August 27, 2008
Remington Arms Co., Inc.
Dear Friends:

First, let me thank you for introducing some of the best, most useful and most innovative centerfire rifle cartridges to have hit the market over the last half century. Among the most notable of these are the .223 Remington, .22-250 Remington, 6mm Remington, .260 Remington, .25-06 Remington, 6.5mm Remington Magnum, 6.8mm SPC, 7mm-08 Remington, 7mm Remington Magnum and .350 Remington Magnum. Every one of these cartridges is superior to its competition (where there is any real competition). The .223 is, in addition to being the best selling varmint cartridge, the present NATO service cartridge and 6.8mm SPC is the service cartridge of the future. This record of accomplishment is unsurpassed by any other arms and ammunition manufacturer in my lifetime.

Everyone knows that an "open letter" is intended to publicize some sort of suggestion. So, having introduced the subject of Remington rifle cartridges, I'll get right to it.

I'd like to see Remington promote some of these great cartridges in a series of information ads in the print and electronic media. The .223, .22-250 and 7mm Magnum took off as soon as they were introduced, scaled the Top Ten Best Seller List and need no introduction to most shooters and hunters. The .25-06 and the 7mm-08 are well established and doing fine. All of these cartridges are widely available in Remington rifles.

However, some of Remington's best cartridges have been largely ignored by the Company. For whatever reason, Remington has failed to promote many of their cartridges and some are barely represented in the various Remington rifle lines. For example, any Remington rifle that can be chambered for the .243 Winchester, 7mm-08 or .308 Winchester can be chambered for the 6mm Remington and .260 Remington, but most models are not. Why aren't they? Why does Big Green ignore their 6mm and .260? Every Remington short action rifle should be chambered for these cartridges.

Ditto for the 6.5mm Rem. Mag. and .350 Rem. Mag., as applied to short action magnum rifles. Both are technically superior designs compared to their closest WSM competitors, the .270 WSM and .325 WSM, yet Remington's advertising has made no attempt to explain this to the shooting public. Surely, Remington could at least offer these two groundbreaking cartridges, the world's first short magnum cartridges, in all of their short magnum rifles.

Presumably, these four great cartridges are not well represented in the Remington rifle lines because of soft consumer demand. However, the soft consumer demand is due to a marketing failure, not to any lack in the design or performance of the cartridges themselves. Indeed, the 6mm Remington is superior to the .243 Winchester and the recently introduced .243 WSSM, which means that Remington has twice failed to make a case for this superior cartridge.

The .260 Remington makes the 6.5x55 SE's world class performance available in standard short action rifles. The .260 may be the best deer and general CXP2 game cartridge introduced in the last 100 years. It uses full hunting weight 140 grain bullets of exceptional sectional density and ballistic coefficient, shoots flat, penetrates deeply in large game animals, kills decisively and doesn't kick much. Unfortunately, most shooters are not even aware of it! Talk about a marketing failure, it just doesn't get any worse than this.

In conclusion, I am pleading for Remington to care for their cartridge "children." Here at Guns and Shooting Online we have done our best to educate shooters about all of these fine cartridges, because we feel that we owe it to our readers. Doesn't Remington owe its customers the same?

Thanks for taking the time to read this letter. All of us here at Guns and Shooting Online wish Remington continued success in the future.

Yours truly,
Chuck Hawks
Owner/Managing Editor of Guns and Shooting Online