In 1943 Fred Huntington, Jr. decided he’d rather make bullets than take over his father’s laundry in California. Just out of high school, he was swaging .22 lead cores in Vickery dies and jacketing them with spent rimfire cases. He peddled enough to cover expenses. But soon a more profitable idea came to mind: making dies.
Grosvenor Wotkyns, a shooter credited with designing the .22 Hornet, bought a set of Fred’s dies. “They need a name,” he said, and suggested “Rock Chuck Bullet Swage,” a nod to the West’s rock-slide-dwelling yellow-bellied marmot. That moniker was a mouthful, but condensed to RCBS, it suited Fred.
Soon the young man developed what he called the .243 Rockchucker wildcat on the .257 Roberts case, bumping shoulder angle from 21 to 32 degrees.
It must have seemed an odd change. Why .243? Bullets abounded for the Roberts, and the .250/3000 Charles Newton had developed for Savage in 1913. Still, in 1953, Field & Stream shooting editor and wildcatter Warren Page wrote R.T. Davis at MGS Bullets to say he liked the Rockchucker and wouldn’t be surprised if sometime there were a commercial cartridge using a .243 bullet.
Two years later, Remington announced its .244 — Fred’s Rockchucker with a gentler 26-degree shoulder. At the same time the Page Pooper, developed with help from Mike Walker on the .308 case, emerged as the prototype for the .243 Winchester, a ballistic twin also introduced in 1955.
Naturally, the .243’s 2.045-inch case fit short rifle actions for the up-and-coming .308. The .244’s case measured 2.233 inches — as did that of its .257 parent, sired by Paul Mauser’s 7×57 cartridge for his 1892 and ‘93 infantry rifles.
The .244 required that bullets be seated deep to fit short actions, negating some of that cartridge’s edge in powder capacity. Rumor also favored the .243. Was it loaded to 47,900 psi while the .244 ran the needle to 51,000?
Did the .243 get its speed from 22-inch barrels while the .244 had 26 inches of launch? I can’t say. The truth is, handloaded to 50,000 psi and fired from short rifle actions, both cartridges wring about 3,100 fps from 100-grain bullets.
Afield before its commercial unveiling in 1955, the .243 took 83 animals, mostly deer. Sixty fell to one shot; 13 died within 200 yards. It was a good start, given the limited bullet selection then, and the varying levels of marksmanship on the hunts.
Weighty Choices
Early factory loads affected sales of .243 and .244 rifles. Winchester’s 80- and 100-grain bullets suited the .243 to varmints (ground squirrels to coyotes) as well as deer-size game. Remington paired the .244 with 75- and 90-grain bullets.
Not much difference. But standard rifling twist for the .243 was 1:10, while .244 barrels were pitched 1:12. The .243 handled all bullet weights well.
Gun writers speculated the slower twist in .244 barrels wouldn’t stabilize the 100-grain bullets deer hunters favored. Perhaps that’s why long ago I quickly found an affordable 722 Remington in .244. It surprised me by nipping bottle-cap groups with 75- and 90-grain bullets. It downed a pronghorn buck at 400 yards.
But the market leaned to the .243. In 1963, Remington announced the “new” 6mm Remington cartridge, with 100-grain bullets in a case identical to the .244’s. Remington’s Model 700 6mm barrels were and are rifled 1:9. But the .243 had the stronger start. It has appeared in legions of bolt rifles, also in stout front-locking lever-actions, pumps and autoloaders.
The civil recoil of the .243 and the .244/6mm helps shooters fire without flinching. Especially on hunts, this is a more important variable than the intrinsic accuracy of rifle or load.
“It’s his first elk hunt.” He nodded at his son, a willowy lad of 14. “What do you suggest he carry, my .30-06 or his 6mm?” I appreciated the man’s deference. The boy’s slight build prompted my question:
“Which does he shoot best?”
“The 6mm. But he can handle the ought-six.”
I suggested the 6mm. With his 95-grain Nosler Partitions, it would kick half as hard as a .30-06 with 165-grain bullets.
On the opener the lad and I climbed into a clear, cold dawn. Presently I spotted a lone cow easing through a basin. We closed to within 70 yards. She was still quartering off when the kid steadied the 6mm prone. “Wait till she turns,” I whispered.
She kept angling off, adding yardage; then she turned — slightly, but enough.
“OK,” I cooed. “In line with the off-shoulder.”
Seconds later the rifle snapped. The elk jumped, then trotted off. Quickly the lad bolted in another cartridge. “Wait,” I said. She wobbled, stopped, fell and lay still. “In the heart,” I grinned. “Good shot!”
A well-placed little bullet is more effective than a fringe hit with a big one. The 6mms are easy to shoot accurately.
The Right Course?
Not all hunters share my view. Whitetail sage John Wooters (1928-2013) wrote: “Every whitetail I’ve socked with [a .243] has gone down at the shot as though someone had dropped a safe on his head, but [6mm cartridges] have cost me more long, tedious hours of trailing other people’s wounded deer than [have] all others….” To be fair, he didn’t blame bullet diameter or loads, but hurried shooting, poor shot selection and miserable marksmanship.
To Wooters’ point, a 6mm bullet, quickly lethal-laced through front ribs, has little extra oomph to salvage hits to the paunch or thick muscle.
With exceptions, it lacks the heft to break big bone. One day my pal spied a whitetail buck staring at us from 100 yards. I eased to earth; the shot was his. But seconds later he hadn’t fired. The deer tensed, to run. Catching aim, I pressed the trigger just as it spun. The strike was audibly too far back. Melting frost swallowed the few specks of blood on prairie that seemed to grow bigger and emptier.
Many hours later, by great good luck, I spied the deer again, fell prone instantly and fired as again it quartered off. Furrowed grass and hoof-prints soon ended. Walking in expanding circles, I all but tripped over the carcass.
U.S. ammo companies offer more than 40 .243 loads. Those with frangible 55- to 80-grain bullets are for small creatures. But most bullets of 85 to 100 grains handily take deer. While ordinary softpoints have worked well for me, the list of 6mm “controlled expansion” bullets now includes the Barnes TSX, Federal Trophy Copper, Hornady ELD-X and InterLock, Norma Oryx, Nosler Partition and AccuBond, Swift A-Frame and Scirocco and Winchester Copper Impact and Power Max Bonded.
In 1948, Roy Weatherby declared “there is no substitute for velocity.” On that premise he built his famous line of magnum cartridges.
One of the most endearing to me is the .240 Magnum, announced in 1968. It is smaller and less violent than earlier Weatherbys on re-configured .300 H&H brass. The .240’s belted 2.50-inch case was designed from scratch, with the .30-06’s .473 rim.
In fact, the cartridge brings to mind a 6mm/06. Norma loads Weatherby-branded .240 ammunition with a 100-grain Nosler Partition at 3,395 fps. It sends 1,550 ft-lbs past 300 yards, matching the punch of 165-grain spitzers from a .30-06!
Broader Bark
Belted magnums in the 1950s and ‘60s drew hunters away from civil sixes to noisier cartridges. Rimless short magnums were followed by short-coupled cartridges to send long bullets great distances.
A throng of 6mms for Bench Rest and bullseye competition followed the post-WWII arrival of the 6mm/.250, or 6mm International. In 1965 the .223 was necked to yield the 6×45.
A decade later the 6×47 on .222 Magnum brass arrived; it excels as the 6×47 Swiss Match (2001) at 300 meters. During the 1970s, Bench Rest shooters Ferris Pindell and Lou Palmisano re-shaped the 7.62×39 to make the 6mm PPC. In 1978, nine years before PPCs went commercial, Mike Walker produced Remington’s 6mm BR, with a small primer. Texas marksman David Tubb would tweak it to make the 6XC.
Meanwhile, hunters and casual shooters buoyed sales of rifles in .243 Win. and 6mm Rem. They ignored the stubby .243 Winchester Super Short Magnum of 2005.
Faster than it looked, it cycled like a biscuit tin and offered no practical advantage over its forebears. In 2009, Hornady came up with the 6.5 Creedmoor (CM) on the 1.92-inch .30 T/C case. An instant hit, it took all the oxygen from the market for short, long-range deer cartridges.
But then in 2017, Hornady delivered what may be the best all-around 6mm to date by necking down the 6.5 CM. The shoulders of both the 6.5 and 6mm CM are set well back so long, Pinocchio-nose bullets can be used in short actions without seating their ogives below case mouths. Long-range shooters warmed to the 6mm CM; it became a favorite among the 85 percent of PRC competitors favoring 6mms. Its match bullets, spun in 1:7.7 rifling, stay supersonic past 1,300 yards. Hornady makes excellent match and hunting loads.
I met the 6mm CM on an indoor range. The rifle had a carbon-fiber barrel and a fine trigger. After three shots, the first hole was barely egged. After five, it measured .2 inch.
An internet search turned up few rifles in 6mm CM. But not long thereafter, I found the cartridge offered in Springfield Armory’s Model 2020 Waypoint, a well-designed, beautifully built carbon fiber-barreled rifle that in 6.5 CM had impressed me with its smooth function and dime-size groups.
Ballistic Comparisons
.240 Weatherby Magnum, 100-grain Nosler Partition
| Muzzle | 100 yards | 200 yards | 300 yards | 400 yards | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Velocity (fps) | 3,406 | 3,136 | 2,882 | 2,642 | 2,415 |
| Energy (ft-lbs) | 2,516 | 2,183 | 1,844 | 1,550 | 1,294 |
| Arc (inches) | +1.5 | +1.0 | 0 | -5.2 | -15.4 |
6mm Creedmoor, 103-grain Hornady ELD-X
| Muzzle | 100 yards | 200 yards | 300 yards | 400 yards | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Velocity (fps) | 3,050 | 2,862 | 2,687 | 2,514 | 2,348 |
| Energy (ft-lbs) | 2,127 | 1,874 | 1,651 | 1,446 | 1,261 |
| Arc (inches) | +1.5 | +1.4 | 0 | -6.2 | -17.9 |
6mm ARC, 103-grain Hornady ELD-X
| Muzzle | 100 yards | 200 yards | 300 yards | 400 yards | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Velocity (fps) | 2,800 | 2,623 | 2,452 | 2,288 | 2,130 |
| Energy (ft-lbs) | 1,793 | 1,573 | 1,375 | 1,197 | 1,038 |
| Arc (inches) | +1.5 | +1.8 | 0 | -7.6 | -21.8 |
6.5 Creedmoor, 120-grain Hornady GMX Superformance
| Muzzle | 100 yards | 200 yards | 300 yards | 400 yards | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Velocity (fps) | 3,050 | 2,850 | 2,659 | 2,476 | 2,300 |
| Energy (ft-lbs) | 2,479 | 2,164 | 1,884 | 1,634 | 1,410 |
| Arc (inches) | +1.5 | +1.4 | 0 | -6.3 | -18.3 |
A New Home
The Waypoint’s Remington 700 footprint makes it a natural for swapping components, but I had no such plans for this 6mm CM.
The hand-laid AG Composites carbon fiber stock weighs less than two pounds and is pillar bedded. Fluted deep behind the vertical grip, with M-Lok slots up front and five QD swivel pockets, it’s comfy in any shooting position, with or without sling or bipod.
A fluted, twin-lug bolt with dual cocking cams glides in EDM-cut races. The stainless receiver and nitrided bolt are machined after heat-treating so finished dimensions match spec. The beefy 6mm-wide extractor is angled for easy push-feed lock-up. The TriggerTech trigger adjusts to 2½ pounds, and has a “free-floating roller” for slick release. Lock time is a blindingly quick 1.9-milliseconds.
Unlike the 700, the Waypoint’s recoil lug is integral with the receiver ring. Four 6-48 screws and two recoil pins secure a Picatinny rail with 20 m.o.a. of gain for long shooting. Receiver, bottom metal, barrel shank and muzzle brake are Cerakoted. A detachable AICS-pattern, single-stack magazine feeds to centerline. Choose a button-rifled BSF carbon fiber barrel or a fluted stainless. Twist rate: 1:7.5. A brake is included with either barrel, on 5/8-24 threads.
Springfield’s .75 m.o.a. accuracy guarantee showed up as I shot “around the square” at 100 yards to check dials on the Blackhound 2-12×44 scope. After 96 clicks in all directions, my last bullets punched a knot half an inch off the initial group. Berger, Federal and Hornady loads, with bullets of 95, 103, 105 and 109 grains held to Springfield’s standard.
Now fitted with a 2.5-10×45 Leupold, this 6mm CM weighs 8 pounds. The rifle is proportioned for long-range prone shooting, but light enough for a “walking day” afield. Feeding is slick and faultless. Ditto the 3¼-pound trigger pull. Extraction and ejection are snappy.
The 6mm CM matches the .243 Win. and 6mm Rem. as a hunting cartridge, while its shape better accommodates bullets for long-range shooting. Ballistically, it outpaces the new 6mm ARC (Advanced Rifle Cartridge), introduced by Hornady for AR-15s. Ringing steel plates out yonder or filling deer tags, the 6mm CM has no liabilities. In a rifle like Springfield’s Model 2020 Waypoint, it’s getting long looks from brethren who might once have thought 6mms yesterday’s news.
While the 6mm’s were big news 70 years ago, they gave way to bigger, faster, needlessly violent rounds. It looks like it’s time for a re-think.
Albert Speer noted in his book “Spandau: The Secret Diaries” (1975) that Hitler fantasized about seeing New York City consumed in flames. The fantasies had their beginning in August 1938, when a Lufthansa airliner, a four-engine Focke-Wulf Fw 200, made the trip from Berlin to New York City.
By 1941, the Fw 200 Condor would earn the nickname “The Scourge of the Atlantic” for its exploits as a long-range recon-bomber supporting the Kriegsmarine’s U-boats.
However, while the Condor looked like a strategic bomber, it was only capable of carrying 2,200 pounds of bombs with a 2,210-mile range. Consequently, the Luftwaffe began the “Amerikabomber” program, striving to find an aircraft that could carry a useful bomb load on the 7,200-mile round trip from German-occupied Europe to New York City.
Laying the Groundwork
In 1941, Hitler voiced his ideas of attacking the eastern coast of the United States by air via long-range bombers based in the Portuguese Azores.
Early in the war, the Portuguese allowed the Germans to refuel ships (particularly U-boats) in the Azores, but by 1943 the Portuguese changed course and leased bases on the islands to the Allies. Any Amerikabomber would have to make long trip to NYC from Luftwaffe bases in Western Europe.
Since Germany had planned and prepared for a “lightning war,” the Luftwaffe had no aircraft to support a long-range strategic bombing program. When German designers began to address the challenge of ultra-long-range bombing, there was little direction from the Luftwaffe.
The engineers at Messerschmitt initially offered the design with the greatest potential, the four-engine Me 264 (four BMW 14-cylinder engines) — but the prototype demonstrated several failings, from slow climb to altitude, sluggish maneuverability, and an overall lack of stability in the air. The initial prototype was tested without weapons and armor plate, and the addition of six heavy machine guns and protection for the crew made it all the worse.
The Me 264 looked remarkably like the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and could potentially carry a 6,600-pound bomb load over a range of 8,950 miles. However, the Me 264’s engines proved too weak and, while a six-engine Me 264B (six BMW 801E radials) was considered, the project never progressed beyond three prototypes — two of which were destroyed in Allied bombing raids.
The “Amerikabomber” program settled, albeit briefly, on the massive six-engine Junkers Ju 390 (165-foot wingspan). After its successful test flight in October 1943, the German Air Ministry ordered six prototypes followed by up to 20 of the proposed Ju 390A-1 production variant.
The Ju 390 was the subject of several rumors in the early postwar period, particularly its supposed early 1944 transatlantic recon flight to within about 12 miles of New York City, originating from a base near Bordeaux.
Ostensibly this information came from interviews with Luftwaffe prisoners, but no official records, flight logs, or photos have ever been found. Also, the Junkers Ju 390V2, the only prototype hypothetically capable of making the journey, was never flown.
Even so, the rumor of a long-range bomber reaching the U.S. east coast from Europe ignited many fears for government officials in the early days of the atomic bomb era. The questions arose: could America be bombed with an atomic weapon? Might the Nazis have done it if they had an atomic bomb in early 1945? Ultimately, the answer was yes, but such an attack was dependent on a wide range of technical factors.
If the Germans had developed an atomic weapon and had decided to use it against the United States, the target almost certainly would have been New York City.
As previously mentioned, Hitler dreamed of seeing the Big Apple in flames. Herman Goring said that if he had bombers that could reach New York: “I would be extremely happy to possess such a bomber, which would at last stuff the mouth of arrogance across the sea.”
But those bombers were never built, and the Nazi’s atomic bomb potential was unrealized. Even so, there were other cards the Third Reich might have played to attack America.
Rocket-Launching U-Boats
Throughout World War II, Germany’s most successful strategic weapon was her U-boat fleet. Their subs’ ability to penetrate close to the United States’ east coast remained a constant threat until 1945.
In the spring of 1942, a series of tests conducted at the Peenemünde Research Center focused on submarine-launched solid-fuel rockets. These unguided weapons proved useless for attacking warships, but the concept of firing on an enemy coastline remained valid.
At this stage, the U-boat’s weapons load consisted of six 30cm Wurfkörper 42 rockets, each with a 100-pound warhead and a range of less than 5,000 yards. Even with the most effectively planned sneak attack, this amount of firepower would amount to nothing more than a pinprick on American shores.
Even so, the Germans kept working on the submarine-launched attack concept. While the Luftwaffe’s plan to fly across the Atlantic to bomb New York was grounded by the lack of range and useful bomb load, the Kriegsmarine’s U-boats still offered the best option.
As 1944 rolled around, a new weapon surfaced in the form of a rudimentary cruise missile: the Fieseler Fi 103 (“Vergeltungswaffe V1”).The V-1 offered the Kriegsmarine interesting potential, but its ongoing interservice rivalry with the Luftwaffe meant the new weapon was generally unavailable for navy tests. Initial concepts featured a V-1 with a steam-powered catapult launcher mounted on the deck of a U-boat.
On June 12, 1944, the V-1 offensive against England began, with about 25% of the weapons reaching their targets to detonate their 1,870-pound warhead.
The maximum range for the gyroscope-guided cruise missile was about 160 miles — enough to cross the English Channel and reach London, and certainly enough to reach New York City when fired from a surfaced U-boat lurking off the coast of the United States.
Apparently, the concept of V-1 launched from a U-boat made even more sense to Allied intelligence than it did to the German high command.
During September 1944, intel reports from Norwegian assets identified a U-boat at a base in Norway described as having “a pair of rails extending from conning tower to the bow and terminating at a flat, rectangular surface”. US Naval Intelligence concluded this represented a German plan to attack America’s eastern seaboard using the V-1.
The Nightmare Scenario
Intel reports and rumors of missile-armed U-boats continued, and this kept the U.S. Navy on edge. The Royal Navy’s assessment was that such attacks were highly unlikely, but reports from Danish and Swedish sources stoked American concerns.
In early December 1944, a German spy (landed by U-boat on the coast of Maine) named Willian Colepaugh was captured.
During his interrogation, he claimed that U-boats were “being equipped with long-range rocket launchers”. While his claims were later disproved, at the beginning of 1945 the U.S. Navy was becoming deeply concerned — so much so that Atlantic Fleet command Vice Admiral Jonas H. Ingram warned of a missile attack threat during a press conference on January 8th.
Also in January, Reich Armaments Minister Albert Speer said in a radio broadcast that V-1s and V-2s would fall on New York City by February 1st.None of this chatter was substantiated, but missile attack innuendos were driving real responses at sea.
As far as anyone in America knew at that time, any prospective U-boat-launched V-1 attack against the USA would be conventional in nature. Allied intelligence had concluded that the Germans had not been able to create an atomic explosion, but one U.S. report contained anecdotal evidence of an odd mushroom-shaped cloud witnessed by a pair of German pilots flying near Ludwigslust in early October 1944. In all fairness, this information would have certainly heightened American concerns.
This culminated in Operation Teardrop, conducted by the U.S. Navy between April and May 1945, where American sub hunter/killer groups aggressively went after any U-boats heading to or operating off the U.S. Atlantic coast. During this time, five Type IX U-boats were sunk, four of them with all hands lost.
While the V-1 was notably inaccurate, and this would minimize the effectiveness of its launch from a U-boat, there was a V-1 variant that exponentially increased the Buzz Bomb’s accuracy: the piloted version of the V-1, The Fieseler Fi 103R “Reichenberg”. Had the V-1 received an atomic warhead, it would make sense that a human pilot would guide the precious nuke to its final destination.
Prüfstand XII
The V-2 ballistic missile, with its liquid propellant engine, 200-mile range, and 2,200-pound warhead provided the world with a terrifying view of the future of warfare. Even while the Germans were launching the V-2 at targets in England, they also devising ways to attack America with it.
A V-2, contained in its own watertight launch silo, was to be towed within range by one of Germany’s latest submarines, a Type XXI U-boat. A chilling report from the Peenemünde research labs in January 1945, describes the potential of this system:
“This project opens the possibility of attacking off enemy coasts (i.e.: northern England or eastern America), very distant but strategically important targets that are currently out of range. In addition, it deceives the enemy about the real range of the missile and offers new strategic and political opportunities.”
The towed silos were massive (300-feet long and weighing 300+ tons), and while a Type XXI U-boat could tow three of them across the Atlantic, the journey would take at least a month with the sub traveling at periscope depth. At least one of the submarine silos was created, but the project was abandoned as the Soviets closed in on the testing site.
Without an atomic warhead available for the V-2, most historians question the value of such an expensive form of attack using conventional warheads.
However, there was one other potential weapon, maybe the dastardliest of all: a chemical weapon. In this case the chemical warhead would contain Germany’s deadly Tabun nerve gas.
Tabun was developed, accidentally, during 1936, and its existence was never reported. Consequently, the Allies only learned of the gas when it was discovered in captured German ammunition dumps during the last days of the war.
A New Direction
After the war, the U.S. Navy proceeded with sub-launched V-1 program that the Germans were rumored to have started. The Republic-Ford JB-2 “Loon” was a nearly exact copy of the V-1, originally intended to be used in the planned invasion of Japan.
After the war, a pair of USN subs were provided with watertight containers as well as launch ramps on the rear deck for the Loon. Several launches from the surfaced submarines were conducted between February 1947 and September 1953, and the concept was proven — cumbersome but achievable.
Could the Nazis have attacked America? Many of the necessary elements were there, but the German efforts were unfocused, and ultimately never progressed beyond the planning stages.
However, those plans and many of the weapon concepts were highly influential in the development of our current supply of world-ending nuclear arms. Yet, it’s still terrifying to consider them in the hands of the Third Reich and what it might have done with them.