salukipv1

I was looking at Weatherby's .223 caliber.....the uh.... .224 Wby which is essentially a .22-250 Rem. I never see a rifle loaded for .224 wby however, and was thinking, they should adopt the .220 swift as their own. Though maybe that would affect marketing/profit, though I'm pretty certain no one currently is buying .224 weatherbys, but by adopting the .220 perhaps they can not only make this great round more popular, also help their own sales!

What do you guys think?

gunnermhr

Do you mean Weatherby should should chamber a gun in a 220 Swift? I don't know how they would adopt it! Wouldn't that be like A 300 REMINGTON ultra mag being developed by Winchester? I would think if Weatherby wants something in a .223 they might call it a .223 Weatherby Mag or something like that.

salukipv1

Well weatherby does have their own rounds from .223 all the way up to .458 caliber, but their .223....called the .224 weatherby......is the same as a .22-250, so I don't think they even make rifles in their own .224wby anymore .....so essentially what I'm saying is ditch the .224wby and replace it with the .220 swift since its still king of the .223's which all of their rounds are kinda based on velocity and then maybe help make the swift more popular....they chamber .22-250 I think, so that's essentially what I'm saying.

DANTHEHUNTER

That would be ok to do. That round has proven its self time after time.Very old and like the 30/06,45/70 it still is hard to beat.

bigbulls

Aparticular cartridgewill nevergain any popularitybecause of Weatherby chambering it.

Weatherby wouldn't benefit any from chambeing the swift IMHO. To begin with Weatherby isn't known any where in the worldas being a varmint rifle manufacturer. They could chamber any .22 centerfire cartridge they wanted to and it wouldn't do anything but sit there on the shelves.

Rammer

I'm with bigbulls on this one.

SwampCollie

No, they do not make the .224 Wby anymore. If you find a gun for sale in that caliber, and are a collector of weatherby's... you really ought to pick it up... they are worth quite a bit from what I understand.

As for the .220 Swift being the king of .223s.... I disagree and I suspect Weatherby would as well. Weatherby is interested in selling rifles. The .220 Swift is certainly a great cartridge, but its ammunition and firearm sales I would suspect are less than 1% of what the .223 is. From a marketing, profitability standpoint... the .223 is the king of the .223s. Weatherby is not interested in making a football bat.

With the economy going in the crapper, and free spending income reducing, I think they should focus on making a rifle that is fairly inexpensive to purchase, and fairly inexpensive to shoot. I think they might ought to consider reintroducing their Mark XXII SEMI-AUTO, in .22 LR, .22 WMR, .17 HMR and .17 HM2, and sell it at a price point comparitive to TC's Classic/Benchmark 22's.

salukipv1

A football bat! I love it, haha.

The .223 may be most popular/used I blame that on it being a military round. And I agree with what you guys are saying, just saying that they really don't have a .22 to offer, they do chamber the .22-250 so I guess maybe that combines our thoughts, a very fast .22 but not the fastest, but certainly way more popular than the .220swift.

What would bring the .220 swift back? I thought I read its slowly making a comeback, more and more rifles are offering it....like more/other brands, I think rem only has 1 maybe 2 rifles for it. Maybe more not certain. I just hate to see great rounds not do well. I hate when "popular" is a deciding factor.

Money isn't the issue, I don't mind paying more for a box of ammo, but when fewer loads are out there, less variety.....less premium bullets etc...loaded, if you're not a handloader you're in trouble, and I venture to guess that maybe 1 in 50 rifle owners/shooters handloads?

Rammer

I wouldn't really consider the 220 Swift as "coming back". I know out of all the guys I know that are serious varmint/predator hunters like myself, only one of them has a 220 Swift. He absolutely loves it, and I am real impressed wtih it as well, and the way he shoots it. It is a hecka catrridge, and a guy pretty much needs to handload for it, since quality ammunition is toough to come by for them around these parts anyway.

Out of my group of hunting buddies, the most popular varmint rounds would be: 243, 223, 22-250, 17HMR, 22 Mag, 22 Hornet, in that order.

SwampCollie

What would bring the .220 Swift back is demand. To build demand, you need to have a gap in the market. There is no denying that varmint rifles, and varmint calibers are the hottest selling firearms (rifles anyway). Varmint hunting has gotten extremely popular... not just because of the drop in fur prices that has resulted in the huge influx in the coyote, fox and bobcat populations (though there are more factors than that), but also because ammunition for popular varmint cartridges, such as the .223, are available and cheap.

To revitalize the .220 Swift, the supply of .223 ammo would have to be cut extremely short (no ammo producer will let that happen), and the availablity of .220 swift ammo would have to be more than it currently is. You'd need more offerings, in affordable offerings. You would also have to have a useage for it that makes it clearly superior to anything else, or at least worth the trouble of producing again.