Has any cartridge rose as fast as the 6.5 Creedmoor has

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horsemen61

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Ok folks

Quick question can you remember any cartridge that has rose to fame as fast and stayed as hot as the 6.5 Creedmoor?
 
25 years after being introduced Winchester ALMOST dropped the 270 due to lack of sales and they would have if not for Jack O'Connor's writings which spurred it's acceptance.

I've seen nothing sell so many so fast. The 6.5 CM didn't come out until 2007, 12 years ago. But has been selling like crazy for at least 5. And the round was never advertised, it sold only by word of mouth.

Even 30-06, 308 and 223 took a lot longer than that to become mainstream. Even having the benefit of military use. The 30-30 didn't become popular until the 1920's. It took over 100 years for 45-70 to become popular. Probably the only other round that I can think of that might have sold more in a shorter time period is 40 S&W.
 
Only a few come to mind: .25-06, .243, .22-250. these in the pre internet days of print media, things took so much longer to mainstream.
The Creedmore is a gem.
 
But so many are talking about the 6mm CM and its superiority....

Its pretty popular around here but not too many are using it for hunting for some reason or another. Probably because they have too much money tied up into the thing to get it messed up in the woods.
 
And the round was never advertised, it sold only by word of mouth.
Well yeah, but the internet is one BIG “word of mouth.” Unlike when the 6.5 Creedmoor was introduced, the internet wasn’t around when the 30-06, 270, 308 and the 223 were introduced, let alone when the .45-70 was introduced.
Not that cartridge hype came about with the invention of the internet. Heck, I was a young, impressionable, rifle crazy teenaged boy in the early '60s - at the height of the magnum big game rifle craze. I've told the story too many times, but that's why my retirement gift to myself was my custom built .308 Norma Magnum. I wasn't trying to "recapture" my youth, but I still remember all the hype about the .308 Norma Magnum when I was a kid. And that was many, many years before internet message forums.;)
 
As mentioned above, the .40 S&W would fall into this category. It will be interesting to see if the 6.5 Creedmoor follows a similar path, with unloved guns crowding the used rack of the LGS in 20 -25 years.
 
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The 6.5 CM has risen in a hurry because it has a ton of pros and very few cons. It’s not the best at anything, but it’s good at almost everything. I predict that within 20 years it will be as ubiquitous as the 308 Winchester.
 
But so many are talking about the 6mm CM and its superiority....

For precision rifle competition, the 6 creed has absolutely overshadowed the 6.5 version. But in no other arena has it done so - and precision rifle competitors are only the tiniest subset of rifle buyers. The casual long range plinker guy doesn’t want a 1500rnd barrel life, and doesn’t want a round with only a handful of factory loads. The typical deer hunter, historically, has opted for rounds running bullets heavier than 105-115grns.

The 6 creed is a race car designed for a very specific purpose. It’s not a versatile everyman’s cartridge that the 6.5 Creed has proven itself to be.

I don’t care for the 6.5 creed, but credit where it’s due. Political scares pushed AR-15 sales, and shooters quickly realized the limitations of the AR-15. Some manufacturers pushed AR-10’s as the solution for the limited range of the 2.26” mag box rifles, but shooters realized the price increase and performance for the task wasn’t in line with the desire. Enter the PRS and Hornady with the 6.5 Creed. Cheap and available ammo, cheap and available rifles, long barrel life, low recoil, long range capable, game hunting capable, and at a time when the market wanted all of those things.
 
For precision rifle competition, the 6 creed has absolutely overshadowed the 6.5 version. But in no other arena has it done so - and precision rifle competitors are only the tiniest subset of rifle buyers. The casual long range plinker guy doesn’t want a 1500rnd barrel life, and doesn’t want a round with only a handful of factory loads. The typical deer hunter, historically, has opted for rounds running bullets heavier than 105-115grns.

The 6 creed is a race car designed for a very specific purpose. It’s not a versatile everyman’s cartridge that the 6.5 Creed has proven itself to be.

I don’t care for the 6.5 creed, but credit where it’s due. Political scares pushed AR-15 sales, and shooters quickly realized the limitations of the AR-15. Some manufacturers pushed AR-10’s as the solution for the limited range of the 2.26” mag box rifles, but shooters realized the price increase and performance for the task wasn’t in line with the desire. Enter the PRS and Hornady with the 6.5 Creed. Cheap and available ammo, cheap and available rifles, long barrel life, low recoil, long range capable, game hunting capable, and at a time when the market wanted all of those things.
The only thing you forgot was the "It's better than the old accuracy king 308 argument."
All this is true and I still don't own one.
 
My brother has a kid working for him that has been bitten by the gun bug. My brother told him that guns are the only thing both of us ever talk about.
First thing I hear out of this kids mouth is....."do you even have a 6.5 creedmore brah". That pretty much killed the conversation for me. Marketing and hype is very strong with the 6.5 creedmore. You could chamber a sewer pipe in 6.5 and win any competition and kill any game that walks the earth. No skillz required yo.
 
A couple posts have abbreviated Creedmoor to CM
To be clear these are two entirely different cartridges, the Creedmoor parent case is a 30 TC whereas the Competition Match (CM) has a 243 Winchester parent case.
Just saying
J
 
I’ve only been alive to see two (maybe four) new cartridges make a significant impact. 40 S&W takes the prize by far with 6.5 Cm in second. The two maybes are 300 wsm and 375 Ruger. I’m not sure any other new cartridges from the last 25 years will even survive.

I wasn’t around to know how fast it took now-ubiquitous rounds like the 223, 308 and 30-06 to gain popularity. I suspect those would be the most likely contenders for fast adoption.
 
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