With all the discussions about one cartridge vs another I was thinking about whats popular now vs a decade or two ago. But what is really "new"?

The .300 Canadian came out long before the .300 Kong, which was fallowed by the Pegasus and then the Rem Ultra Mag. I think I have these in order or close to it. But if you look at the designs and capacities, they are all duplicating each other. Why does one catch on and become popular while others that are nearly identical fail? Are we as riflemen that fickle about advertisment? Or are we actually performance driven? Nate

well as a guy who uses a 7 x 57 a lot, and never feels under gunned...nothing new really impress me a whole heck of a lot any more...

I don't see a need for greater MV or Ft/lbs than a lot of stuff that has been around for decades has been doing all along...

animals don't get tougher... but shooters and hunters get lazier.. and more macho as the years go by...

firearms and cartridge development cater more to macho egos than it does any logical need on game...

rounds like a 338 Marlin, make more sense to me than do things like a 300 Ultra Mag.. comparing new rounds..

but then what does a 338 Marlin give me that the old 444 Marlin I have for 30 years doesn't?
longer range? well I am not shooting the 444 for long range...anything within 150 to 180 yds that gets in the way of a 300 grain XTP...well, they are pretty much toast...so what "new" do I need?

All of my rifles shoot cartridges that were designed a century ago, but with the new bullets and powder that we have now they are new.

Cheers, John

Need is irrelevant and silly. No one NEEDS any gun, our ancestors seemed to get by just fine with rocks, sticks and string all fashioned together. Or I guess you could be a technology snob and get a muzzle loader. Anything after that is fluff right? And those are WAY older then any centerfire modern cartridge.

To the OP's question...its always a gamble of what will catch on, and what will fail. Sometimes its just a matter of who got to the punch first. Good example, Remington supposedly had the RSAUM ready for production before the WSM, but they waited, and pushed the RUM out first. Winchester put the WSM out before the RSAUM, voila, its still here while the RSAUM is out the door. Plus, its faster. You just cannot avoid that these days. If 2 cartridges are even fairly close in terms of use/diameter or whatever, faster is going to win these days.

quote:

Originally posted by BigNate:
With all the discussions about one cartridge vs another I was thinking about whats popular now vs a decade or two ago. But what is really "new"?

The .300 Canadian came out long before the .300 Kong, which was fallowed by the Pegasus and then the Rem Ultra Mag. I think I have these in order or close to it. But if you look at the designs and capacities, they are all duplicating each other. Why does one catch on and become popular while others that are nearly identical fail? Are we as riflemen that fickle about advertisment? Or are we actually performance driven? Nate

It's beyond just advertisement. In the case of the big .30 cal magnums you listed, the .300 RUM is the only one that was ever widely available in reasonably priced factory rifles. That has a lot to do with whether or not a cartridge becomes popular. Getting there first helps too (think the WSMs vs the RSAUMs, and .270 Win vs .280 Rem).

Having said that, the newest chambering I have is a .223 Rem, which was introduced in 1964, and I bought it more because of the platform it comes in (AR-15) than because it does anything special.

I don't see anything new in the production of cartriges at all. It seems that everyone is in a speed race. Faster is always better. (Right) Just stop in at the local Big Box sporting goods store and see what everyone is looking for in a new rifle. You won't see many 25 yr. old hunters looking for an 06 Everyone is looking for a RUM or a short Mag. It's really a marketing ploy to sell new rifles. What else can they do to a caliber except make it faster?

The longer I'm around hunting and shooting the more respect I have for the (old) calibers. They do everything I want.

The marketing and jackasses hocking them on the latest version of "extreme whiz-banging" are the only things really new. You also have to remember the audience/buyer gets most of his info"knowledge" from the extreme whiz-banging shows and Internet experts, ie not very informed.

^ And most of those guys would be better off with a .270 or smaller for deer hunting. From my experiences at public ranges around the start of deer season, probably half of the guys shooting various magnums are a bit scared of them, and don't shoot them as well as they would a lighter-recoiling round.

Perhaps my dad's lessons have colored my views (he is a small-caliber guy and hunts deer with a .243), but I've never had any real interest in any of the magnums. The closest I've come is pondering the merits of a long range rig in .270 WSM. Then I realize that the .30-06 I've been using since I was 16 will kill anything I'm likely to shoot with it at longer range than I have any business shooting and stop pondering.

susceptibility to marketing, pier pressure and lack of experience and knowledge.If you "couple" that with the desire to be recognized as one who can distinguish between the latest and greatest you have a very possible answer. roger

"Whiz-banging" has been around long before most metallic cartridges, old or new.

The Walker Colts served a real purpose, but basically were a "whiz-bang" improvement of the Patterson Colts. And neither was good enough to survive after S&W got a patent monopoly on chambers capable of taking cartridge cases, so Colt had to bring out cartridges (and guns) like the .45 Colt to improve and maintain market share.

Anyway, without going into historical detail, cartridges have improved significantly over the last 130 years or so...not all in giant leaps for mankind, sometimes in tiny, tiny toddler's steps.

That doesn't mean folks couldn't kill things very dead with such items as the .44 Henry rimfire, the .45-75, and the .30-30, and so on.

But, it doesn't make any of the cartridges useless, either.

I like them all. Some more than others, but they will all pretty much do the jobs they were designed for and will fill their appropriate niches tolerably well. And most all of them have been fun to shoot, provided me food, and helped me grow what little self-discipline I may have. A few have kept me from great bodily harm on occasion and may have even saved my life several times.

Do I find anything in particular wrong with the .38-55? No! How about with the .300 WSM? No, again!

Okay, then how about with the Lazzeroni series? Nope! Never have bought one, but that's because by the time they came out I already had so many rifles that I still have some from the '80s which have never been fired anyway. Hasn't hurt me any, though.

As I see it, I hope the companies all continue to bring out more cartridges if it helps them sell more guns. More guns may mean more gun owners, and more gun owners means more people who will get on the legislators' axxes if (when!) more anti-gun or anti-hunting legislation pops up.

Nobody HAS to buy or use all those cartridges, but I see it as a great thing that they CAN!!

Nothing is really new. Just refinements. About a decade ago I took my number 4 303 british on a 160 mile trip. I shot at rocks, rabbits, targets of opportunity. With the pop up peep sight I scored on a goodly percentage out to three hundred yards or so and I thought at that time that there had been little change in at least 50 years. Just better marketing.
By the way I have an old mauser that would have done the same, and scoped model 70s, remington 700s and several other guns that are quite modern,so its not just nostalgia.

quote:

Animals don't get tougher... but shooters and hunters get lazier.. and more macho as the years go by...

Whilst animals don't get tougher they do, well I think they do, get SMARTER!

Here in England you'll find it almost impossible to shoot a magpie or crow with a shot gun unless you;

1) Decoy it
2) Surprise it...VERY, VERY UNLIKELY
3) Have it "driven" over you during a pheasant day.

Why? Because they seem to know the effective range of a shot gun and seem to know when someone walking up to them has one.

Yet you can walk close to them when you haven't got any gun!

But you can shoot a lot of them at just seventy yards with a standard 22 rimfire!

IMO, ballistically there hasn't been anything in the way of actual advance since the 'tween wars era. Look carefully back then and you will find a cartridge that approximates a modern one within a couple of percentage points. Bullets certainly have gotten better, but only if you really think you need an ultra velocity belted boomer. Standard bullets at moderate velocities kill just as well as they did then, you just have to stalk carefully and shoot accurately . . . and be willing to let the animal go if you can't get close enough. That last is probably the hardest part!

But if everyone only shot cartridges based on the fact that they work and have worked for a century, arms manufacturers would go out of business. The biggest enemy of the gun industry isn't the anti-gunners. It's the used gun market!

The title of this thread reminds me of a verse.. something about nothing new under the sun all is pissing in the wind or something.

I agree there's nothing really new and there's a ton of hype in the gun world. But for one I like it cause variety is the spice of life. Secondly why piss in everyone's cheerios? Let the uneducated be excited about some whiz-bang whatever cartridge. Its better they're excited about guns and hunting than not.

then again, anything made after the 10,75x68 and 7x64 are just jonny come latelies!

there's not a hill of beans difference in a good bullet in a 243 or 338-06.. then again, i am a big bore fan....

first 7 most important thing {sic} in hunting?

bullet placement

The question is asking why something happens, not wither it is good or bad or even fills a nitch. The discussion has been interesting but perhaps a little far a field. roger

Nothing much changes except in the minds of the changeeeeerrrrs...

Guys, are the short, fat cartridges like the Ruger Compact Magnums or the Remington and Winchester short magnums new?