6.8 Western Review! Winchester's new long range hunting cartridge, tested and proven.

grab your social regressive yakity snacks 
everybody because today’s epic cartridge deserves  
an epic video and you know that i’m the kind of 
guy to give it to you uh down below you’re gonna  
see in the timeline that we actually have chapters 
so if you want to skip around the different  
sections to see how this performs then go ahead 
and check that out because we’re going to have  
graphs and charts we are going to have gel tests 
and then of course we have hunt footage from the  
november hunt that i did some of you guys guessed 
correctly that the cartridge that i was using on  
that winchester hunt in missouri uh that it was 
6.8 western you’d gone out to SAAMI and checked  
out some of the new listings out there yeah it was 
6.8 western so this is the cartridge we’re going  
to be taking a look at today and you might be 
wondering why there’s one more hunting cartridge  
out there and there are some very good reasons 
that are all right here come take a close look  
this is our area of opportunity this is a 
gift that was just given to me for christmas  
by my father-in-law this is the Speer bull it 
catalog from 1975

i think and as you can see  
a lot of these share some very similar properties 
even the pullets that you see are right up here  
for the the center fire rivals some of the more 
modern ones bottleneck cartridges all uh these  
are flat base for one thing and they’re 
all going to have kind of a spire point  
or maybe it’s a full metal jacket or follow point 
and we’ve started to add some technology since the  
days of 1975 and that’s when you know a lot of the 
cartridges that we’ve been using were developed  
either then or way before then heck 270 winchester 
is about 100 years old now i think we just have a  
couple years before that but things have moved 
along in the meantime now i’m not going to say  
that these pullets were no good actually a bunch 
of these are still being made by Speer some of the  
things that you see on here you can still buy on 
their catalog perfectly effective your daddy and  
your granddaddy use these to hunt deer but then 
things did move along a little bit because there  
are some advances in technology that we can get 
into to make these a bit more effective so for  
example this is a modern Speer bull it this is one 
of the boat tail soft points i’ve been using these  
in 243 for a while they’re very accurate and they 
have a pretty high ballistic coefficient higher  
than the ones that you see behind me here a lot of 
that comes down to that boat tail right there you  
can see that the point doesn’t really differ very 
much from those mullets in the background but the  
boat tail sure does and that starts to make this a 
more streamlined efficient pullet through the air  
and it can carry its energy a lot farther and it’s 
just really not going to slow down so you’re going  
to get better trajectory and better impact on 
the tahr get nowadays every company is making  
something like this this is the hornady eldm so 
this has a very very high ballistic coefficient  
this one is a 140 grain 6.5 millimeter pullet 
right here and this has a ballistic coefficient  
over 0.6 if i remember correctly so these 
are very very efficient through the air  
and yeah they’re going to keep energy they’re 
going to have a good trajectory and they’re just  
going to be a bit better overall it’s not that 
they’re going to be more precise or anything  
some of these old ones like the old follow 
points are going to be wonderfully precise  
but this will get out to some of those farther 
tahr gets and make those shocks a lot easier  
and that’s why we have a glut of new cartridges 
nowadays that’s why we have things like the six  
millimeter arc previously reviewed make sure 
you check out the whole series that i did on  
six millimeter arc we have 224 valkyrie all 
kinds of other fun new cartridges that people  
are wondering you know is this just some kind of 
me too and as someone just trying to grab a little  
bit of market with some silly hype no what is 
happening is everybody is basing these cartridges  
around this new technology these new pullets a 
lot of these just plain will not work in the old  
cartridges that you have and if it can a lot of 
time what you have to do is modify your barrel  
so you have to get a different twist rate you have 
to maybe cut a different chamber with a different  
throat in order to get these to fit sometimes 
you get these really pushing back into the case  
and just you know kind of filling up some of 
that space that you might have in there and  
what you really want to do is have a case that is 
specifically built around a pullet like this and  
that’s how we get into 6.8 western one other 
area of development to consider is the case  
this is 300 win mag right here and nobody has a 
problem with 300 win mag this is a great cartridge  
very functional very very good performance this 
has been used by snipers in the military this  
has been used by hunters worldwide you can take 
any game in north america with this and a fair  
amount of stuff down in africa uh it is a great 
great cartridge and it has been used by a lot  
of people for a long time but what if you could 
take a lot of the function of this okay so you  
have this which is a long action cartridge it’s 
quite long you have 30 odd 6 which is long 270  
win those are you know some of your great old 
cartridges that are used by a lot of people  
but what if you could take a lot of that 
performance and stuff it into a shorter case  
and use it in a short action rival instead of a 
long action that way you can have a receiver that  
is theoretically stiffer the whole thing is going 
to be lighter magazines are probably going to be  
cheaper the rival is going to be smaller overall 
just kind of a lower profile and you can actually  
more easily mount optics on that because that that 
that receiver is just so much shorter so what if  
you could take this and replace it with something 
like this here’s a comparison there is 300 win mag  
and there is well this is about the same size as 
the 300 winchester short mag you can see that the  
heads are the same diameter so we have a very 
similar case but what we’ve done is we’ve been  
able to increase kind of the barrel size of this 
by getting rid of that belt and we’ve shortened  
everything up and this is actually the 300 wsm 
is almost the same performance as 300 win mag  
now it kind of depends on what pullet you’re 
using but if you are going pullet for mullet  
like a 190 grain pullet we’re going to 
discuss here in a second you can actually get  
pretty much the same performance out of the two 
and you get that smaller lighter easier to deal  
with rival pretty cool so then we got into seven 
millimeter you know people wanted a more efficient  
pullet so you kind of step things down to the 
seven millimeter you have the 270 which is again  
a wonderfully streamlined pullet but like 270 
winchester the original cartridge that we have  
from way way way back in the early 20th century 
we can go further if we can add a bigger pullet so  
this is a 6.8 western case let me show you a full 
one here here’s a whole 6.8 western cartridge you  
can see that we have that very low drag pullet 
with an extremely long ogive and then we have that  
plastic pointed tip up there everybody nowadays 
is wanting to use those tips it helps to reduce  
drag and it also helps to initiate expansion 
so if you have a pullet like this one that is  
bonded this is the 165 grain accubond lr you 
might see these shortened up as the abler ablr  
it’s a pullet that is becoming well known for its 
ability to take games so you have good terminal  
performance and you have excellent exterior 
ballistics as well so this is going to have  
a lot of authority when it hits but this is it 
right here what they did is they took that 270 wsm  
pushed the shoulder back so that they could 
uh get the case kind of cleared of a lot of  
the pullet instead of having a lot of pullets 
sticking in there get a little bit of a longer  
neck that’s nice then you crank up the twist rate 
to one in eight or one in 7.5 and you give it a  
little bit longer lead inside that barrel and 
you have 6.8 western and this is a tremendously  
effective cartridge in my own hunt which i’m 
going to show you some of the footage here  
this is what we used out in missouri winchester 
invited a handful of us out to pike county for a  
whitetail hunt and i was able to use 6.8 western 
to take a good sized doe and a really gorgeous  
buck and i have the meat sitting in the freezer 
right now if you want to see those full videos  
i’ll put links to them right here it was a blast 
and the cartridge was wonderfully effective the  
two initial offerings from winchester are the 165 
grain acubond long range that i was talking about  
and then we have the 170 grain this is a their 
silver tip right here and i was able to test  
both these in gel we’ll check those out here 
in a second but this is the one that me and  
a couple others used on the hunt and of all the 
animals that we took at distances anywhere from i  
think the closest shock was mine at 60 yards there 
might have been one that was a little bit closer  
and then we had the longest shock was 175 yards 
that was jimmy and with this 165 grain bonded  
pullet we got through and through on all but one 
animal so this provides a very heavy hit even  
on some of these bigger bucks and does that we 
were after and you know even striking a shoulder  
did not matter it just cut straight through the 
animal out the other side and left a massive trail  
on the other end just a huge bluff trail for 
us to follow when the animals did make it a  
few yards and most of them did not make it far at 
all i think that britney’s only made it one step  
there were a couple others that they just pretty 
much crashed right there i had one of mine go  
about i don’t know a couple yards and then the 
buck went about 75 this is the 165 grain accubond  
and this is the 170 grain ballistic silver tip 
the silver tip looks really cool now despite  
this one’s heavier weight this one actually has 
a lower ballistic coefficient so overall i’m  
going to recommend this one it moves out faster 
has a higher bc it has that bonded construction  
and i’m sure that this one is going to be just 
fine for a lot of stuff but if you can find the  
accubond do buy this one i highly recommend it 
this one just grouped well and i can vouch for it  
having actually tested it all of us actually used 
this on that hunt all of us that shod 6.8 western  
now as you can see both of these are short actions 
so they’re going to fit in short action magazines  
short action rivals you’re going to get that 
quick short bolt throw rather than the long action  
and you are not going to be missing much of 
anything in terms of performance in fact even  
though this you could look at this as a 270 
wsm one that they just you know tweaked a tiny  
little bit and they’re you might think oh they’re 
trying to make a cash grab off it no no that’s not  
it as we discussed you have you have to have a 
different twist rate and with that shoulder pushed  
back this is a different cartridge overall but 
what this does is it actually leaves the muzzle  
slower than the the 270 wsm but it doesn’t 
want to stop that’s the big deal about this  
even with some of the more efficient pullets that 
we have in 270 wsm they cannot keep up with this  
as the distances increase as we’re 
going to see in the charts here  
one way to frame this whole discussion of 
trajectory a lot of time it doesn’t really matter  
if you’re going to be taking your shock at 100 
yards it doesn’t really matter if one cartridge  
is going to drop one inch over another that’s 
not really going to change anything when you’re  
talking about the boiler room of the animal that 
you’re shoeing at that might make a difference on  
a prairie dog but for most of the stuff that we’re 
going to be talking about here which is big game  
doesn’t make any difference at all where this 
really comes into play though is when you don’t  
know exactly where your tahr get is you’re not 
exactly sure about distance you want to be able  
to easily get on tahr get and you want to be 
able to you know make a decent hit no matter  
if you’re off a few yards on your distance or 
if things are stretching out just a little bit  
it’s just going to be a little bit easier to 
get on tahr get starting at the bottom we have  
308 winchester for this one i chose these are all 
winchester loads if i can help it i wanted to get  
an apples to apples comparison using very similar 
pullets and just kind of a similar setup overall  
in this case i had a 168 grain nosler pullet 
in that one and you can see that it has quite  
a lot of drop at 600 yards versus the others 6.5 
creedmoor jumps up quite a bit so it’s going to be  
a bit easier to get on tahr get and then stepping 
up a bit we have a huge cluster of rounds that  
are all going to be hitting within an inch or 
two of each other these are all very very close  
as far as the vertical goes so we have 300 wsm we 
have 6.8 western with that 170 grain pullet 300  
win mag and 270 winchester so those two at this 
distance are actually hanging pretty tight they’re  
actually really overlapping this seven millimeter 
remington bag numb steps things up a little bit  
and then you have 6.5 prc and 6.8 western 165. 
i told you that 165 has a higher ballistic  
coefficient and it’s actually leading the pack 
you know this little group right here we have 6.5  
prc and then slightly above it we have that 6.8 
western then we have a 7 millimeter wsm which is a  
pretty interesting to me i wasn’t expecting 
that and then the fastest one overall is 270 wsm  
270 is going to be a real contender for 
this whole thing using that lightweight  
pullet within some of these more practical 
ranges we’re going to talk about why maybe  
that’s still not the best choice 
even if it has the best trajectory  
we’ll take a look at that here in a second but 
you can see how the trajectory works within  
these kind of functional distances this next 
chart shows extreme distances so we are looking  
at 1 800 yards which is a ridiculous distance 
this is one that nobody’s really going to be  
hunting in but i wanted you tahr get guys to see 
what this cartridge could be able to do for you  
and really we’re going to concentrate on 6.8 
western that 165 grain pullet and 6.5 prc the 6.5  
prc there is no load on the winchester catalog 
so from this one i had to grab a hornady load  
this is using their 143 grain eldx so again we’re 
comparing hunting to hunting if we wanted to go  
ahead and do some tahr get pullets in the future i 
think they’d again kind of stay pretty similar to  
each other but you can see that these two lines 
pretty much overlap each other from the get-go  
all the way out to this extreme distance of 1800 
yards the two of them are pretty much overlapping  
but when you kind of take into account the 
fact that you have another 22 grains of pullets  
with that 6.8 western you are dealing with a 
good hit more energy this is going to provide a  
pretty good wallop out at any of the distances 
that we’re talking about even though it and  
6.5 prc are hanging together this one is going to 
hit harder that’s just drop having spent a lot of  
time doing a lot of long range shoeing i am much 
more interested in wind drift you can deal with  
drop quite a bit yes it helps you to get on tahr 
get a lot easier especially if you are at kind of  
unknown distances but wind drift this is the thing 
that you are really fighting when you’re out there  
in real world conditions assuming a 10 mile an 
hour direct crosswind at 200 yards let’s see  
what kind of wind drift we’re dealing with i’ve 
sorted these in order of the best wind dealing  
so this is the 270 wsm and this one’s going 
to show up at the top of a lot of these charts  
if you’re looking for something that’s an 
alternative maybe to 6.8 western i think a  
lot of you guys might look at this one this one 
is pretty darn sweet using a 150 grain pullet  
that’s kind of where 270 wsm tops out we have 
wind drift of only about two inches at 200 yards  
that’s great in a 10 mile an hour wind you can 
see that things bump up just a tiny bit for 6.5  
prc and 6.8 western uh with that 165 grain pullet 
and then again we just kind of very very small  
steps until we get out to 308 winchester 
and you can see that’s a pretty big jump  
for the amount of windage that it has to 
deal with at 200 yards at 600 yards we’re  
keeping our top three positions and that’s how it 
hangs out for the rest of time you can see here  
that our top three maintain that same setup 
so we have 200 or 270 wsm at a thousand yards  
has about 60 inches but you can see that they’re 
all just barely within touching distance of each  
other these are all extremely close this 
is something that i wouldn’t even consider  
really a factor this is going to be a very 
small amount in my scope that i have to dial  
if i were to make a difference between all the in 
fact that would probably be the exact same dial  
setup on the scope if you want to see how this 
compares to some of your other favorite cartridges  
look at that that’s almost 100 inches of drift 
at a thousand yards with 308 winchester and this  
is a cartridge that people use in f-class matches 
and all kinds of other tactical matches you know  
308 winchester winchester’s a great cartridge 
but you can see what some of these bag numbs  
start to do instead you tahr get guys are going 
to be really interested in this where do these  
pullets go subsonic from these cartridges we’re 
looking at 270 wsm it going subsonic and this is  
not at my own elevation i’m a little bit higher 
than this but at sea level assuming 50 percent  
humidity uh it’s this one is 270 wsm is going to 
go subsonic at 1550 yards and then just slightly  
scaling back for 6.8 western and 6.5 prc and the 
reason why i put 6.5 or 6.8 western above this  
is that it actually has just a little bit longer 
subsonic range it’s just a couple extra yards if  
i remember correctly you can see that it’s really 
far out there seven millimeter remington bag numb  
comes in next and then we really start creeping 
down that 170 that i told you had the slightly  
lower ballistic coefficient you can see that this 
one does start to scale things back then we get  
into it’s actually equal with 6.5 creedmoor 
at this point and then trailing by a long way  
we have 308 winchester before 1200 yards now for 
information that’s more interesting to you hunters  
yes a lot of these are going to have a wonderful 
trajectory but how much energy are they actually  
bringing on the tahr get this might be a big 
deal for you if you are dealing with dangerous  
game dealing with some of your larger ones like 
moose at zero this is at the muzzle the most  
energy you’re going to get is 300 winchester bag 
numb then we have 300 wsm 7 millimeter wsm 270  
wsm and then we have the 6.8 western with the 170 
and the 165. but keep an eye on this because these  
are going to start to change places that energy 
is going to shift as trajectory shifts as things  
start to slow down as those ballistic coefficients 
start slowing some of these down more than others  
at 100 yards which is going to be a pretty common 
deer shock you have 300 winchester bag numb still  
hanging out and really the only change that’s 
happened is that 6.5 prc has moved up above  
270 winchester that we had right there so 
immediately at practical distance this one is  
swapped out just with one uh foot pound of energy 
300 win mag is still hanging out at 200 yards but  
things are definitely mobile you can see that this 
170 grain 6.8 western is now in third position  
and the other 6.8 western starting to pretty soon 
it’s going to be shifting its way up as well 270  
wsm has fallen just a little bit but it has kind 
of swapped out with two or seven millimeter wsm  
at 600 yards we made a big 400 yard jump here and 
you can see that 6.8 western that 165 grain pullet  
has surged ahead with 1 67 foot pounds of energy 
the 170 has fallen a bit it’s going to kind of  
hang out at the middle of the pack for the rest of 
this and now we’re going to see at what distance  
we have hit the thousand foot pound mark where 
things are really starting to drop so what we have  
down here with 308 winchester that happened back 
at 625 yards 700 yards for 6.5 creedmoor and then  
as we start creeping up 6.8 western that 165 grain 
pullet has taken control it owns the field beyond  
a thousand yards 6.8 western is the clear winner 
among all of these it’s ballistic efficiency keeps  
that energy going and right there as it drops 
below that 1000 foot pounds it’s going to have the  
greatest energy beyond that point all that muzzle 
energy has its drawbacks so here’s our recoil  
chart as you might expect the 300 winchester bag 
numb with that 190 grain mullet is winning the day  
followed closely by 300 wsm but then we have the 
two 6.8 westerns yes these do kick pretty good  
as you might have seen on my face when i uh took 
the shock with that tacticam attachment on there  
i lost about one and a half inches of eye relief 
putting the scope camera on my scope and uh it was  
fine as long as i remembered to brace up behind it 
but uh i forgot on that last shock with the buck  
and so i punched myself in the face pretty good 
but yeah you can see that at least we have dropped  
a fair amount with the uh the recoil here we have 
dropped about four over four foot pounds of energy  
for these two but then they start to drop off 
you can see it’s not much different from a seven  
millimeter remington bag numb seven millimeter 
short bag numb things drop off considerably by  
the time you get to 6.5 creedmoor but again you 
know we’re looking at bag numbs here and okay  
yeah it’s gonna kick pretty good not as bad as 
300 win mag before i show you the ballistics gel  
test with these two loads at 200 yards i wanted to 
describe some of the effects that you’re going to  
get from a long pullet like this one like the 
eldx like the abler like the ballistic silver  
tip this isn’t just a parlor trick where you’re 
going to get a flatter trajectory at long distance  
and you know maybe have a little bit of an easier 
time getting on tahr get no this is going to  
provide extra energy on that tahr get as we just 
talked about because it is much more efficient  
and when it hits when it peels back it’s going 
to leave a tall column of lead behind it it’s  
going to have greater momentum and you’re going 
to have a better chance of this exiting the animal  
and leaving a good bluff trail for you 
some of these are designed to open up and  
really kind of dump all the energy inside 
game which can work like the 350 legend  
deer season xp that people have been talking 
out about they say that it works very very  
well i’ve heard some very good results from most 
people we’ll talk about that in another video  
but this is a little bit different in that it’s 
going to kind of hold together really well like  
this accubond long range this is going to hold 
together great and in the case of our animals it  
drove all the way through so we could have a good 
bluff trail in case we didn’t drop them right away  
first up 165 grain accubond this one has been 
going through and through all the deer that  
we’ve been testing out here except for one we had 
one where it did stop on the the far hide but for  
most of these shocks even at 175 yards that jimmy 
got that was just straight through that buck um  
yeah these things are hitting really hard 
so remember this is a bag numb yes it’s a  
short action but we’re going to see exactly 
what this does the gel we’re using today  
is 20 uh clear ballistics gelatin so this is not 
uh the 10 that i usually use where things cruise  
through a lot easier this one’s not going to go 
quite as far and it’s probably going to get you  
a better example of what a deer would actually 
be like they have just everything about them  
is a little heavier than the uh the the pork 
that i’m used to let’s take a shock 200 yards
check it out dudes and hey this is jimmy 
with winchester hey everybody so he’s partly  
responsible for the mess that we have right 
here today so what was kind of the thinking  
when you put this together so the goal of 6 8 
western was long range hunting and long-range  
shoeing applications the mullets are all built for 
big game hunting we also have offerings for you  
know long-range uh tahr get shoeing as well but 
they’re all designed to work excellent on big game  
animals and that’s what you see you know right 
here is this very large permanent wound channel
the pullet penetrated you know all the way through  
the first 16 inches now this is 20 ballistic gel 
so it’s a lot denser than you know the typical 10  
percent and it looks like we picked up another 
inch here into this this backer block it’s one  
heck of a pullet yeah it is yeah i’m i’m floored 
by this like i’d be happy if this were a 10 block  
and you know it came out like this penetration to 
be a little over we’re 10 but still look at that  
look how wide can you grab that tape measure yeah 
let’s see how wide this sucker is because that is  
gigantic and that explains why these animals are 
dropping fast three inches or more maybe whoo all  
right you want to talk about an energy dump check 
out all the energy that went through the board  
broke the sawhorse right up here just cracked it 
right in half oh it broke it right here that’s all  
broken and then this leg is i don’t know if it’s 
gonna survive this second hit let’s see we’ll see  
might have to improvise go get some two by fours 
and make a new sawhorse we’ll see yeah okay now  
we have another hunter here that’s been with us 
this is uh brittany jill hello and she uh she  
took what a buck and a doe right just a block oh 
just a buck okay but your buck was gorgeous those  
biggest deer my biggest buck today yeah what 
was the uh the measurement on the antlers 151.
yeah it was a monster and it i liked the 
shape of it it was it was a beautiful deer  
yeah so what do you think of the other round 
overall i shocked him and he dropped yeah he  
took probably one stop and went down so 
say it worked next up 170 grain ballistic  
silver tip look at how cool that is 
got that kind of blackened pullet  
yeah and i expect that this is going to hit 
pretty hard now like what jimmy was saying  
this one’s probably going to open up a little more 
quickly so probably for some of your lighter game  
let’s see what this does 170 grains 
has a good uh boat tail on it again  
and this one is coming in about three 
quarters of an moa higher than the other  
but horizontally is just right so it’s 
probably just down to the ballistic  
coefficient maybe a little bit of harmonic 
vibration but let’s see what it does to
gel
six eight western hits hard there are chunks of 
sawhorse everywhere and we didn’t even hit it  
look at that it’s just a solid hit on the 
uh the gel here now i did have one bad shod  
up at the top we can kind of compare the two they 
look very similar but here is the uh the good  
hit and look the energy was so harsh that it’s 
tearing the plywood apart it’s delaminating it  
and that’s the sawhorse that’s all that’s left 
i can’t believe it’s actually standing i thought  
this was gonna pitch onto the ground hot dang that 
hits hard all right tell us what we got here jimmy  
all right well we as discussed we have a 
very damaged sawhorse so i guess we have  
to replace that but that’s okay cause 
we got a really great looking hit here  
full penetration through that that 16 inches of 
20 gel you know and and you know we noticed this  
picking out the pullet from the the last shock 
this gel is uh because it’s cold out here like 34  
maybe you know high 30s maybe yeah it’s a little 
denser than normal so you’re going to probably see  
more penetration than this you know an actual 
situation which uh you know the the performance  
looks great um it upset quickly actually it 
looks very similar to the accubond long range  
but the acuba long range did did produce 
a larger cavity but this is just ideal for  
for deer uh great for bear as well and we 
got about three inches more penetration  
here three and a half so yeah yeah all in all 
about 20 inches of penetration through that 20  
gel yeah that’s beautiful and still nose forward 
big mushroom yep yeah this is a little bit of a  
different channel like he’s saying look at that it 
looks like it maxes out at about two inches wide  
once you see what we actually have 
yeah measuring from the top it’s about  
yeah two and uh there’s about two there as 
well yeah so not quite as wide as the other  
but check out how long that devastation lasts you 
know both of them were good nah’s tee channels  
uh but the uh the other one just kind of bloomed 
and then kind of slowly tapered off this one  
it seems to just kind of maintain it’s 
tearing things up all the way back  
until it really starts to settle down just 
before it leaves block number one yeah both  
of these are are gonna be great for tearing stuff 
up the first rivals chambered for 6.8 western or  
of course going to be from the olin corporation so 
you’re going to have winchester and browning there  
and on the winchester side the one that i 
actually tested out in the field that was the xpr  
that is an inexpensive hunting rival that you 
guys have asked me about before in the past  
i’m not going to talk about it right now i really 
enjoyed my time with it but we’re going to do  
that in another video i don’t have a rival to 
actually show you guys but i can talk you through  
how it was out in the field and i did get some 
footage out there a really cool little rival but  
then we have the model 70 if you want to take 
the price tag and some of the kind of upgraded  
parts up a little bit and then on the browning 
side you have the xbolt and i think we need to  
keep an eye in the future winchester didn’t say 
yay or nay to either of these but i think it’d be  
really cool you have the browning blr which is the 
lever action rival and you have the browning bar  
which is their semi-auto both of those are 
currently chambered in 270 wsm is one of their  
offerings so i think it’s only natural that 
they’re going to end up putting 6.8 western  
in there as well and i think both of those would 
be really really cool choices it’s so nice to have  
a semi-auto and a lever action rival in bag numb 
chamberings and you know i’ve seen people using  
the bar for example out hog hunting to great 
effect because you can have some heavier hitting  
rounds flatter trajectories and you can get out 
there on some of these long fields and just wipe  
them out i’ve seen some really cool footage out 
there so hopefully we’ll see that in the future  
now it’s time for the most important part of our 
discussion and i think this is why a lot of you  
guys subscribe to the social regressive in the 
first place i’m not a hype man i’m not here to  
talk about how awesome something is and how 
it’s going to fix every problem that you have  
everything has its own purpose it has its own 
place and this might have a place in your closet  
or in your safe and it might not so we’re going to 
talk about that here if you want to subscribe to  
the social regressive for more of these honest 
talks please hit that subscription bell down  
or subscription button down below and hit the 
notification bell too so you can be notified  
when new videos come out it’s your best shock 
to find out youtube doesn’t like us so we have  
to do what we can to try to get the message out 
there but here is what i think is the purpose  
of this cartridge and what sort of folks might be 
interested now naturally in the name 6.8 western  
they are gearing this for hunting you can see all 
the pictures on here are of white tails and elk  
and all that sort of stuff and i think that is its 
primary purpose this is going to be a wonderful  
cartridge that fills sort of the same roles as 
you get from any of those bag numb cartridges  
that we talked about here like this really is a 
lot like a seven millimeter remington bag numb  
we we would love that cartridge seven millimeter 
mag because it’s so flat shoeing it has a little  
bit less recoil in general than a 300 win mag and 
it’s just very flexible for all kinds of distances  
and it’s going to provide a whole lot of energy 
when you have mullets as good as these terminally  
and through the air that means that you’re going 
to be able to increase your distances where you  
can strike an animal and not only will you have 
a great trajectory to make it easy to make that  
shock but you’re going to provide a lot more 
energy on tahr get than you’re gonna get with  
some of these others i think that’s really 
where the sweet spot of this is if you are  
especially a western hunter there are folks out 
east that you know love to poo poo the idea of  
long-range hunting but long-range hunting 
definitely has its place and that place  
is out west a lot of people don’t know this 
about oklahoma but oklahoma is really split  
people think of it as prairie or as maybe desert 
and if you haven’t been out here you might think  
of it as just you know kind of scrub grassland 
but no it’s a split state on the eastern side we  
have a lot of trees a lot of forests a lot of 
hills it’s thickly wooded and that’s the sort  
of place where yeah you’re going to get your 
kind of traditional hunting shock of 75 yards  
out to maybe 200 and as you start moving further 
and further west the fields start getting more and  
more open you start getting into rolling hills and 
you start losing cover and that’s just the reality  
of what it is hunting out west in the prairie 
or in the mountains a lot of the time you have  
a longer shock and there’s nothing to do about 
it it has nothing to do with your stalking skills  
there’s just nothing really to uh to mask you to 
hide you and to get you a little bit closer to  
your game so you just have to take that longer 
shock and this is one that like i say is not  
only going to get you that flatter trajectory 
to get on tahr get and make sure that you get  
that correct vital hit but it’s also going 
to get you more energy than you’re going to  
get out of some of these others especially as 
those distances increase what that all adds  
up to is actually a very flexible cartridge that 
you’ll be able to use either out east or out west  
and you’ll be able to take anything from 
coyotes because of its nice flat trajectory  
you’ll be able to you know take some of 
your predator animals all the way up through  
moose and bear it’s going to have enough energy 
and the mullet is going to be constructed right  
to handle it this is going to be useful in a whole 
lot of situations so maybe you don’t have to have  
three different rivals uh you know sitting in 
your closet waiting for you know their particular  
time you could actually use this for a variety of 
situations and some of those situations can also  
get into tahr get shoe ding there are a lot of 
folks out there that have been using 270 wsm  
and 7 millimeter wsm as tahr get cartridges 
especially for really long range shoeing and  
to great effect now there are going to be some 
drawbacks of course this is a bag numb cartridge  
even though it is a lot smaller than your 300 win 
mag the recoil and you know the recoil is less  
you’re still going to have a pretty good thump 
for your prone shoeing and your bench shoe ding  
so you probably want to get yourself a good 
muscle break for that but the ballistics are  
going to be stellar as you can see the with these 
mullets that are really designed for hunting  
these are matching 6.5 prc with you know kind of 
a similar hunting pullet and so you’re going to  
be able to get really long distances you’re going 
to be able to stay supersonic for a very long time  
and you’re going to be able to fight the wind 
really well and hopefully as we start seeing  
more of these 277 cartridges we’re going to 
start seeing more 277 mullets so hopefully  
we’ll see more tahr get designated mullets ones 
that are extremely low drag and getting into some  
maybe heavier weights we’re gonna see because we 
have you know 277 fury is out there and we have  
you know a handful of others so we’re going to see 
where this heads in the future on both the hunting  
and the tahr get side of things this has one great 
trick up its sleeve and that is its ease of ham  
loading this has no belt it’s not you know some 
super fat case where you need weird sizing dies  
it’s not long so you don’t need a long stroke on 
your press it’s all going to be very easy same  
as ham loading 243 winchester and for that you’ll 
be able to cook up whatever kind of load you want  
if you want reduced recoil no problem if you want 
to be able to stay supersonic as long as possible  
you’re going to be able to cook up those ham 
loads and i think that this is going to perform  
extremely well for you one of the things that i’m 
really happy about is that winchester took us out  
for a practical demonstration first with a lot of 
these it’s all guesswork you know i’m out here at  
the bench taking a look at the cartridge and kind 
of hoping that when we get out into the real world  
that yes it will function the way that it did 
but it was nice to get out and our very first  
experience was harvesting deer taking 
home meat sticking it in the freezer  
and that was just wonderful to me just a whole 
lot of fun and i think a lot of you guys i’ll  
be looking forward to hearing some of your 
experiences with this cartridge please let me know  
how this performs for you in the future i think 
we’re about to hear some really great things thank  
you to everybody that makes videos like these 
possible winchester of course and indian hill  
outfitters that had us out there for the hunt but 
thanks especially to patrons of the destructive  
arts we have folks at the 338 lapua bag numb level 
like sportsman’s guide stan and mary and tyler and  
then at the 300 win mag level we have howard we 
have joseph davis we have peter and mr no name and  
these are the guys along with a whole lot of other 
folks that are chipping in a buck or two a month  
that are keeping the lights on keeping me in good 
audio gear and cameras and all that so if anybody  
else wants to be one of those patrons of the 
destructive arts and earn a couple of goodies  
i’ll put a link to patreon around here see you 
all around thanks for watching if you like this  
video be sure to like share and most importantly 
subscribe even if you didn’t like this particular  
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something coming that’s more up your alley  
check out this playlist right here this is going 
to have videos in a similar vein to what you just  
watched these two videos we cherry-picked for you 
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