There's so much you're saying here that's reasonable and that I agree with, especially in terms of the cultures of these companies.
But to say that "shooters" buy more ammo than hunters is just not even remotely accurate. It just isn't, not even close.
Yes, it is. I’m not guessing. All the hunting ammo sold in a year combined doesn’t equal 9mm sales alone. Same goes for 223/5.56. All the 270win ammo sold in a year doesn’t match what one companies sales in 6.5cm in a month. Same for 300WM commercially. Same for 7RM, 338win mag, etc, etc.
Ammo sales follow rifle sales and the standard hunter that believes his “insert whatever cartridge” he’s been using for 20 years and on the same box of ammo for the last three years, don’t buy new cartridges to hunt. The 6.8 western offers that Hunter absolutely nothing over his 270win. It also doesn’t offer match or competition shooters, or long range shooters anything that isn’t better done than a 6.5 PRC or 7mm PRC. Introducing a normal modern “hunting” cartridge is a dead end now.
If hunters- that is common CF rifle big game hunters, shot enough and therefor bought as much ammo as “shooters”, then all the SAUM’s, WSM’s, 260Rem, 7mm-08, 300 RCM, 7mm STW, 26/28/30 noslers, 22 Nosler, all the RUM’s, 204 Ruger, 6.8 Western, etc, etc would be massively popular. They aren’t, because for the most part they are designed sub-optimally, shooters aren’t using them, and hunters don’t shoot.
Save the very niche carriages below, all of the CF rifle cartridges that have caught on are “match” cartridges- mage by and for shooters. Almost across the board what makes a good match cartridge makes a good hunting cartridge- the same is not in reverse. The 6.8 Western is a well designed cartridge in general, but it was brought out as a hunting cartridge, and has more recoil, and has more wind drift than factory 6.5PRC ammo that is everywhere.
People and companies can keep saying that “hunters” are the market, and they can keep having failed products.
Now, per person, shooters vs your average hunter? Sure, you're totally right. I shoot more centerfire rifle ammo in a few months than my dad or grandfather did in their entire lifetimes. But as a market segment, hunters absolutely swamp "shooters" by at least a full order of magnitude in ammo sales - it's not even in the same universe. Last year alone, Texas issued over 1.8 million hunting licenses, tags, etc, and Wisconsin issued over 4 million.
Take sales has little to nothing to do with ammo sales.
USPSA doesn't even have 40,000 shooters in the entire country. PRS has about 6000 total.
As a USPSA shooter I average between 20,000 and 40,000 pistol rounds a year and have for almost two decades. Every one I know that is serious is shooting at least 5,000 a year, and almost all are over 10,000 a year. Even the causal a few times a year shooters are shooting multiple thousand a year.
In broad terms, shooters shoot and buy new guns and ammo. Hunters don’t.
So even if Bubba's only buying 2 boxes of good ol' Core-Lokt for the trusty '06 each season,
Bubba isn’t buying two boxes of 30-06 a year. More like two boxes every 5-6 years.
I guarantee you there aren't 400,000 "shooters" in any combination of competition circuits in Wisconsin buying 8 million boxes of match ammo there each year. That's just hunting rifle ammo. When you add in small game, upland birds, and waterfowl, the ammo purchased by hunters is likely an additional full order of magnitude greater or more. The numbers are absolutely insane.
The conversation is about CF hunting rounds. Shotgun hunters and shooters do shoot a lot. Big game hunters don’t.
But it's Bubba that has kept Big Green, Winchester, etc alive, and why they don't seem to even try to innovate.
Big green? You mean the company that went out of business, got sold and didn’t produce ammo for an extended period?
I mean yes- hunters are the ones that mainly use Remington and Winchester ammo, because neither company makes long range or match ammo that’s worth a flip, and any specialty ammo they do produce is absurdly expensive and not readily available.
If you want to get an idea of just how massive the hunting ammo market is over "shooters", take a listen to Seth at about the 1:30 mark here - for almost a decade, .450 Bushmaster has been in the top 5 of Hornady's rifle ammo sales.
I suspect 30-06 is quite a bit higher in the top 5, and we all know that's not a round "shooters" are burning up barrels with.
Again, like the 350 legend the 450 BM is a niche cartridge that exits mainly due to some states banning bottleneck cartridges. If/when those states change their laws, it will fade. There are only a very few niche hunting gaps left to fill- and they aren’t in the 6mm-30cal markets.
? They keep recreating things over and over just to keep you buying new things. 300 PRC doesn't really do anything for a hunter more then a 300 Norma, 300 RUM, 300 weatherby etc. Heck a fast twist 300 win mag with a large mag box like several factory rifles have can shoot 230 bergers and there won't be much difference then a 300 PRC until you get to ranges beyond ethical hunting.
