 A lot of thorough barrel cleaning (after every 5 shots) and carefully avoiding long strings of shots help to minimize barrel wear.This makes this cartridge impractical for most competition shooters who tend to fire a lot of rounds in practice to acquire and maintain expert long-range marksmanship.The German 6.5×68mm cartridge introduced in 1939 and the American .264 Winchester Magnum cartridge introduced in 1959 are probably the closest ballistic twins of the 6.5×63mm Messner Magnum and both are more widely available to purchase at retail.