RCM cartridges

R

reynolds357

New member
What are your opinions on the .300 and .338 RCM's projected success? I am seeing a lot of rifles chambered in them for sale dirt cheap. I noticed Ruger only chambers them in their guide rifles now. Are the cartridges heading for being obsolete, or are they just off to a slow start?
 
I think they're headed for the "obsolete" category. You just don't hear much about them anymore and like you said, they're only chambered in their guide rifles now.
 
They are a good idea, but Winchester beat them to the punch with the WSM lineup. The 270 and 300 WSM are solid sellers that will do nothing but grow and continue to eat into other rounds popularity. The 7mm WSM is a good round, but lags behind the others and who knows which way it will go. The 325 WSM is a pointless round which will die and should.

The 338 RCM is the only one with a real niche and it may hang around for a while longer, it just might make it. It is a much better option than the 325 WSM for those wanting something larger than .30 cal. I cannot see any point in owning the 300 RCM and apparently almost no one else does either. It is all but gone.
 
I could maybe see the .338 one, since there's nothing comparable, unless you consider the .325 WSM in 8mm to be comparable, but to me it's not because you have poorer bullet choice. Getting a .338-06 and then some performance out of a short action has an appeal.

But the .300 is certainly the question no on asked x 1000. There's already 437 different .300 maggies out there. Regardless, yeah; headed for niche/cult/obsolete quickly, seems to me.

But hey, lookit, even stuff headed for the scrap heap is fine to own and shoot. Even with these "obsolete" cartridges (which these aren't YET), there will always be brass and dies available, at least for the next 75-100 years or more. So go for it, if it appeals to you.

Even after greatly reducing my rifle & chambering lineup to just a few centerfires, I still ended up with one obsolete chambering among them (7mm RSAUM), and I think I'm likely gonna keep it forever. Does what I want and I have the dies -- and brass will always be around from some maker for my lifetime, barring a war/metal shortage.

Well, I suppose that the caveat there possibly worth mentioning is that we *might* just be gearing up for a shooting war if only slowly - the politicians want to drag us into one it seems, via Syria then via Iran, and/or via Ukraine (which will then in turn pull in either Russia or China or both) - I believe it's a slow but steady contrived march to war orchestrated by the banking and oil elites in the USA (primarily the Federal Reserve owners), to try to preserve the petro-dollar (US dollar) as the world standard currency / petroleum currency... China, Russia, and most OPEC nations have a very strong interest in eliminating the petro-dollar, and we have a very strong interest in preserving it (by "we", I mean the owners of the USA's Fed), but that's another topic. Point is, war *might be* where we're in fact headed, gawd forbid. Soooo, that bodes slightly more toward a more standard chambering. :)
 
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My only worry is brass. .243WSSM is almost impossible to find now. I bought a pile of it when I heard Winchester was discontinuing it. Glad I did, or I would not be shooting my WSSM's now.
 
Ditto what was said about the .338 rcm filling a unique niche. Also about the .300 being an answer to a question no one was answering. Also...the rcms get their amazing short (20") barrel ballistics courtesy of proprietary propellants by hornady. Reloaders can't come close to making those rounds perform so "big". I know there is a superformance powder by hodgdon available but I've used it an it does not at all deliver as advertised and is very erratic with regards to shot to shot muzzle velocity. And Reynolds357...where I live here in saskatchewan .243 wssm ammo and brass is easily found...in fact it seems like they can't get rid of it cuz no one shoots them up here I guess.
 
Roadkill, if you could hook me up with some contact info for someone who has it, I will move some of the excess supply in your area down here to Georgia where it is scarce as hens teeth. WSM brass is everywhere. WSSM brass is non-existent except occasionally a box of $65 loaded ammo turns up.
 
Yeah.... "Superformance" powder is ONE powder with one burn rate. "Superformance" AMMO is a different animal, using propriety powderS (not just one).
 
Reynolds, the site I'm looking at is wholesalesports.ca and they claim to have winchester 100 grain pp ammo in .243 WSSM for only 32.99 Canadian. Unfortunately I looked at their shipping policy and they don't do international orders, canada only. I think most everyone is like that. I know I've run into some great deals in the past on American sites and they rarely do out of country stuff. Sorry about the bad news
 
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