My perspective on (relatively) recent history in the shooting sports industry...
Hunting as a whole has lost popularity for the last few generations - nearing the point of being “unpopular.” So civilian firearms sales slumped among hunters for a while, as the population of hunters slumped. Less and less grandpas and fathers have been buying deer rifles for their sons and grandsons, such kids are growing up without a stable of firearms at home, and without a mentor above them. This effectively ended the era in which the average rifle sold was intended for hunting, but that didn’t mark the demise of the civilian firearms market.
Civilians have rekindled their love for firearms for hobby uses and defense.
Political climates, real or imagined, have pushed extreme sales growth for AR-15’s over the last few decades. Desired during the FAWB, then suddenly broadly available following. Especially so in the last decade, AR’s have flown off of shelves. Equally, we’ve seen a boom of handgun ownership, as more and more states passed concealed carry licensure laws, and even further as more and more states are passing “constitutional carry laws.” If you’ve been watching stats, these two factors have shifted tides - the average firearm sale in the past was made to a firearm owner, whereas in the modern era, the average sale is made to a first time buyer. But we’ve started to hit a relative saturation point again, and the challenge to return a customer is far smaller than the challenge of eliciting a new one.
*Of note - this trend towards increased handgun and AR ownership largely trailed behind the popularity of 3 Gun competition in the US, so that particular sporting “boom” in which 3 gun and pistol action shooting were the fastest growing shooting sports in the world was a leading edge factor, but had largely waned by the time the mass market was buying AR’s. An early influence, certainly, but not a driver for these purchases in recent years.
So all of these folks bought AR’s and handguns, and they’ve realized that blasting rounds at short range isn’t infinitely entertaining. But they enjoy shooting, and especially enjoy having a unique hobby or unique firearm many of their friends may find inspiring... So they look around for what else they can do with a firearm - maybe something outside of their 100 yard square range.
Many firearms and parts manufacturers pushed hard at the end of the AR-15 boom to “graduate” customers into AR-10’s, but most folks (surprisingly) realized the disadvantage of the heavier 10 platform in cost and weight, and sought some other option. If the point of going bigger is going longer, then going with a bolt gun made more sense. So we saw a bunch of new tactical bolt actions getting pushed to market.
Now enter the smoldering embers of popularity of long range shooting, waiting for years to finally catch fire. Military “sniping”is a relatively new affair, and has certainly garnered a certain mystique in pop culture in the last ~30yrs. Every war movie has its obligatory scene of sharpshooting, even entire film franchises have been built around the premise. Police dramas shine lights on sharpshooters, media coverage of sporting events highlight “snipers,” and it goes on and on. Multiple popular YouTube channels and social media profiles are focused on long range shooting, even airsoft soldier wannabe’s have their hero du jour “sniper” to follow online. Video games (and social media channels for their players) have entire genres of sniping opportunities, and in many cases, the “sniping” stages are the most fun and well designed of any of the gameplay - aka, received the most coding time to develop. Chris Kyle’s book and the subsequent film further bolstered the popularity of long range precision shooting.
In parallel, these political climates, domestic and international, fueled by an easy media platform, have pushed “prepping” out of the cult-culture shadows and into the light as a relatively acceptable societal norm. Folks here recognize the advantage of a longer range weapon, with light ammunition, low recoil (in case your 7 year old daughter has to lay down covering fire during a zombie incursion), high availability, and low cost.
Perfectly poised among these trends was the explosion of “tactical rifle” competition - now dubbed “Precision Rifle.” Long range competition from a bench with low round counts was never hugely popular, but any firearm owner can appreciate the practical nature of this long range action shooting hybridization. And flooding over social media, again, promoted a group think mentality looking for the RIGHT cartridge. Naturally, casual plinkers don’t want a barrel burning 6 creedmoor with limited ammunition availability.
So all of this hit together as the perfect storm, and the 6.5 Creedmoor found itself front and center in a market of consumers begging for it. It carries the reputation of “the European 30-06” which has been killing moose for over a hundred years, but with modern design features, less recoil than most popular American hunting cartridges, and broad market availability. So it found easy success by building upon foundations of greatness, standing on the shoulders of giants, and flooding itself into the market. What hunters among us remain have recognized the efficacy of the 243win and 7-08 for deer for a few generations already, and the 6.5 Creed steps in among them as a high performer with ease, without any masochistic, excessive recoil.
So the easier question to answer - in which shooting demograph is the 6.5 creed NOT viable? Based on this particular forum, the only answer is “aged luddites which disdain anything new”.
