Desk Jockey
WKR
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2015
- Messages
- 5,944
So far I have avoided the trends for neck beards, skinny jeans and man buns but I did buy a 6.5 creed and I was covetously fondling my buddies 28 gauge on my last bird hunting trip As my shoulder throbbed from shooting +100 rounds of hot upland 12 gauge that weekend. My dad, rest his soul, was a baby boomer, a man’s man and toted 300 win mag and a savage 12 gauge and would have told me to turn in my man card if he knew I was thinking of a lesser gun.
Why are calibers getting skinny? I think it is a combination of (1) ammo tech improving somewhat and as @Formidilosus points out, (2) better understanding of smaller caliber rounds’ terminal ballistics on animals combined (3) with a push from the long range target community demonstrating how well smaller calibers perform in long range accuracy.
I draw inference from the handgun caliber debates that raged in the pistol community for decades. as a kid in the 1980s i read pistol magazines that were still permeated with the thinking of Jeff Cooper, Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan. Many of them were lawmen that had been in gun fights in various wars and on the streets. They had seen early and mid 20th century versions of .38 and 9mm Hand guns in use in the real world and knew their deficiencies that made them prefer, and in Keith’s case, invent bigger, more powerful handguns calibers like the 45 acp, 357 and 44 magnums. Evan Marshal declared the 357 the king of “one shot stops” and Dirty Harry carried a gun that was “the most powerful handgun in the world”. Calibers like 40 S&W and 10mm became popular. They weren’t as shootable in most people’s hands but they shot bigger, faster bullets and the shooting public assumed that was a good thing.
flash forward 40-50 years and bullet design has improved a lot. A top shelf 9mm hollow point is a hell of a round for anti social purposes and terminal ballistic data is much better and more widely available To show that good 9mms do their job. While larger calibers still hit harder, the gap is more narrow than in decades past In terms of stopping real threats. Higher capacity and shootability are favored by many professionals and shooting enthusiasts. These days, you are much more likely to find an experienced, knowledgeable shooter with a compact G19 or a micro compact p365 loaded with +p pills in a kydex holster on their appendix than a 1911 45 or a 686 loaded with wad cutters in a tooled leather, strong side, hip holster.
opinions change. People and the gun press will follow and promote one trend for a while and then find another. Debates will rage. Then things will change again. Maybe in a few years we will all be shooting .75 cal muzzle loaders and talking about 1500 yard shots on elk with a mid 21st century version of a 50 BMG, That is suddenly fashionable again.
for my part, I guess I have a foot on each side of the skinny/fat bullet debate. My “EDC“ gun is one of those tiny 9mm compacts riding on my appendix when it does. On the other hand, “Ole Ben” my nearly 20-year Benelli M2 12 gauge is still dirty from my last pheasant trip and waiting for the next one. yesterday Afternoon when I headed out to my deer stand, I opened the safe and that 6.5 creed was sitting right next to a 300 WM in the Tikka department. For what ever reason, “Thomas”, the Magnum, got the nod. Thomas and I sat watching a little buck wander back and forth for a while but we decided not to take the shot and headed home. If we had, I doubt the buck would have really noticed if it had been a 300WM or a 6.5 creed that zipped through his lungs, but somewhere dad would have smiled a bit when he heard that 300 roar.
Why are calibers getting skinny? I think it is a combination of (1) ammo tech improving somewhat and as @Formidilosus points out, (2) better understanding of smaller caliber rounds’ terminal ballistics on animals combined (3) with a push from the long range target community demonstrating how well smaller calibers perform in long range accuracy.
I draw inference from the handgun caliber debates that raged in the pistol community for decades. as a kid in the 1980s i read pistol magazines that were still permeated with the thinking of Jeff Cooper, Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan. Many of them were lawmen that had been in gun fights in various wars and on the streets. They had seen early and mid 20th century versions of .38 and 9mm Hand guns in use in the real world and knew their deficiencies that made them prefer, and in Keith’s case, invent bigger, more powerful handguns calibers like the 45 acp, 357 and 44 magnums. Evan Marshal declared the 357 the king of “one shot stops” and Dirty Harry carried a gun that was “the most powerful handgun in the world”. Calibers like 40 S&W and 10mm became popular. They weren’t as shootable in most people’s hands but they shot bigger, faster bullets and the shooting public assumed that was a good thing.
flash forward 40-50 years and bullet design has improved a lot. A top shelf 9mm hollow point is a hell of a round for anti social purposes and terminal ballistic data is much better and more widely available To show that good 9mms do their job. While larger calibers still hit harder, the gap is more narrow than in decades past In terms of stopping real threats. Higher capacity and shootability are favored by many professionals and shooting enthusiasts. These days, you are much more likely to find an experienced, knowledgeable shooter with a compact G19 or a micro compact p365 loaded with +p pills in a kydex holster on their appendix than a 1911 45 or a 686 loaded with wad cutters in a tooled leather, strong side, hip holster.
opinions change. People and the gun press will follow and promote one trend for a while and then find another. Debates will rage. Then things will change again. Maybe in a few years we will all be shooting .75 cal muzzle loaders and talking about 1500 yard shots on elk with a mid 21st century version of a 50 BMG, That is suddenly fashionable again.
for my part, I guess I have a foot on each side of the skinny/fat bullet debate. My “EDC“ gun is one of those tiny 9mm compacts riding on my appendix when it does. On the other hand, “Ole Ben” my nearly 20-year Benelli M2 12 gauge is still dirty from my last pheasant trip and waiting for the next one. yesterday Afternoon when I headed out to my deer stand, I opened the safe and that 6.5 creed was sitting right next to a 300 WM in the Tikka department. For what ever reason, “Thomas”, the Magnum, got the nod. Thomas and I sat watching a little buck wander back and forth for a while but we decided not to take the shot and headed home. If we had, I doubt the buck would have really noticed if it had been a 300WM or a 6.5 creed that zipped through his lungs, but somewhere dad would have smiled a bit when he heard that 300 roar.
. Reading every post would get the specifics ... or maybe I should just see how good google search is.
