Standing over the zebra stallion—bedecked in his finest pajamas, in a pattern best described as art by God—I tapped the stock of my Mauser 98 to say thanks for a straight shot. I was using an obscure cartridge released in 1906, the .318 Westley Richards, and was more than happy to have revived an African classic.
Fast-forward 2 years, and I’d be standing in ankle-deep snow in northwest Colorado over a handsome mule deer buck, holding the then-unreleased 6.8 Western, the latest development in the .277-inch bore diameter. On that hunt, our group had taken both mule deer and elk at ranges between 25 yards and 475 yards, and I came away very impressed with the design.
I love cartridges, whether big or small, and I always do my best to give any new design a fair shake before deeming it unneeded. Reading the comments regarding any article on these new developments, traditionalists are the first to declare any deviation from their “ought-six” or “two-seventy” as heresy, and that any attempt
