Caliber Choices - Comparison and Applications

[want to be]

Chickentoast and Sandwarrior, Thanks so very much for your replies, As you both say what I have will serve me well. But there comes a time that we just want to have someone help spend our money. My belief from you both is that there is little to gain by expanding to 6mm and going farther down the hole for dies and components.

 

[Chickentoast]

^What kind of groups are you currently shooting with your RPR and Tikka at your 400 yard range? If you are shooting 1" on good days and are simply Jonesing for 1/2", then a new build can get you there. If, however, you're at 3" and want to see 1" at 400, your current equipment is capable of that (assuming no lemons and appropriate optic). Everyone here is more than happy to help someone spend money - starting a thread about it would also get more replies, from people much more knowledgeable than me.

 

[sandwarrior]

Chickentoast and Sandwarrior, Thanks so very much for your replies, As you both say what I have will serve me well. But there comes a time that we just want to have someone help spend our money. My belief from you both is that there is little to gain by expanding to 6mm and going farther down the hole for dies and components.

For now. When you get hooked, look at a high BC capable 6mm.

FWIW, I shoot a 6mm Dasher. I shoot Berger and DTAC 115's and Matchburner 112's. I tried shooting the Sierra 110's but I believe they didn't work with my throat. It's throated at about .220". The neck is a .272" 'no turn'. The three bullets I mentioned barely get into the lands with neck depth seating. It's a 1-7" twist, 28" long. Krieger barrel that was cut by a guy named Lentz out of PA. I bought the barrel used when he decided he wanted to go a different direction. A BAT SV action bedded by McMillan in a McMillan Kestros. Accuracy is the key with this rifle. It can get you to one mile accurately. Bullet efficiency, not a bigger cartridge.

 

[PracticalTactical]

I think this thread starts off with an interesting bias that is worth having a look at. So many cartridges are perfectly capable of outstanding performance but are victims of the limitations imposed on them by both marketing and the SAAMI spec itself.

I like to look at cartridges in terms of power to weight ratio before all other things. Thats going to determine speed, for the most part but even that is not the whole story because case capacity is affected by seating depth. With that in mind, anyone who knows anything wants the base of the bearing surface of the bullet parked ahead of the neck to shoulder junction often called the donut.

So for that to happen with a bullet that is suitable for long range... And I'm assuming thats the goal, otherwise we'd be talking about shotguns or handguns.. We are talking about VLD bullets in about the heaviest weight range available with the highest BC.

You can take any cartridge you want and chamber it so the VLDs are seated out properly and in a good barrel with a good target grade chambering job, you'll get god accuracy. Sure there will be slight performance differences if we consider internal ballistics and bolt thrust, things like that, but most people could not shoot the difference.

All I can say to someone who is interested in a rifle build, is get some projectiles in the size you are looking for and work your way back from there. Find a case that holds no more than about 1/3 of the bullet weight in powder and you are going to be on solid ground.

Now go find a mag and action that is long enough to feed that round from a mag and eject the live round from the action without having to pull the bolt to do it.

Case in point: My F Class rifle is based on a SA Rem in 308 and I cannot feed the rounds from a mag or eject a live round. If the gun was built on a long action, it would be more versatile using the F Class load. As it sits, I need to run a different load for anything that requires that I feed from the mag.

 

[Deleted member 173458]

What’s everyone’s thoughts on 300prc?

Its an awesome round esp for hunting. I like smaller rounds like the dasher for targets

 

[Deleted member 173458]

I’d like to hears users comments in more detail on two calibers.

6mm Creedmoor

6.5X55 Swedish

Both have a following.

both are great but the creed will have shorter barrel life for sure

 

[Deleted member 173458]

So.....lets just say you take a family member or a friend. You are essentially an unpaid guide. Your family member or friend flinches when squeezing off his 30-06 or .300 WM? Too much rifle for the shooter. Whatya gonna do then? There is a reason people stepped down from too much power. Is a 30-06 going to give you a faster follow up shot? Once again, there are a lot of studies it doesn't. That's why it may be the standard, but it went away almost entirely in the military. Hit's are more important than high energy misses.

I know you're gonna hate this but I have a friend who's shot twelve elk with a .243. I have no problem with it. My friend who hunted elk in CO, killed a big 6. pt. bull with one shot out of .220 Swift in NV, when he got a tag. You seem obsessed with power. I'm not. I'm pretty damn adamant about good shooting and picking a shot, though.

Year after year, I've watched 'tough guys' with a rifle that's too big for them (because they don't practice with it) get knocked around bad enough they've embedded a flinch that ain't gonna help anything once they get out in the woods. No follow up shot there if the chance to make a clean hit was missed in the first place.

What if the elk is quartering to you? You gonna hit him in the shoulder and ruin all that meat? Why? If he's quartering away, you have an open shot at the bread basket. Use a good bullet and he's done. A 100 gr. Partition out of a 6.5mm makes it easy...if you hit it right, and don't take shots that are out of your league. Arguing calibers/cartridges is arguing semantics once you get above "big enough".

I agree its all about shot placement

 

[gcmiller04]

Fantastic thread. Been considering 6.5 PRC, 7 SAUM and 300 WSM for my next build and have been stuck for weeks. Didn’t want to be that guy who asked worn out questions about chamberings. Just found this and had my nose buried in it till my eyes were stinging. Will be recommending this thread to more people!
Thanks for the effort.

 

[Chickentoast]

Fantastic thread. Been considering 6.5 PRC, 7 SAUM and 300 WSM for my next build and have been stuck for weeks. Didn’t want to be that guy who asked worn out questions about chamberings. Just found this and had my nose buried in it till my eyes were stinging. Will be recommending this thread to more people!
Thanks for the effort.

Good choices IMHO... FYI ADG brass for 300 WSM should be out shortly - testing is done, just waiting on a production run. They already make PRC and SAUM.

 

[gcmiller04]

Good choices IMHO... FYI ADG brass for 300 WSM should be out shortly - testing is done, just waiting on a production run. They already make PRC and SAUM.

Yeah I currently shoot 6.5 Creed and love it. Competition wise it’s damn near the perfect round for me. Was just wanting a rifle that would be competitive enough at long range to satisfy me but also had enough umph to do some bigger game hunting than whitetail. And yes I read the million comments about how 6.5cm is plenty big for elk but come on I just wanted an excuse to build another rifle (don’t crush my dreams). So that’s where I landed on those 3 rounds but I think I’ve decided now I’ll do 7 saum / 7wsm.

 

[Chickentoast]

^7 Sherman Mega & 195's! If you have to mag feed a short action, do consider the Sherman SS. If single feeding or going medium action or Tikka build, all the short mags are pretty great when throated long.

 

[Clark]

Over the last 20 years I have built over 35 rifles for myself.
In 2021 it was:
6.5x54r Vostok on Mosin action
260 Rem 3.1" oal throated on 1903 Turk action. [nice gun]
357max on Rem rolling block action
280AI on Sav 110 action

In 2020 it was:
250 Sav on Rem 700 action
25 Krag Ackley on Mosin action
7mmSTW on Defiance action
6.5-06 on Husq Mauser action [nice gun]

In 2019 it was:
25 Krag Ackley on Krag action
250 Sav on 1917 Sav 99 action
6.5-06 Rem 700 action [nice rifle]

In 2018 280AI on 1949 Win 70 action [nice gun]

 

[oldnewguy]

I've been thinking, if I could only have three centerfire rifle, what would I want. And I don't hunting, so just target or competition shooting.

I think it'd be;

223AI
6 Dasher
7 SAUM

 

[Mini 762]

Caliber Selection Considerations:

Recently there have been a number of common threads, most are titled along the lines:

“What caliber”
“New build, help pick the caliber”
“New to LR shooting, what caliber”

You get the idea.

Many of us who’ve been here for even a few months have seen this thread over and over again, I’ve personally become disenchanted with answering it only to see the information roll down the thread list and disappear. Then 2 days later someone else who hasn’t used the google search engine for the ‘Hide asks the same question.

I talked to a Moderator and this is going to be a sticky, the goal in this thread is to provide some infrastructure for new members to read through and use as a reference. We have several threads like this in the various subforums like Reloading and Optics. Please keep this civil, disengage from any kind of pissing match and base any inputs you have on hard numbers or realistic considerations.

By this I mean you should NOT include a post like this:

“308, forget about the rest”

The 308 has some great features but without any substantiation the post above is less than useless. Instead take an extra 5 mins and say WHY you would pick the 308. Since it’s so popular, I’ll provide it as an example

308 Winchester
Pros:
• Common caliber with military and law enforcement
• Factory Match ammo is easily accessible
• Lots of hunting, factory, and bulk ammo choices
• Mild recoil
• Plenty of knockdown powder for short to medium range hunting on all but the largest/most dangerous animals in North America.
• Good caliber for the non-reloader as well as the reloader due to ammo and component availability
• Excellent barrel life (5000+ rounds easily attainable, many references to 8000+ rounds are seen)
• Fits in a SA magazine well with bullets near the lands for ammo tuning
• Easily attainable actions in standard (473) case head for both short and long actions
• Lapua brass is available

Cons:
• Not particularly flat shooting
• Supersonic range is limited to about 1200yd (depending on bullet, altitude and temp)
• In the realm of 30 cal rounds, it’s neutered in MV and falls short in BC so it suffers in both trajectory and wind performance
• Higher BC bullets are available in both 6.5mm and 7mm offerings at equal or higher speeds than the 30 cal bullets have, they make better use of the case capacity while still getting good barrel life.

Clearly I’m not going to write such an example for each and every caliber below, but that is a fairly detailed review on the round, as opposed to the prior example.

There’s several ways to cross reference the choices and I’m going to attempt to make a relatively comprehensive list but I know that I won’t think of everything. Please feel free to add it and I’ll try to cut and paste additions into this post. It will get too complicated trying to give each person addition credits so I’ll refrain from that. If you added the round 6.5 Bobcat and I missed it initially, I’ll add it and understand that I appreciate the input.

As stated, I can’t possibly write a comparison for everything like I tried to flesh out for the 308. I’m going to start by doing 223, 260, 308, 30-06

Feel free to flesh out your own reviews on other calibers or add comments to things I missed. If you’re going to do this, the goal is a comparative study, not an opinion poll, try to be objective and factually based, not anecdotal. This means that if you're going to make a performance claim about range/drop/wind/etc. please save the argument from starting and show the numbers involved with your statement.

ETA: I thought I had addressed this point in years passed as this thread is nearly 8 years old now, but we discuss "calibers" and "chamberings" interchangeably. This is one of those vernacular things that newcomers don't understand and it's quite a source of confusion. I guess I did not do it in the first post but without sifting through nearly 10 pages of commentary I don't know where it is.

I addressed this specifically in a recent print article on this similar topic but here it is again:

Caliber is the bullet size and/or groove size (this can be confusing as well) not the piece of brass going into it.
Cartridge is ambiguous as well because there are wildcats all over the place.
Chamberings is probably the clearest way to discuss it and IMO the most direct.

The Chambering refers to all of the pieces together because THAT is what we're cutting into a barrel and that is also what the assembled ammunition will enter to be fired.


Caliber List:

<span style="font-weight: bold">Short Action Calibers, 223 bolt face</span>
17 Reminton – 223 parent case, don’t know the forming details
20 Practical – 223 necked to 20 caliber
20 Tactical – 223 necked to 20 caliber, shoulder blown forward
204 Ruger – 222 Rem Mag necked to 20 cal, shoulder blown forward
222 Remington
223 Remington & 5.56x45 NATO – ballistically identical, there are chamber differences
222 Rem Mag

<span style="font-weight: bold">Short Action Calibers, 308 bolt face</span>
6mm BR – wildcats are 17, 22, 7mm, 30 cal all on this case
6mm Dasher – parent case is 6 BR
6mm BRX – parent case is 6 BR
22-250
6mm-250
250 Savage
260 Bobcat – 6.5mm in 250 Savage
300 Savage
243 Winchester
260 Rem
7mm-08
308
338 Federal
8mm-08
358 Winchester
257 Roberts
7x57, 8x57, 9x67, 9.3x57
6mm Super LR
6.5-6mm Super LR
6.5x47 Swiss Match
6-6.5x47 Lapua
6.5x47 Lapua
6-284
6.5-284
284 Winchester (more aptly built in a long action, but officially a short action round)

The list goes on and on, please post suggestions and I’ll add them. This was just a start

<span style="font-weight: bold">Short Action Calibers, Mag (.532) bolt face</span>
Winchester Super Short Magnum family
Winchester Short Magnum family
Remington Short Action Ultra Mag family
264 Rem Mag

Both the RSAUM and WSM series work well in long actions and my upcoming 7mm/300 WSM (aka 7 BAT) is going in a long action.



<span style="font-weight: bold">Long Action Calibers, 308 bolt face</span>
6.5x55 Swede
6mm Remington (6mm-7x57 Mauser)
7mm Mauser
8mm Mauser
9x57, 9.3x57
9.3x62, 9.3x64
7x64 Brenneke
6-284
6.5-284
284 Win
284 Shehane (284 Win parent case, improved)
30-06 parent case family includes
• 22-06
• 6mm-06
• 6mm Catbird (6-06 AI)
• 25-06
• 6.5-06, 6.5-06 A-square, 260 Newton
• 270 Win
• 7mm/270, 280 Rem, 7mm-06 (ballistic equivalents, minor chamber spec differences)
• 30-06
• 338-06
• 35 Whelen
• 375-06

<span style="font-weight: bold">Long Action Calibers, Mag bolt face</span>
264 Win Mag
Win Short Mag series fits very well in the long actions
7mm Rem Mag
300 Win Mag
338 Win Mag
300 H&H mag
375 H&H
264 Wby Mag
7 Wby Mag
300 Wby Mag
340 Wby Mag
7 Rem Ultra Mag
300 Rem Ultra Mag
338 Rem Ultra Mag
338 Edge (338/300 RUM)
7mm, 30, 338, 375, 416, 404 Dakota
Lazzeroni Family (I believe, someone correct me please)
404 Jeffreys

<span style="font-weight: bold">Long Action Calibers, Lap Mag bolt face</span>

30-378 Wby Mag
338-378 Wby Mag
378 Wby Mag
460 Wby Mag
338 Lapua Mag and wildcats from 7mm - 375 caliber
300 Hulk (based on 338 LM case)
300 Kong (based on 378 Wby case)
300 Allen Mag
450 Dakota
450 Rigby

<span style="font-weight: bold">Extreme Magnum Actions, 0.637 Base</span>
338 Allen Mag
338/375 Cheytac
375 Cheytac
408 Cheytac
505 Gibbs (parent case to the rest)

<span style="font-weight: bold">223 Remington</span>
<span style="font-style: italic">Pro:
• Commonality to military and LE
• Small powder capacity, inexpensive bullets, common to find components and supplies
• Effectively no recoil
• Good long range bullets available
• Easy to reload
• Forgiving in powder choice
• Far more capable than most people give credit, 1000+yd target shooting is reasonable
• Great varmint caliber, good medium sized game caliber with the right bullet
• Great barrel life
• Loaded properly the trajectory can closely match 308 Winchester for cheap training
• Lapua brass is abailable

Cons:
• Lacks case capacity to really throw the heaviest 224 cal bullets fast
• Lacks hunting applicability for anything bigger than medium White tails at shorter ranges
• Many states outlaw 22cal centerfire for big game hunting
• Trajectory and wind characteristics are on par with 308 Win

<span style="font-weight: bold">260 Remington</span>
Pros:
• Brass is easy to attain/make from 243, 7mm-08 or 308
• Excellent bullets in hunting and long range
• Easy to load for
• Good balance of case capacity and barrel life
• Barrel life is in the 3000 round range
• Wide range of powder choices
• Flexible hunting applications from varmints/predators to big game short of dangerous game like bear
• Very good for long range targets, supersonic range in excess of 1500yd (depending on altitude, temp, bullet)
• Low recoil
• Several factory rifle options including DPMS LR-260 uppers and bolt actions
• Lapua brass available in 243, so Lapua 260 cases are easily made

Cons:
• Expensive factory ammo with limited match grade choices
• R-P brass takes a lot of work for consistency, neck sizing 243 or 7mm-08 brass is almost necessary to get good brass
• Barrel life is not as good as 223 or 308 or 30-06, it is still decent though

<span style="font-weight: bold">30-06 Springfield</span>
Pros:
I can wax poetic on this chambering and parent case, but I’ll try to keep it short… Just to keep a reference in mind, I shoot the 208 Amax at 2875 from a 26" barreled -06 and it runs alongside a 300 WM.

• Incredibly flexible chambering for a reloader
• Reduced recoil 110gr Vmax for light practice loads, smoking hot 110 Vmax for varmints/predators all the way through 240gr ultra heavy bullets can be loaded in this case with excellent results
• Huge choice of excellent bullets in both hunting and target applications
• Excellent reloading components available
• Forgiving powder choices
• Easy to find loading data
• Very good barrel life
• Loaded hot in a bolt action this case can compete with the smaller 300 Magnums like 300 WM and 300 WSM without trouble
• Long supersonic range in excess of 1700yd (again, bullet, temp, altitude dependent)
• Lapua brass is available
• Very large selection of factory rifles and custom rifles available for it
• Decent selection of match grade factory ammo (not like the 308 though)
• Mil surp ammo is still available as well as mil surp powder, bullets and brass for cheap practicing
• Excellent choice of caliber for just about anything on earth, easily anything in North America. While I wouldn’t advocate it over something larger, 30-06 and 8mm Mauser have been used to kill elephants and water buffalo.

Cons:
• Generally accepted limit for what the average shooter can stand in terms of recoil
• If you like gas guns there’s few choices in 30-06 and the common one, the M1 Garand, can’t take the full potential of the chambering without serious or catastrophic damage.
• Reduced choices for match grade factory ammo, it exists but it’s not as prevalent as 308 ammo. In reality, 308 match ammo is the gold standard for factory match choices.</span>

OK, enough writing for now, please add to the list and ask questions. Let’s keep this as factually based as possible and a civil discussion. The goal here is to create some infrastructure for new forum members to reference and reduce the repetition of topics that flow through

Good info.

 

[RFutch]

@bohem whats the lead time on a rock creek Nuke prefit right now?

Thanks

 

[KeyboardKiril]

I’ve been in long range game 10 years I started with a 6.5/06 Which is ballistically identical to 6.5 PRC it’s a really awesome flat shooting cartridge I highly recommend to anyone new to the sport it has very forgiving external ballistics. Being that 6.5/06 factory loadings are basically non existent you pretty much have to hand load exclusively for it. I were to redo it I think I would have gone 6.5 cm because of ammunition availability. That said I get lazy spells and don’t always want to load a batch of rounds for the 6.5/06 before a range session instead Ill opt for my 6.5 Grendel more often as factory ammo is readily available. I’ve gotten accustomed to the external ballistics of the 6.5 Grendel And shoot it very well to 1000 yards. I’ve recently struck interest in the 308 as it has similar trajectory to the Grendel with a slight edge in performance over the Grendel. My overall conclusion from my experiences is if you want a extremely forgiving cartridge stick with the fast high BC 6.5’s or if you don’t mind some sand bagging then go with the 308.

 

[Accidic]

223 Rem in Bolt action. Short to mid range target shooting with kids for cheap ammo.

6.5x55 Swedish (Modern action): Hunting, Range, Long Range fun. Considered the Creedmoor but it never dazzled me and with my purposes and no intent to buy a "dazzling" stock option there is no real advantage to the SA (Tikka proved this to me long ago). Also looked at the 260 with brass options of necking up/down other brass... The history of the Swede paired with near infinite seating options was hard to pass up ultimately winning out. Easy-ish inexpensive plinking ammo doesn't hurt either.


Got my kids both bolt action 6.5 Grendels to learn/hunt with mainly for bullet parity but have no regrets.

Then the usual assortment of rimfire/ pistol options.

 

[TexasHaag]

Its an awesome round esp for hunting. I like smaller rounds like the dasher for targets

I am also wondering about that caliber. The .300 PRC ballistics are pretty impressive. I would like to build one, but I'll probably end up with a Bergara.

 

[oldnewguy]

I've been thinking, if I could only have three centerfire rifle, what would I want. And I don't hunting, so just target or competition shooting.

I think it'd be;

223AI
6 Dasher
7 SAUM

On second thought, I'll change my choices to a BRA and 6.5 PRC

 

[Raufoss]

On second thought, I'll change my choices to a BRA and 6.5 PRC

I've been thinking, if I could only have three centerfire rifle, what would I want. And I don't hunting, so just target or competition shooting.

I think it'd be;

223AI
6 Dasher
7 SAUM

Yup definitely

223AI
6 Dasher
6.5 PRC

 

[oldnewguy]

Yup definitely

223AI
6 Dasher
6.5 PRC

I never said I knew what I was talking about...

 

[Raufoss]

I never said I knew what I was talking about...

Me neither but I love those calibers. The 223AI is such a sleeper caliber that performs.