Musing About Cartridge Designs

[stubshaft]

Back in the mid-sixties when I began handloading, one of the first things I purchased was P.O. Ackleys "Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders Vols. I and II". It has been instrumental in my shooting and reloading endeavors. One thing that is apparent after perusing it is that there are very few actual "new" cartridges. A lot of them have been renamed and or modified slightly to make the newest generation of shooters believe it is the best iteration of a cartridge that they just have to have.

With the exception of Handloader and Rifle magazines, I have given up on the gun rags in general. One thing that I realized, was that they are for the most part driven by the advertisers. As such they are nothing more that promotional fronts for the manufacturers, who have to find something "new" to entice the masses and attempt to convince them that they absolutely need it!

Over the years I have enjoyed shooting, building and even designing a few wildcat cartridges, which were developed for a specific purpose, from benchrest to sillywett and even hunting. It is the constant drive to experiment that keeps me involved in shooting.

Back in the 80's Elgin Gates developed his IHMSA line of cartridges based on the 300 Savage case which was necked up and down accordingly with the 7mm IHMSA being the most popular. A comparison of the cases between the IHMSA line and the Creedmoor case show a difference of .060" in case length and a very slight increase in body diameter. I built a Mountain Rifle using a Remington Model 7 as the base with a custom barrel in .270 IHMSA, which with the exception of a couple of points in BC is the ballistic twin of the Creedmoor. I did this back in 2000.

I find it entertaining to see the same old things being rehashed and regurgitated for the sheeple, "Auto vs Revolver", "9mm vs 45", "Best Long Range Cartridge"... It is even more entertaining to see the responses and opinions of the owners of these guns/cartridges trying to defend their decision to buy them!

Let's see how many more times we can reinvent the wheel and make a better mousetrap!

[Nobade]

Maybe a Remington employee found your computer and dreamed up the 375 Ultramag?

[sharps4590]

Back in the mid-sixties when I began handloading, one of the first things I purchased was P.O. Ackleys "Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders Vols. I and II". It has been instrumental in my shooting and reloading endeavors. One thing that is apparent after perusing it is that there are very few actual "new" cartridges. A lot of them have been renamed and or modified slightly to make the newest generation of shooters believe it is the best iteration of a cartridge that they just have to have.

With the exception of Handloader and Rifle magazines, I have given up on the gun rags in general. One thing that I realized, was that they are for the most part driven by the advertisers. As such they are nothing more that promotional fronts for the manufacturers, who have to find something "new" to entice the masses and attempt to convince them that they absolutely need it!

I find it entertaining to see the same old things being rehashed and regurgitated for the sheeple, "Auto vs Revolver", "9mm vs 45", "Best Long Range Cartridge"... It is even more entertaining to see the responses and opinions of the owners of these guns/cartridges trying to defend their decision to buy them!

Let's see how many more times we can reinvent the wheel and make a better mousetrap!

stub, these are the best "take-aways" I've seen. Well said.

The vast majority of popular cartridges are based essentially on two cases. The 8 X 57 Mauser and the 375 H&H.

[pmer]

The 221fireball fathered a couple good ones. The 17 mach iv and the 300 whisper. I quess I'm not sure if the 300 whisper was born of the 223 case.

[Rapier]

You could read the story of the 300 Whisper on the SSK Ind., web site, or you could before JD retired. JD Jones invented the 300 Whisper at the request of a group of Seals to give them a sub sonic using the same bolt, magazine, requiring only a barrel change. When JD required a royalty be paid, after copywriting the cartridge and name, Bill changed the shoulder angle slightly, then re-named the cartridge, the 300 Blackout, an old process that ammo makers have used for decades.

You need to know exactly what SAMMI is and who makes up the board, before you spend time working on a cartridge and then submit any paperwork on any new cartridge to anyone. You might get a similar treatment that A-Square got. You should be able to find that story.

[truckjohn]

Like so many things, the easiest person to sell a gun to is somebody who already has a couple. The thing is, it's never really clear what will make it and what won't.

Most of the Russian cartridges are hindered by the gargantuan throats required to handle over-pressure former com-block steel-core ammo made to run reliably in Siberian winters. I think that's why the wildcats like the PPCs and Blackouts gained so much popularity... They redesigned the chambers for reliable accuracy without as much risk of getting a whole crate of proof-level cartridges stuffed down the hatch.

I thought the 22 hornet enjoyed a firm standing, but it is all but gone in favor of the 22 mag and 17HMR.

I was also very happy to see the popularity of shorter cartridges and pistol caliber carbines that are more well suited to hunting in the brushy "Back east." So many wildcats gained notoriety "Out west" where hunters needed to stretch shots past 400 yards. Back East, they have the opposite problem... People are everywhere and hunting often happens on 10-acre wood lots, small farms (<50 acres) and such.. Shots seldom stretch past 50-yards, but there is a risk because of lots of people within a mile. Look at South Carolina vs Missouri. Both have about the same landmass, but MO has half the people, and most of them are concentrated in 3-metros, vs SC where the people are spread out and mostly live outside the cities. The 450 bushmaster and 300 blackout are about perfect for most of South Carolina, and I never felt under-gunned with a 30/30.

[Texas by God]

I seem to have gravitated to more "dash" cartridges in the past couple of decades.
Long ago I started out with 22-250 and 30-30, but I've discovered 250-3000, 25-06, 30-40, 30-06, 38-55, and 44-40.
These will handle anything I want to do around here. No "new" cartridges needed by me.


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[rbuck351]

I don't see any advantage for me to get one of the new 6.5 rounds. The longest shot I'm going to take while hunting will be 400 yds and my 300 H&H will work fine for that. Most of my play shooting is done with cast boolits with a 25/20, 256Win or a 22H or KH.
Last years deer was taken with a 7.7 Jap for no good reason other than it's a new to me gun and I wanted to try it on something.

About the only common calibers I don't have are the 6.5 and the 375.

[Daekar]

Interesting to see everybody's take on things. I've been following this thread and thinking and learning a bit here and there, and I feel like I have a general idea of the assumptions that makes these cartridges designed around heavy-for-caliber bullets look more appealing on paper than is perhaps justified.

Assumption: BC is always super important so heavier is better.
Caveat: BC isn't the only thing that matters, especially when there is a velocity cost to the extra weight. Most people don't hunt at 500+ yards, which is often where the advantages of high-BC bullets really starts to become evident. Heck, most people don't hunt at 300+ yards.

Assumption: More sectional density is always better, so it's always worth increasing that number.
Caveat: When hunting, more sectional density is only better if it helps you achieve necessary penetration for a clean kill. After that, it's just more. There is no virtue to sacrificing velocity for the sake of imparting more energy to the hillside behind your quarry after a complete pass through.

Assumption: Related to the above, the value of retained energy increased via longer bullets increases linearly as the bullet gets longer.
Caveat: While this might be true at longer ranges, since a high BC bullet leads to a longer distance before minimum acceptable energy is reached, it's not true at most practical ranges. Regardless of what your trajectory table says, the value of the additional energy from a long skinny bullet decreases the more you have. The bullet can only expand but so much, and unless you're willing to increase velocity so much that half your target is blood-shot jelly, a small bullet can only achieve but so big a wound channel. Just because your retained energy is higher with a heavier bullet, that does not mean that its ability to inflict physical trauma is proportionately greater.

Overall takeaway: Making a good bullet and cartridge choice starts with a realistic assessment of your needs and ability. Within normal hunting ranges that are dictated by the practical limitations of ability and conditions, it is likely that increasing either BC or SD beyond a certain value will offer diminishing returns and adding mass (and therefore power) to a projectile is often better achieved by increasing the diameter rather than the length. If chosen properly, the resulting cartridge will have sufficient BC and velocity for good external performance and sufficient SD and diameter for good terminal performance. By balancing the parameters rather than focusing on some to the exclusion of others, the energy generated by the cartridge will be more effectively put to use.

Or, that's where I've landed at the moment, anyway. Does that sound reasonable to anyone else?

[M-Tecs]

Does that sound reasonable to anyone else?

Designs for hunting are only one requirement. Military and competition tend to have different requirements as does marketing. Other than the specific military requirements marketing drives both design and demand. There is no better example than the 6.5 Creedmoor. It was designed for NRA Highpower competition and while it was a good cartridge it was one of many good cartridges for that application and it languished for years until marketing created the PRS TV competitions and created a demand for it.

[stubshaft]

Succinct summation Daekar!

[todd9.3x57]

i like average to heavy weight, flat nose, wide flat nose and long flat nose boolits. i hunt and don't do target shooting anymore. i'll shoot at deer at 200 yards, but most likely the deer is 30-40ish yards away. my son has got a doe that was 173 yards away and thru-n-thru and DRT. he used my 30-40 krag and 165gr ranch dog with h4198 going 1930fps. he holds our record for distance shot with a cast boolit.

my alloy is either coww with a smidge of tin or Lyman #2 with a smidge of tin. a smidge of tin is what i was taught by an old timer(RIP).

my 30-40 krag holds the record for the fastest cast boolit with 165gr ranch dog at 1930fps. slowest boolit is my 500 Linebaugh with 450gr lfn gc at 1235fps(23" MGM barrel). i've shot deer with 30-40 krag, 35/30-30, 9.3x57, 444 marlin and a couple of others i can't think of. oh and i shot my revolver in 44 mag/spl., i never did try to chrony them, but i use unique and 2400.

the deer i have shot (so far) are all thru-n-thru. i shot a couple(or more) deer on the shoulder when i first started to cast, but it's behind the shoulder now. after the shot, it's either DRT or goes 20-30 yards till it gives up the ghost.

more velocity doesn't mean much to me anymore because of where i hunt, 50-60 yards is a long shot. 100 yards is a long, long shot. if i happen to go out to my friend's farm, which shooting goes out 300-400yards, i will take my ruger #1 in 270 win and a 140gr hornady sst with imr4350.

SD and BC just aren't fer me anymore. neither does ft/lbs, it is a manufacturer's wet dream.