The fate of RCM cartridges?

[gunners]

I can't see any real benifit either in these compact magnums except for the development of new powders which will extend the perfomance of the old ones. Take the 300 RCM as an example on ammoguide they can not duplicate the factory Hornady 180 grain load with a compressed charge(2922 vs 3040 claimed). But those new powders Hornady use for their superformance range you get 3130 for the same bullet in a 300 win mag.
I would sure like a superformance 45-70 gov

 

[Quattroclick]

I shot some really tight groups with my ancient Marlin .30 WCF the other day, now thats a trend I can live with!! 8)

That was a wonder cartridge about 115 years ago.

I was doing something similar with my pawn shop liberated 270 last weekend. I bought it for parts and made the mistake of shooting it. It may be the most accurate gun I own. Another wonder cartridge from about 80 some odd years ago.

 

[Ale-8(1)]

Jack O'Connor would agree.

 

[FergusonTO35]

Yep. The .270 and .30 WCF will still be shooting tight groups and putting mounts on the wall long after the poorly-attended funeral is held for the short magnums. 8)

 

[Bayouhunter]

I just started going back to the ruger Website after a few years off.I decided I wanted a #1A- 30-06 but found they were not offering it in 30-06 but offered it in .300RCM which is probably just an effort to keep the 300RCM alive but gasping for air. As long as I can remember Ruger offered that gun in 30-06. So I started searching and found Davidisons had 12 on hand and bought one there. I kept going back daily for over a week hitting the instant quote 50miles and caught a guy that came down in price and offered one @ $699.99 I did not pass it up.On pick up he said he just needed to make the sale to keep his dealership with Davidsons. It was the first #1 he had ever sold. Once in ahwile good deals do show up but believe me the State and County Taxes Upped/Ripped the price a good bit.

 

[FergusonTO35]

How lame- "we're not going to give you any .30'06's until these RCM's are gone."

 

[Brad]

The 338 RCM made sense to me since Olin had a brain fart and made the 8mm WSM instead of the 338 WSM.

Bottom line, Ruger didn't want to pay Rick Jamison royalties after his lawsuit and made their own line of short-fat's instead.

I don't think it worked...

 

[picketpin]

By the TIME Ruger got around to it anybody but a fool could have told them that the short fats had made their run and MOST were going to be failures. Why they thought after the failure of most of the WSM and WSSM and nearly ALL of the Remington versions they could trot out their own, chambered in only their rifles and have them be a success, is just beyond me. I sure like to have been paid for a reality check, the same ammount the "marketing" people at Ruger and Hornady got for dreaming them up.

As for Jamison. ONLY IN AMERICA could a court have found his case to have merit. He did absolutely NOTHING that hadn't been done by about a zilliion wildcatters in the last 60 years. The ONLY thing he had was powders that didn't exist when many of the similar wildcats were designed in the 50-60s and 70s.

All you have to do is look through the Ackley books to discount Jamison as somehow being the inventor of the concept.

Of course I baised, I shoot primarily #1s and none of these do anything in a #1 not already done by existing cartridges.

Oh well, we've probably whipped this poor pony to death. These will slowly fade. After a while they won't have any support from Hornady and will become a handloading only proposition. Work just fine, just nothing to recomend them over many other cartridges.

RWT

 

[Brad]

Why they thought after the failure of most of the WSM

Uh, not sure where you live but the 300 WSM, 270 WSM and even the 325 WSM are doing fine. The 7mm not so much and obviously there's a smaller market for the 325.

However, the 300 WSM is likely the most successful cartridge introduction in living memory. Far and away ahead of the 7mm RM or 300 WM in their time.

The WSSM's were a joke from day one!

But I do agree with you about the jamison lawsuit.

Here where I live there are two smiths that had their own line of shortfats. One is gunsmith John Payne who had a line from the 1960's. The other is the late Dave Gentry who had his own line in the 1980's. And, of course, there were the Gradle's.

Jamison may have been right in a strict legal sense, but he turned 100 years of wildcatting tradition on it's head... he's now a pariah to most of us in the gun community.

 

[mohavesam]

The WSM and RCM designs were not "new" and weren't meant to be (except for the newbies). The advantage is AVAILABILITY!

The 270 WSM, 7mmWSM and 300 WSM especially are hard to keep stocked here.

The WSSM's have dropped in sales a little bit - except - for the 243WSSM! Savvy shooters know this is the closest thing available readily, to the 6mmPPC round, which is arguable the most accurate competition round for decades. My two 243WSSM rifles are almost boring in that their intrinsic accuracy has left many other great rifles in the safe.

Not everyone wants to shoot only 30-06 and 223.

 

[FergusonTO35]

The WSM's have a permanent place in the shooting and hunting community, although I don't think will always be as popular as they are now. Remington has shovelled the last bit of dirt on the grave of the RSAUM rifles and is probably engraving a headstone for the factory RSAUM ammo as we speak. The RCM's will enjoy the same fate as soon as Ruger cashes its reality check. :roll:

 

[picketpin]

SOME WSMs and one or two WSSMs. Certainly not all.

Time will tell.

RWT

 

[smousefam5]

I know...I'm a little late to this thread...but I just cant see how a 20 inch carbine with, at the very minmum, ballistics equal to a hot loaded .338-06 could be a bad thing. The more I hunt the more I enjoy lighter and more compact rifles. I love my .338 RCM. It HUNTS better than my 30-06 and the only reason it won't fully replace it is for nostalgia reasons (killed my first deer with it 28 years ago).

 

[mike-c]

Greetings All,

Hope the majority is wrong about the death of the RCM's. However, if you are not, I will have some real collector guns in about a 100 years.

Take care,

Mike 8)

 

[sp]

Not too good.

The Ruger C Mags are not .17 HMR or .204 Rugers. These rounds filled a real nitch. The .17 HMR goes past 100 yds real good & the .204 Ruger with a 40 gr bullet at about 3800 fps just about duplicates .22-.250 ballistics in a little bitty round. The 6.5 Creedmore is about as elegant as it gets but but what will it do that a .260 won't do in a bolt gun. Lapua now makes .260 brass.

The idea of a 20 inch barrel rifle that duplicates a .300 Win mag should be a real seller. But special ammo formulations could also enable .300 RSAUM's and .300 WSM's to deliver equal performance. But the difference is the .300 WSM is real popular. The .300 RSAUM is sort of dead despite it being an excellent round.

At one time Ruger made their compact rifle with a 16 1/2 inch barrel in a .300 WSM (great balls of fire) - possibly the same thinking has guided them into the 20 inch RCMags.

I guess my next questions would be if you had a RCM could you form brass from other cartridges? If you did not value the RCM as a collector item would it rechamber into a 20 inch .300 WSM? I rather have a 20 inch MKII .308 Win.

8 mm cartridges don't seem to sell so good in the U.S. so I don't think the future of the .325 WSM is so good despite the engineering that went into its design.

 

[black029]

Guess what? The .308 is now an option.
The guns are great, the chamberings won't survive, even though they provide useful ballistics. See this all the time from the majors: serve up a sexy rifle in some new and soon to be forgotten chambering (which nosedived) and 8-12 months later it offered in .308, .243, 7-08........

 

[mike-c]

Greetings All,

Just got my copy of "Rifle Shooter" in the mail, and Savage has chambered the 6.5 Creedmoor in their model 12. They got at least one group as small as .4".

There is hope for the 6.5 Creedmoor.

Take care,

Mike 8)

 

[rangerbob]

I load for all of the WSM's(not WSSM), the wildcat 35, 375, &458 WSM and the 300 & 7mm SAUM. All of these work as advertised. The RCM cartridges exist to circumvent the Jamison lawsuit, being based on the 375 Ruger cartridge. The 375 is a fine piece of work, a modern rimless case that headspaces on the shoulder and that will work in any bolt gun that was ever a 7 magnum. I personally, adore the CM 77 carbine, and have one in 308. I would buy another in 350 RemMag or 450 Marlin today if I could. Limited availability of ammo and bigger than 300 will kill the 338 RCM and the 300 WSM will do anything the 300RCM will do. I will give Hornady credit for at least committing a 338 short mag and may still try one as the prices of last years model drop. Bob!

 

[BearStopper]

I don't have any of the short mags by any manufacturer, but I just think that there is a bit of medium bore cartridge overload going on with way too many choices already so no real incentive to choose a new unproven version. Someone simply buying an all around gun might choose one but the masses already have several of this class of rifle. I kind of like the idea of the 375 and 416 though as poor mans dangerous game rifles. I always wanted a 416 something or other even though I have no intention of hunting Dangerous game (too little time, not enough money!)......

 

[sp]

I have both .300 RSAUM and .300 WSM rifles that are rebarelled M77 MKII's and load for both with COL of 2.8 inches plus. Both rifles have #4, 24 inch barrels and handle better (to me) than the long action MK II's that I have with 24 and 23 inch long barrels. Apparently that 1/2 inch less receiver length and slight reduction in action weight makes some difference -- with a barrel length of 20 inches these rifles would be real handy but the question to me -- what about muzzle blast?

Of the two I have a slight preference for the .300 RSAUM this is because my first loads with this were with the 190 gr. Sierra MK & H4350 powder and these shot very well out to 600 yds. Velocities were almost 200 fps faster than the 06 with the same barrel length. I use 190 Sierra MK's in the 06 for targets. The .300 RSAUM seems to feed better than the .300 WSM in my MK II rifles.

The point of all this is a 20 inch short action rifle with ballistics better than a 22 inch 06 with manageble muzzle blast and recoil would be real attractive to me.