Bothering with a .308 is what gave rise to .243 win, .260 rem, 7mm-08, 6.5 creedmoor, 6.5x47, .358 win, .338 federal... .30-06 gave us .280 rem, .35 whelen, .270 win, 25-06...
plenty of game have been taken with any of those cartridges, plenty of guys are shooting those and enjoy them. The only other cartridge to have that kind of impact on shooting in general is the .375 h&h. The .308 win in particular didn’t stop being a deadly round once 6.5cm hit the market. It still drops anything on 4 legs in the lower 48, and the 30-06 is still the most popular round in Alaska for hunting.
Once again you are making an argument no one is debating.
Who knows what calibers would have been developed or been more popular if it wasn't so easy to modify the .308 parent case? Would 6.5 and higher BC friendly calibers that don't require a magnum load of power to perform gotten more popular faster?
You know how many great low density and wildcat calibers could have been fantastic mainstream 30., 40, 50, 60 years ago if the market wasn't flooded with cheap mil surps and plentiful ammo stockpiles from various world wars? I'm still shooting cheap greek 30-06 in my M1, because it was .10 a round. Nothing could compete with that commercially.
Does the fact that know nothing senior officers who were hell bent on keeping the 30 caliber in military service may have had something to do with the popularity of the commercial market?
US sniper systems just adopted the general issue ammo, it wasn't like during Vietnam when formal sniper programs were created along with procurement of hunting rifles they said, yea lets use ammo we can't get through supply channels.. Nor while it was changed till recently. And to drive it home further, SOCOM and their predecessor had already been using more advanced calibers at the time as they could procure them. SEALS were running McMillian 50's and 300WM long before due to inadequacy of the 308 in many scenarios.
A .22 never stopped being a deadly round, but how many of you are shooting 200 or even 300 yards with it. 5.56 is capable of being used at 1K, but how many are running that?
A 45-70 will drop any game on the planet how many of you are using it to take 300 yard shots?
Inferior is inferior.
Here is a parallel scenario. I have a 15 year old laptop in the garage somewhere. Do i keep spending money trying to keep it running. I can surf the internet and read email. It does the basic job required of a computer. If my modern PC goes down, you think I'm going to use that hunk of shit instead of buying a new pc or fixing my current one? One is clearly obsolete and inferior. I'm not a hipster so no reason to use old obsolete shit unless its a last resort.
Why even make the fucking thread if there is no debate to be had? You all are crying like little children who had their ice cream taken away.
Will .308 still be around in 100 years? As long as there guns out there and there are tens of millions so you can figure that out. Snipers with mosins probably killed more enemy than both German and American snipers combined. How many of you still running them? It was good enough for W W 2, so it must be good enough today? That's the logic you are sticking with?
One has a 20-40% higher chance of a first round hit on KD. Its probably much higher across the full spectrum of UKD. Its the same price(or cheaper) , abundantly available, has less recoil, has more energy at range, is easier to train new shooters on and is much more forgiving of wind calls.
If I am a hunter, rec shooter, competitor, LE or Military, why wouldn't I want the clearly better choice? Gonna wear some Lvl 3 body armor when LVL4 is available for free? Gonna buy a boat with 70 HP when you can get the 100HP for the same price?
I'm sure in the next 2-20 years a new caliber will come along and take the Creedmoor's lunch as tech evolves and we get better materials science.
And you are sitting here like a kid in a yugo talking about why its better than a modern sedan. Stupid