I've always said it was smart of Winchester to bring out the 6.8 Western as a new SAAMI cartridge. Just updating the .270 WSM would have been a mistake. If the cartridge will be a success or not is yet to be determined.
We have a heavy market saturation of cartridges for hunting and target shooting. There are a lot of cartridges that have cemented a place for the foreseeable future as industry staples. So it's hard for any new cartridge to take off, no matter how good it is on paper.
Any new cartridge like the 6.8 Western is going to try to gain a foothold against cartridges like the .270 W/WSM, 7mm RM, .280 AI, .308, .30-06, and .300 WM/WSM. Not to mention it has competition with new cartridges in the same space namely the 6.5, 7mm, and .300 PRC. Then you have cartridges that should have been more popular that failed almost immediately like the entire line up of Remington short action ultra magnums and the 7mm WSM. All very good cartridges that never caught on.
We have a heavy market saturation of cartridges for hunting and target shooting. There are a lot of cartridges that have cemented a place for the foreseeable future as industry staples. So it's hard for any new cartridge to take off, no matter how good it is on paper.
Any new cartridge like the 6.8 Western is going to try to gain a foothold against cartridges like the .270 W/WSM, 7mm RM, .280 AI, .308, .30-06, and .300 WM/WSM. Not to mention it has competition with new cartridges in the same space namely the 6.5, 7mm, and .300 PRC. Then you have cartridges that should have been more popular that failed almost immediately like the entire line up of Remington short action ultra magnums and the 7mm WSM. All very good cartridges that never caught on.