Amen Allen,

The only truly new, versatile and useful round introduced in the last 35 years is the .416 Rem/Hoffman. Some cartridges have belts, some don't. Big whup. Some of my favorite cartridges (6,5x55 SE, .223 Rem, .308 Win, .270 Win) don't have a belt. Some of my other favorites (.338 Win Mag, .375 H&H, .416 Rem Mag) do.

One of the most sensible of the "new" beltless cartridges, the .376 Steyr, isn't going anywhere fast because the tapered sides that help it feed so well don't look as stylish as the straight sides on the 'UM's, 'SM's, & 'SAUM's.

Belts were part of the the marketing effort in the '40's, '50's, & 60's. Blown out 404 Jeffrey offspring were the darlings of the '80's and '90's. Now it's stumpy "taste great, less filling" short mags. It's just marketing. Grab a rifle/cartridge you like and go shooting.

JCN

I have two favorite rifles in my safe. A pre64 M70 in 300 H&H. Perfect feeding, belt and all. Not to mention it will shoot .3's with Win factory 180gr failsafes. The other is another pre64 M70 built in 9.3x64. The only reason I did this caliber instead of a 375 H&H is that the action was a standard length and the 9.3x64 is about as good as it gets in an '06 length action. Both will be in Namibia in a couple of weeks.

Allen no one ever asked you to denounce your favorite cartridges, but what I want you to do is tell me what good that stupid belt does?? As I said I'm sure that the cartridges would do just fine if that belt didn't exist. As far as just neck sizing and headspacing off the shoulder goes you seem to be furthering my point. That's exactly where I'm heading is that these cartridges SHOULD be headspaced off the shoulder so the belt is worthless even for headspacing reasons. Unless as you have correctly pointed out the chamber is cut wrong and it is necessary to headspace on the belt.

So my question is why are you working so hard to defend the existance of something that is good for nothing?

tdobesh,

I'm not sure if you're being argumentative or just ignorant of the origins of the belt?
The original reasons for the belt are fairly simple. The design of the "original" magnum cases, the 300H&H and later, the 375 H&H, had a very tapered case to accomodate flawless feeding and extraction for dangerous game work. This design still works flawlessly today. However, the tapered case and limited and shallow angled shoulder wouldn't headspace reliably, so the belt was designed to handle the headspace chores in these cartridges in the rifles of the day.
Considering that almost all of the magnum cartridges of today were designed from a readily available case, the 300 H&H, and since the belt wasn't considered nearly the problem that some now seem to think it is (I like the description Jorge gave it as "transparent"), the belt has been maintained over all these years and all those designs of cartridges that have taken untold numbers of game. Why fix what isn't broken?

Only recently has anyone started to complain about the problems with the belt, and the better design of the non-belted cartridges. Now, since lots of non-belted cartridges have been developed recently and lots of writers who owe their livelihood to those manufacturers have been writing stories about them, guess what everyone is reading about these days? Are you one of the gullible readers, or a man who can see this argument for what it truly is- a plot to sell more of the advertisers' wares?

I agree wholeheartedly with Allen and the others here, the only problem with belts on cartridges is with lousy gunsmiths who don't know how to cut a chamber correctly to fit a cartridge- and that goes for more than just belted cartridges. A 300 UM chamber cut improperly is just as problematic as a 300 WM chamber cut improperly. Of course, this is all just my opinion and you are free to do your own research to see if any of this is true or just our imagination.- Bob

tbesh: I don't want to be so presumptious as to speak for Allen, but you obviously don't get his point. To him and indeed most of us, the belt is "transparent," there is no need to go to a new cartridge, JUST BECAUSE the older ones have a belt, especially when the new ones bring nothing to the table in the way of improvements. jorge

I have a 300 WM (and many other belted cartridges) and have never had any accuracy problems with any of them. I also have a lot of calibers that arent belted and they shoot just fine too. Personally I could do with out the belt since it takes up more mag box room and such. Where accuracy and feeding are concerned I have never had a single problem and wouldnt give up my pet 300 WM for a new WSM or RUM for anything.

It would be interesting to know what may have been behind Winchester's decision to go with the 300H&H as opposed to the 30 Newton which had been available for many years prior to the ontroduction of the H&H to the American public (I suspect it had something to do with potential royalties or somethink or maybe the guys at Winchester just hated Newton). Think about it. In the Newton cartridges they had cartridges which were a much better fit in the standard length M70. Performance was equivalent. Had Winchester adopted and promoted these we would likely not have many belted rounds today. Cartridges such as the 308 Norma and 300 Win mag would probably not exist. Nor would the 7MM Rem or the 338. We would have a whole bunch of wildcats based on these beltless magnum cases. An interesting scenario but, of course, it didn't happen. Regards, Bill.

Bill, that brings up an interesting point, in that now we have these belted cases, all of which are pretty darn good at what they do. So what happens if next year we see remchester introduce beltless versions of these original short magnums? We still have, and always will have, factory ammunition and reloading components in abundance for the belted stuff. I'm not trading in, or modifying the rifles that I own currently chambered for these belted "misfits" that work wonderfully as is. Why would I? I resize cases, as Allen described, whether belted or not so that point is, well, moot. As for the new Beltless phenoms, I'll quote Roger Biesen: "Why rebarrel and rework an action designed for something else?"

Chuck

It's pretty hard for me to add any more to what's been added by these other gentlemen. In a nutshell, what Jorge states is true: The belt doesn't HURT anything if you resize your cases properly and if the chamber is properly cut. It is treated as "transparent"......

I'm amazed at how many times I've read articles that portray belted cases as problematic feeders, as opposed to beltless cases. Yet, once again (I'm sounding like a broken record here), I've never experienced a feeding problem that could be attributed to the belted cases. I've had feeding problems that could be traced to mechanical problems with the rifle, poor gunsmithing, etc., but not due to the design of the belted case itself. In fact, the actual size of the (H&H-size) belted-magnum case allows for a much more acceptable stack-angle for optimum feeding than does the WSM or RUM case -- at least with currently-available actions and magazine systems.

As to the other purported problems that are supposed to be part and parcel of the belted case, I notice that everyone gets rather vague when it comes time to pinpointing what the actual problems are, nor do they get specific and state what their actual bad experiences have been. One idiot that posts on some of the forums is always denouncing belted cases, but when asked about his actual experience with same, he finally admitted that he's never owned a rifle chambered for a belted-magnum cartridge, has never hunted with one, has never taken game with one, but brother, he knows all about 'em! Twenty-five years ago, NO ONE -- not the run-of-the-mill pimp gunwriters, not the gun dealers, and not the customers -- complained about the belt on the belted case. Funny, huh?

I do know this: If you travel to hunt, especially internationally, belted magnum chamberings are in wide use, and the odds of coming up with .300 Win., .375 H&H, or .458 Win. ammo in a pinch are far greater than if you're packing one of the new, "politically-correct" beltless magnums, and it'll likely be that way for many years to come. You may see the belt as "useless", but your whole blooming rifle will become useless if you can't find ammo for it. It'll become more useless than the belt on the belted case could ever be.........

AD

The 300 and 375 H&H will reliably headspace off of the shoulder. The real reason for the belt was to allow the chamber to be cut slightly oversize in the shoulder area so that a round would chamber even if there was some dirt in the chamber, as can happen in Africa or other dusty, dirty climes. A 30-06 with .005" of headspace won't allow the bolt to be closed if there's dirt in the chamber, a .375 H&H with .014" clearance in the shoulder area (it's not headspace since that's up to the belt) will allow some dirt in the chamber and still function. The belt provides a reliable method of headspacing while still allowing plenty of "shoulder room" to accomodate dirt and grime. An added benefit of the belt was that it provides a better stack angle so feeding is generally improved over a non-belted round. Anyone who says that the belt hinders feeding has no idea what he's talking about, if anything the belt helps feeding.