After many years of dwindling use it began enjoying a mild resurgence in popularity in the mid-2000s among long range rifle enthusiasts and reloaders due to the high ballistic coefficient of the heavier 6.5mm bullets and increasing popularity of cartridges such as 6.5mm Creedmoor, .260 Remington, 6.5 Grendel, benchrest and wildcat cartridges in 6.5mm.
The advantages of the shortened case were twofold: the cartridge could function through the standard length rifle action as used by the popular .30-06 Springfield and .270 Winchester.
The longer, full length .375 H&H case would not have resulted in a great performance improvement due to the powders available at that time.
It was similar to the reasoning behind the shortened cases used by Weatherby as DuPont's IMR 4350 was the slowest burning powder available then.
Ballistically it is almost identical to the 6.5×68mm (also known incorrectly as the 6.5×68 RWS, 6.5×68 Schüler or the 6.5×68 Express Vom Hofe) and the 6.5×63 Messner Magnum.
When loaded with 140 gr (9.1 g) bullets at a muzzle velocity of 3,100 ft/s (940 m/s) it is an adequate round for deer out to beyond 500 yards (460 m) provided that the hunter is capable of such longer shots.
as a factory chambering, the caliber remains popular with some enthusiasts using custom built rifles and handloading their own ammunition, as an internet search shows.
thoroughly eclipsed its popularity has been attributed to many causes, the premature "burning out" of barrels as compared to the Remington cartridge often cited.
Conversely, Winchester marketed the .264 as a long range, combination varmint and deer round, although suited for harvesting elk or moose.
The result was more sportsmen opting for the bigger Remington 7 mm round because it was seen as more effective on a wider variety of big game; rather than a compromise round that could be used for varmints, worked well on whitetail and mule deer, but was borderline for the largest North American big game when the need arose.
's champions were George Swenson of John Wilkes gunmakers, London, and David Lloyd of Northampton, England.