albeit in limited numbers.
Survival of the fittest. Or something like that.
Read the rest in my column at Guns.com
