The .308 Winchester Is the Biggest Lie in the Gun Industry

In August 1952, Winchester shipped a new, lightweight rifle to dealers nationwide: the Model 70 Featherweight, chambered in a cartridge simply called the .308 Winchester. What hunters buying that rifle didn't know was that they were carrying a highly classified U.S. Army project that had spent the last eight years locked inside a vault at Frankford Arsenal. Known only by its experimental number—T-65—this case was developed to replace the aging .30-06. While American and British governments spent years locked in a bitter political battle over standardizing a new infantry rifle and cartridge (pitting the revolutionary British EM-2 against American prototypes), Winchester quietly struck a deal to sell the military's secret round to civilians. By the time NATO finally standardized the 7.62x51mm, and the U.S. Army officially adopted it for the M14 rifle, American hunters had already been carrying the exact same cartridge into the deer woods for half a decade. In this episode of Arms Archives, we uncover the hidden history of the .308 Winchester, the international rifle trials that almost changed the course of military history, and how a hardware store hunting round became the standard by which all other modern military cartridges are measured. Tell us your story in the comments: Is there a .308 in your safe right now? Or did you carry an M14, an M60, or an M21/M24 sniper system in service? Let us know where it went and what it did. Subscribe for more untold stories of American firearms history.