Wildcatting hit its stride after World War II, when returning GIs fashioned their own high-octane cartridges from .30-06 and .300 H&H hulls. A ready supply of 1903 Springfields, 1917 En-fields and 1898 Mausers made experimenting cheap. Improved optics put affordable scopes in easy reach, so barrels didn’t need iron sights. Those were the days of Mashburn and Ackley and myriad lesser-known pioneers, whose designs prospered. When Winchester rolled out the first of a series of short (.30-06-length) belted magnums – the .458 – in 1956, wildcatters fell upon it like wolves. The subsequent .264, .338 and .300 Winchester Magnums, and Remington’s 7mm, soon filled the obvious voids. The new magnums confirmed the merits of Roy Weatherby’s proprietary .257, .270, 7mm and full-length .300, introduced during World War II!
Since 1962, several wildcats have been adopted by ammunition firms. Remington, for example, was first to offer the .22-250, .25-06 and .35 Whelen. Meanwhile benchrest competitors Lou Palmisano and Ferris Pindell were winning matches with their stubby .22 and 6mm PPCs. “Short and fat” found its way into hunting cartridge design during the late ‘90s. The Winchester Short Magnum line debuted in 1999, in a .308-length .30 with more punch than a .300 H&H. Remington’s Short Action Ultra Mags followed. John Lazzeroni announced even more potent short-action cartridges; both he and Remington also marketed full-length rimless magnums. Hornady designed the .375 Ruger to beat .375 H&H performance in .30-06-length actions, and new propellants enabled Hornady to give .300 and .338 Ruger Compact Magnums high speeds in short barrels. And while Federal necked up the .308 Winchester to deliver its potent .338, Hornady applied the latest powders and FlexTip bullets to its muscular .308 and .338 Marlin Express for lever guns.
Even if you ignore the behemoths – the .458 Lott, Weatherby’s super-charged .416, Remington’s heaviest Ultra Mags and big-bore British Express cartridges from Norma – a shooter can go daffy trying to finger twenty cartridges as “best.” To reduce the angst, I’ve not listed cartridges pre-dating the .30-06. So you won’t see the .30-30 or 9.3x62, the 6.5x55, 7x57 or 8x57, the .30-40 Krag or .303 British – early smokeless rounds with distinguished records on game. In parentheses you’ll find close ballistic matches, also-rans for reasons as trivial as chronology. Had the .280 beaten the .270 to market, it probably would have claimed the spotlight. Given more space, I’d add the .260 Remington, .340 Weatherby, .358 Norma….
Honestly, though, the first quarter of the twentieth century produced all the cartridges most of us need!
Loads listed are representative of those I like; the best load for any specific application may differ. Here, then, in kind of ascending order:
.22-250 REMINGTON
Now over seventy years old, the .22-250 remains hugely popular – not only among shooters who wreak havoc in prairie dog towns, but among coyote hunters and, particularly in Texas, deer hunters. The .22-250 has weathered competition from other fast-stepping .22s: the .220 Swift, .225 Winchester, .224 Weatherby and .223 WSSM. None has come close to unseating it.
The .22-250’s parent case is the .250 Savage, developed by Charles Newton in 1913. During the 1930s, Harvey Donaldson, J.E.Gebby, J.B. Smith, John Sweany and Grosvenor Wotkyns necked the hull to .22. A version by Gebby and Smith, circa 1937, became the “Varminter” – a name copyrighted by Gebby. But not until 1965 did the Varminter go commercial, when Remington adopted it in M700 rifles. The .220 Swift’s larger case allowed 4,110 fps with 48-gr. bullets. But the Varminter wasn’t far behind. Now the Swift has faded, while the .22-250 is chambered in every varmint-class rifle I can think of.
With a 50-gr. bullet at 3,800 fps, the .22-250 carries more than 500 ft-lbs of energy to 400 yards. That bullet starts as fast as a 40-gr. spitzer from a .223, but it bucks wind better and at 400 yards trounces the .223’s by 270 fps. For deer the 6mms excel – though 55- and 60-gr. bullets in the .22-250 have taken boxcar loads of whitetails and, in the Far North, caribou. A 60-gr. .22- 250 bullet at 3,600 fps beats a 75-gr. .243 bullet off the blocks by 200 fps and is still moving faster at 400, where it carries 627 ft-lbs to the .243’s 768. A Varminter softpoint through the slats is deadly on deer, if not legal everywhere.
Handloaders charge the .22-250 with powders mid-range in burn rate: AA2520, H335, IMR 3031, RL-15, Viht 140. Loaded ammo is offered by Black Hills, Federal, Hornady, Remington and Winchester.
50-GR. ACCUTIP (REMINGTON), 200-YARD ZERO
6MM REMINGTON (.243 WINCHESTER)
The 1955 introduction of the .244 Remington paralleled the debut of Winchester’s .243. The .244, based on the .257 Roberts hull (derived in turn from the 7x57), had more capacity than the .243, a necked-down .308 Winchester. But short rifle actions required deep seating of long bullets in the .244, so the ballistic advantages of factory loads were minimal. Remington chambered the round in its M722 bolt rifle. Its 1-in-12 twist proved the correct spin for bullets of 75 to 90 grains. But riflemen wanted heavier bullets for deer and pronghorns. They turned to 100-gr. softpoints in the .243. Winchester’s M70 barrels were rifled 1-in-10. Still, not all tales of twist are true. I owned a Remington 722 in .244 and managed minute-of-angle groups with 100-gr. handloads.
In 1963 Remington reinvented the round, replacing the 90-gr. bullet in .244 ammo with a 100-gr. Core-Lokt. Barrels and case heads came off the line stamped “6mm Remington.” Dimensionally, the cartridge was and is the same as the old .244, but 6mm barrels feature 1-in-9 rifling.
Like the .243, .250 Savage and .257 Roberts, the 6mm Remington shoots flat and has mild recoil. Varmint hunters know it bucks wind better than fast .22s. It shines on deer-size game. I once clobbered a pronghorn buck at just over 400 steps with a 90-gr. Remington softpoint. The 6mm is factory-loaded to an overall length of 2.91 inches. Handloaders find it superior to the .243 (OAL 2.75) in actions like the mid-length Ultra Light, whose magazine swallows 3-inch cartridges.
While you can accelerate 55-gr. bullets to over 4,100 fps in the 6mm case, you’ll deliver more energy at distance with 75- or 80-gr. hollowpoints clocking 3,500. A 100-gr. factory load at 3,100 fps is 140 fps faster than a comparable .243. Hornady’s Light Magnum ammo puts the 6mm close to Weatherby’s .240.
100-GR. POINTED SOFTPOINT (HORNADY LIGHT MAGNUM), 200-YARD ZERO
.257 ROBERTS
Charles Newton developed our first high-speed 25-caliber cartridge in 1912. It fired a 100-gr. bullet at around 2,800 fps, an 87-gr. bullet at 3,000. Savage called it the .250/3000. Ned Roberts bested it during the 1920s by necking down the 7x57 Mauser case. The .257 Roberts was apparently a joint venture with F.J. Sage and A.O. Neidner – who had necked the .30-06 to form the .25 Neidner, forerunner of the .25-06. Roberts liked the more compact (efficient) 7x57 hull and trimmed it 1/16 inch. Townsend Whelen recommended a 15-degree shoulder. By 1930 Griffin & Howe was chambering rifles in .25 Roberts. Mr. Griffin convinced Ned Roberts to dispense with the trimming. In 1934 Remington adopted the round as the .257 Roberts, using a groove-diameter name to distinguish it from other 25s. Remington moved the shoulder ahead, increasing its angle to 20 degrees.
The .257’s civil disposition prompted Jack O’Connor to predict at the close of World War II that the cartridge would soon rank among the top three in bolt rifles. He was wrong. The Roberts slipped partly because light bullets didn’t shoot accurately enough for varmint hunters, and blunt factory-loaded big game bullets lost enthusiasm quickly. By the early 1950s, when Winchester-Western fielded an accurate