Am I the only one who is not enamored but the new PCC rage?
Obviously not. Otherwise we would all have them or all be talking about them.
I don’t include lever guns of any kind in this category.
That seems rather arbitrary, but okay. Pistol caliber carbine lever guns have certainly been around for quite a while, and as mentioned, so too have non-lever PCCs.
But i don’t get it. They don’t have a lot of practical value.
That is your opinion. Everybody gets to have an opinion, right? It is the sort of opinion I often see repeated when people "don't get" a new caliber or new design. Mostly, it seems, because said item doesn't fit their own preconceived notions of what the item should be. In this case, your preconception seems to be that if you have a carbine, it needs to shoot a rifle caliber. Of course, that begs the question as to why it really matters as to the arbitrary rifle/pistol designation. If that is important, then should you not also be asking about the rifle caliber pistols that have been popularized over the years?
I guess for competition it allows shooters to shoot steel without damaging targets, but other than that i don’t see the point.
From a competition standpoint, not only do pistol calibers not damage the steel, but the reduced recoil makes them so much easier to shoot than rifle calibers and when shooting steel, so much safer than rifle calibers. They also tend to be several dB quieter and for competitors that reload, are easier and sometimes cheaper to reload.
Because from a real world practicality standpoint, i don’t see their purpose or appeal. Thoughts?
Purpose? Like questioning why people NEED them?
I am not sure what real world standpoints you are talking about specifically. I guess that would depend your real world. A pistol caliber carbine for self defense is a tad quieter that rifle calibers (so a bit less damaging, some say a lot less damaging, but still damaging) than rifle calibers, offer better chances for landing shots on target than a pistol, particular at greater distances, in many cases mean having ammo and mags that work in both pistols and carbines, less muzzle flash than pistols or rifle calibers, better suppression when using a suppressor, often (not always) increased velocity over just a pistol, less recoil and so better for faster followup shots even for less skilled shooters, etc.
How much quieter are PCCs? That is a good question and something not usually presented when people talk about the loudness of guns. However, a Glock 9mm pistol runs about 162 db at the muzzle (
https://www.silencercentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Silencer_Sound_Comparsion_chart.pdf). A 16" 9mm carbine (IIRC) is ~150-155 db at the muzzle for super sonice ammo (IIRC from an article from several years ago). Regardless of the actual numbers, the perceived noise reduction is quite noticeable. Is the reduction significant? Yes and no. Yes in that each shot will do less hearing damage than the same shot fired from a pistol. No, because each shot is still damaging.
Pistol caliber carbines can and often are used as substitutes for training with rifle calibers for many of the reasons noted above.
Pistol caliber carbines offer less risk to people and property down range than rifle calibers.
In the grand scheme, I can understand where you are coming from. I don't see the reason for a lot of gun stuff. I think a lot of calibers are created simply for the purpose of manufacturers claiming to have something new, despite the fact that the calibers show a huge amount of overlap with already existing calibers. A classic would be the 300 BO. What is the point? Did it really resolve any issues that similar calibers weren't already covering? No. Did it truly offer some sort of ballistic advantages? No. It does offer some nifty subsonic to super sonic capabilities which I find rather neat, but aside from having the capability, virtually everybody that I find that shoots them either doesn't take advantage of it or tried and has opted to reside at one end of the velocity spectrum or the other, so don't take advantage of it as a practical matter.
I am not picking on you or your favored caliber, but you mentioned it and so I figure it would be familiar with you. I could have picked a variety of calibers and made very similar arguments. When people select a specific caliber they like, they often like to cherry pick features to justify its relevance. They like to ignore the negative features and ambivalent features that are matched elsewhere. People favoring them often tend to place very high relevance on miniscule advantages and detractors tend to put very high relevance on miniscule disadvantages.
In the grand scheme, you have already made up your mind that you don't like pistol caliber carbines. They don't fit your needs. I tend to not like a lot of trendy and even very well established things that don't fit my needs either. However, so long as they aren't causing me a problem, not give them much thought.
However, to answer your question as to why they are so popular, I would guess that while video games might have a little bit to do with it, a LOT of the people buying them are not gamers. I would be willing to bet that arm braces (which can be shouldered) have contributed significantly to their popularity, and if not significantly, do certainly seem to parallel in popularity with arm braces (correlation v. causation) and separating the two trends might be difficult to do to say one way or the other.