re: 325 WSM is a product of divorce.
Group:
I've never seen a .325 WSM, but I'm hardly surprised that it'll hit the market.
On the face, it seems as though we really are living in "the good old days" with the selection of rifles and claibers that we enjoy today.
But one of the reasons that we enjoy this varied selection of rifles and calibers currently is that there are fewer of "us" now than there were in previous decades.
It's simple niche marketing, and it exists now because the technology currently exists to make it feasable and economic necessity is such that those companies that don't play the niche marketing game to win probably won't be around when the developing trend in the marketing of sporting arms becomes a reality.
In other words, if you're wondering who was supposed to be served by this round, because you're thinking that it isn't you and me, you're probably right. It's the company that developed it. Nothing wrong with that in a capitalist society, either.
In simple terms, there aren't enough people getting in to the shooting sports for a company to rely on sales to virgin customers. They need to convince folks like us, who already own a rifle (or two, or three, or...) that we "need" another.
What the folks who brainstormed the WSM concept are hoping for is that the next Jack O' Conner in need of a gimmick will latch on to one of the new WSM rounds, just as old ".270 Jack" did back when that round was the hot new thing.
Sometimes this strategy works. Look at the popularity of the 7mm/08 in short, light, bolt action carbines a few years back. Layne Simpson and others were touting rifles of that type in that caliber to be the "thuty-thuties" of the nineties. Or look at the spike in sales that Remington got back in the eighties, when Jim Carmichael waxed eloquent on the virtues of Remington's then-new M-700 Mountain Rifle in .280 Remington. Heck, even boring old "Joe Thirty-Ought-Six" here -that is to say, "yours truly" -fell for that one, and I'm not easily swayed! I never hunted with it, because I could never get mine to group better than minute-of-barndoor, but I digress......
Sometimes it doesn't work, like in the case of Col. Charles Askins traipsing all over Africa and the Artic with an 8mm Remington Magnum back in the seventies.
Cartridges come and go, but you can't blame arms companies for indroducing them. I think this one, though, will wind up orphaned. Anybody remember the .284 Winchester? How about the 6.5 mm Remington Magnum, or the .350 Remington Magnum? Is it just me, or have we really been down this "short, fat magnum road" before? Okay, so we've never been down it quite like this before, but we've been down it.
The list of cartiridges that have failed to make the grade in the marketplace is a large one. Try reloading a .348 Winchester sometime. This .325 WSM will probably prove to do likewise.
One has to wonder, though, why they didn't just intorduce a .338 WSM instead?
But you don't have to wonder why this round will be introduced. In order to stay afloat in today's contracting market, armsmakers need to either: 1) move way upscale, or; 2) try to convince someone that they've already sold a rifle to that he or she needs another one, two, or three from the same maker. And they have to work really hard to do that, because some of us who shoot and hunt alot aren't so easily swayed by what we read in a magazine.
Personally, I hope the .325 WSM is a smashing success, because I'd rather deal with a "niche market" than be forced to have to deal with an "upscale" one.
-JP
A 200 gr 8mm bullet is much better for larger game like bear, moose, and elk than a 180 gr or 200 gr 30 caliber. The 8mm does kill better IMHO. If we had a better selection of good 8mm bullets here in the USA the 32 tube would catch on. :idea: 
