Does anyone notice the trend? Short action rifle cartridges replacing 30.06 and 270 win etc. .45 gap replacing .45acp. I don't mean this year or next year but 5, 10 or 20 or more years from now. The short, more efficient cases do have benefits. Unfortunately the price is higher now but won't be as the old cartridges are phased out in new firearms and the new cartridges are more mass produced.

Any opinions? Should we all stock up.


M4-AK

Longer, tapered lower-pressure rifle rounds were not designed without purpose.  Quite the contrary is true.  Reliable feeding from magazines into mil-spec chambers, and subsequent reliable extraction, were/are easier to achieve with those oldsters.  Parenthetically, had the .223 been designed with more taperand capacity it's ride through history might have been less bumpy.........maybe we would never have needed O rings.  

Just look at the various .300 Mags going back to Newton's designs.  Or look at the sequence .30-40, .30-06, 7.62X51.  As steels, manufacturing tolerances, ammunition dimensional and ballistic uniformity all improved the need for long, tapered rounds has diminished.  

We may not see new rounds resembling the .303 British, but I doubt that we'll see the third world adopt a 7.62 X 39 (or 5.45) Improved round anytime soon.  Economics is one reason:  whatever ballistic advantages obtain may not be worth the extra hassle involved in making short, fat, straight-walled cartridges work for X dollars, or rubles/unit.  

I would go further and suggest that this applies to the West to some degree, as well.

The case for the short .45 is easier to make.  The old ACP has alot more powder space than it needs.  But even here, reliable feeding becomes more difficult as cartridge OAL decreases.

Interesting topic.  But I'm an old fart.  Probably someone like me said similar things 100 years ago about the new-fangled smokeless powders and the small-bore high-velocity rounds they made possible.

Sam

Yeah, old .30-30 is getting mighty hard to find, all that they carry is .307 Winchester for that new-fangled M1894, high-pressure Angle Eject rifle.

Short action rounds are the big thing in rifle actions, but I have a feeling 45 GAP will be a flash in the pan, not a total flop by any means, but will never be a mainstream cartridge.  The vast majority of 45's being sold are 1911's, and that will continue with little to no change, we have seen a new compact 1911 variant to fit the GAP cartridge but I don't see any rush to redesign existing pistols for another new caliber.

Dear M-4-AK, Lemme put it to ya this way--friggin .30/06 will celebrate its Centennial next year! Been drilling the bad guys in WWI, WWII, Korea, Nam, etc. Wind up in Mozambique or Mandalay, you can always "ammo up." Go try that with the youngsters.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Same with .45ACP. Been ventilating crooks/bad guys for nigh to 100 years. Even the FBI went from "wonder 9s" to 10 mm, and they ALWAYS COME BACK TO OLD FAITHFUL.

You just can't beat a damn good round--how the hell can you argue with performance on all continents from -20*F to +120*F, and the "Old Timers" keep a working.

Buy your grandkids a .30/06 or .45 ACP--they will be around for another century!

GOD-GUTS-GUNS.

The new ammo is a gimic by the gun makers to get people to buy more guns.

I'm not sure that ammo matters as much as we make it out to.  I'm happy with .50, 7.62x51, 5.56x45, and .45.  The new, shorter rounds are cool, but until they offer a real accuracy or range advantage over standard rounds, the economic advantage of using widely produced rounds is important.  I'd love to see technology advance in the ammunition arena, but all this is incremental, and these high-pressure, short magnum rounds are designed for hunting, not combat, anyway.  Hunting rounds tend to be low volume production, and this expensive.

Quoted: Does anyone notice the trend? Short action rifle cartridges replacing 30.06 and 270 win etc. .45 gap replacing .45acp. I don't mean this year or next year but 5, 10 or 20 or more years from now. The short, more efficient cases do have benefits. Unfortunately the price is higher now but won't be as the old cartridges are phased out in new firearms and the new cartridges are more mass produced. Any opinions? Should we all stock up. M4-AK

Are you smoking crack?

Sorry bud but .45 ACP aint goin nowhere.  .45GAP really has little to no advantage over .45 ACP and ACP is much more prevailent.  

I don't see it happening.

I think now is still a golden age for cartridge availability. Many chamberings are available again and I don't see any on the old tried & true going away.

well.... my favorite handguns are in .45 colt, .45 schofield, and .45 acp, with one 9mm thrown in.....

My favorite rifles are in 44-40, 25-35, 30-30, and yep, a Garand in 30-06........


I doubt we will ever see the demise of the old rounds, Hell, 44-40 was dead for years, it is sure easy to find now

Quoted: .45 gap replacing .45acp. M4-AK

Ha! Hardly. I can almost guarantee that .45 GAP is a passing fad. It's redundant to the .45 ACP.

I think there is greater cartridge availability now than there ever was.

They are targeting a new generation of gun owners. Years ago you didn't have much of a choice, it was 30-30, .45, etc. Gun manufacturures are capitolizing on new technologies that allow for experimentation. Firearms can be manufactured to tighter specs with almost no human hands touching them, except for assembly. Tighter tollerence allows for shorter action allows for different ammo IMHO

Quoted: .45 gap replacing .45acp.

Not going to happen.

I love .45 ACP and have no intentions of switching to .45 GAP

Quoted: Quoted: .45 gap replacing .45acp. Not going to happen. I love .45 ACP and have no intentions of switching to .45 GAP

I love .45acp too,but if new buyers choose GAP due to more compact packages, then eventually one could see higher prices on acp ammo and lower prices on gap. That was my point.

The new Glocks in compact and sub gap are pretty attractive to Glock users, and the forthcoming compact 1911's are smaller to in gap.

M4-AK

Just like the 357 sig replaced the 40 cal huh?

I feel bad that they (manufactures and their cohorts, the gun mags) go through all this trouble and hooplah to tell us how great these new rounds are and we all keep shooting .308, .30-06, .223, .45 acp, and 9mm.  And don't forget the 7.62 x 39.  Go to work and ask any deer hunter what caliber they use.  80% of them will either say .30-06 or .30-30 if you're not in a shotgun only place.  Go to any place that sells ammo and if they don't have those 2 rounds please put it on the calendar.  I'm not saying new rounds aren't cool and somewhat exciting, but MOST of them don't do squat that another round already in use already does.  So it all comes down to preference.  If they sold .45GAP for half the price than .45acp, some of us may get one.  I doubt that'll happen though.

READ MY LIPS, the 1911 in .45 acp  taint goin to die and the .45 GAP will NOT replace it.  It's almost a mathematical certainty.   The only way it'd even be a contender in the same ball park is if the military adopts it en masse in a new pistol.  

Quoted: READ MY LIPS, the 1911 in .45 acp  taint goin to die and the .45 GAP will NOT replace it.  It's almost a mathematical certainty.   The only way it'd even be a contender in the same ball park is if the military adopts it en masse in a new pistol.

And why wouldn't they adopt it? Smaller size packaging etc.

M4-AK

How do you figure it's an improvement if it performs the same???????  Just because it's shorter?  All it will do is change the shape of a 1911 grip.  If you put it in that platform.  It could possibly be loaded in a pistol like the berreta.  They still would have to change some things and re tool to do so. Glock had to modify their pistol to make it work right.  I'm not saying it's not a good little round.  It may have some merit.  But again, the only way it could even begin to even sort of  compete is if the military adopts it in a new pistol.  Then you have a base to build on.  But as it sits, people been building on the 1911 in .45 acp for 100 years.  You have all kinds of manufactures making guns, ammo, aftermarket parts, holsters, gear, etc.   It's not just going to fall off the earth just because some new round comes out.  Same goes for all the rounds.  Look I could be wrong but I don't think you guys are looking at the whole picture if you think the .45 GAP is going whoop up on the .45 acp, and the 6.5 grendell is going to shut down the .308 and .30-06, etc, etc.

Although I have to admit, I think the .308 has it on the .30-06 as far as serious shooting goes.  So in a way that happened with that.  But like I said, the military had everything to do with that.

Even without the fact that the AR design gives me wood..............

the .300 RSUM deserves to stay and grow a healthy % in the pleathora of ammo choices.


Dave S

First time I ever used that p word.......... didn't feel bad.......... just didn't feel all that good.

Now, that da-da-damn .300 RSUM is good........... real good.......... hell, I'd rate it over the .300 WSM.......... but, then, I'm thinking with my dangler......... did I mention that ARs give me wood?

Whatever is in use by the military will stay popular, provided WE LOWLY CITIZEN CIVILANS are allowed to buy the round.  I think that the .30-06, .45ACP, and .308 will be here for at least the next 50 years, but I doubt that I will...thank God!