Nothing new in cartridge development.

Jmac604

Jmac604

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Hey,

Recently I was talking with a friend who reloads and has been re-loading for a number of years. The topic came up about how there was nothing new in calibre/cartridge development and that it "all has been done". His opinion was that there will not be any new calibres just wildcatted variants of old calibres.

I don't reload and didn't agree 100% with him. I think, that with modern ballistics, science, metallurgy, etc, that there is a chance a new calibre can be developed.

Now I'm curious as to what other's opinion and thoughts are.
 
He does have a bit of a point I think.

The next innovation would be maybe finally getting caseless ammunition to be feasible. It's been tried in the past but like you said, there's been advancements in materials science since then.

In the end though, it's all trying to put a hole in something. There's only so many ways to do that.
 
Well yes and no, there are several relatively new cartridges out there. Everyone is talking about the 224 Valkyrie, there's the new 260 SOCOM, .264 USA and other takes and revisions on cartridges about a decade old Creedmoor, Grendel and SPC revisions. I would love to see some commercial wildcats develop on the 7.62x39.

Military is still looking for special purpose cartridges as are target shooters for the perfect long range caliber. Hunting options have been focusing on bullet composition and performance. Gorilla has perfected their polymer cased ammo for military and other dev groups like Warner Tool Flatline Bullets etc...
 
224 Valkyrie looks like the 22 Lindahl Chucker from 1940. What's his nuts sued over the WSMs, wonder if Lindahl's heirs will do the same.
 
I think we will probably see more changes in bullet design and materials rather than cartidge design.
Maybe/ hopefully there will be advances in cartridge case and barrel materials so as to handle higher pressures or more heat and friction. I would say we are already at the limits of current materials. Finding more robust materials that are cost effective seems like the only solution left to push a better designed bullet faster by being able to handle higher pressures and heat. Maybe advances in gun powder can help with that also.
The way I look at it, most of it has been done before and there have only been minor tweaks on capacity, shoulder angles and neck lengths for optimization.
6.5 Creedmoor for example, most of its success in my opinion is marketing and sponsorship. Doesn't really do anything the 260 can't using similar high BC bullets.
 
I think your friend has a point. Yes there have been minor developments, a small tweak here and there, but nothing revolutionary. You have to remember that brass cased centerfire cartridges are about 150 year old technology. After smokeless powder and spitzer bullets got figured out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, respectively, there was really nowhere all that new to go. The last real changes to smokeless cartridges was the maturation of propellant technology after WWII. As great a cartridge as something like the 6.5 Creedmoor is, it does much the same thing as the comparably ancient 6.5x55 Swede. We just figured out how to stuff it in to a short action. Interesting for sure but not really "new" per se.
 
I agree with the OPs friend. Compare many of the decades old cartridges with newer ones. Now load the older ones to the same pressure in the same rifles as the "newest wonder boomers". Lots of "marketing" driving sales of mouse traps that haven't improved much.
 
I remember reading a golfing magazine in which they were interviewing an executive with a major golf gear manufacturer. He said that a big problem for them, once they had sold somebody a set of clubs, was that those clubs would last for the rest of his life and all they were going to be able to sell him thereafter were golf balls. They therefore had to convince the customer that their new clubs were much, much better than his old ones and that getting new clubs would improve his game. (In reality, of course, if Buddy spent the same money on golf lessons, his game would improve even more, but there are no profits there.) So, each year, they come out with new clubs with 'better' shanks, more 'innovative' head shapes and so forth. And golfers being the gear whores they are, it works.

It is, I think, the same with small arms. I honestly think we have gone about as far as we can using the present technology and that any improvements are either cosmetic (or at best incremental) or they are of a nature the average shooter cannot take advantage of.

Look at some of the newer-better-flashier rounds introduced over the past 20 years. Most of them died out fairly quickly. Some survive, but still don't do anything much better. Take the popular 7mm-08. Good round by all reports, but in terms of ballistics, it's essentially identical to the 7mm Mauser introduced 125 years ago. The 112-year-old .30-06 still is hard to beat. The 6.5 Creedmore has already been discussed. Even the hoary .30/30 still sells - Bambi just isn't smart enough to know that the 'thutty-thutty' is obsolete and insists on dying when hit by one. Lotsa guys bringing home moose and venison with the 130-year-old .303 British in 100-year-old SMLEs.

Some real advances have been made, to be sure. The short magnums have proved able to produce the same velocity out to, say, 600 yards that older rounds can only achieve at half that. That's real. But here's the kicker - that improvement (which costs in terms of barrel life, recoil and flat-out expense) is one which most of us (me included) simply cannot use. I have no confidence in my ability to get proper shot placement at 600 yards, so why would I burden myself with a costly system with all that extra range?

I think the gun makers are in the same boat as that golfing exec. If you buy one good rifle when you're 25, you can probably make it last for the rest of your life and put meat on the table every year. But that means that RemSavChester will only be able to sell you the odd box of ammo, so they keep introducing 'new-and-improved' rounds in an effort to keep sales going.


Don't get me wrong. If you want a new rifle in a new calibre, go for it. And playing around with wildcats and such is fun, to be sure. But the original question is whether or not we can expect to see any major solid improvements and, to that, I must sadly say, 'not likely'.
 
so we currently have short actions, kinda medium actions, long actions. We have stuffed as much powder as we can into these case lengths and tweaked these cartridges in a hundred different ways. With the current trend of long range hunting and shooting....if anything "new" is coming, I suspect it will be in an "ultra long action" Think 300 weatherby or something similiar with a case that is an inch longer. Given the arms race with every manufacturer trying to be "the fastest 6.5" on the market etc, someone out there is trying to get way more powder into a practical, safe, useable action, about the only way to do that now may be to go longer.

JMO
Chris
 
Your friend is correct. There are more cartridges that have already gone extinct (and forgotten) then currently exist. We are at the operating limits of our components, parts and LAWYERS.

The only areas that might change is the powder. There continue to be claims of wonder powder but when tested, they are just variations on the same theme. If a company were to invent a completely new chemistry for combustion, maybe we can break the paradigm we are currently in... but it is a pretty darn good box.

Areas of true improvement... variable high mag scopes that stay together and do what they are supposed to. Or a realisation that some no frills designs actually work great. Barrel material that can last longer (no incentive to create).

My fave... how to drop the price of shooting by 50%... this would be the best improvement in our sport.

Oversized actions are now coming online in the US in a wide range of options and flavors. The Chey Tac revolution has taken hold and proper actions are being produced.

Chamber designs are limited by bolt face options and the standard options seem to do all that shooters truly want and need. the cost to manf an oddball size will happen if there is some new whiz bang option that shooters will spend money on.

I hear the new fad will be the first options.... should be an interesting SHOT show

Jerry

Jerry
 
time4t said:
The gun industry is also notorious for using the new and improved strategy to repackage what is essentially old time proven rounds. If one traces back the lineage of many calibers- the era of around 1880-1925 or so pretty much defined and established the foundation of what we see today. Sure there has been an improvement in powders, primers, bullets and metallurgy, but we as consumers are sucked into the mentailty of newer, faster more powerful and better. Wonder why the 7x57 is not as good as the 7mm-08 or 280? And how is it that the 30-06 or 300 h and h is not as good as the 300wsm? And the 375 is a popgun next to the 378? Hmm, game has not changed in the past 100 years, , but the mentality towards killing it has.
Click to expand...

Same as every other industry, and it's a good thing. If you use a firearm as a tool only, then don't buy, if you use it as a tool AND love tinkering around and trying new things, all the better. Lots burn out barrels, when they do they have an opportunity to try something new.........for fun.
 
I agree. Each new cartridge coming out is more or less only new in adaptation. Flip a few pages and you can find very similar designs. I believe today there are 2 main driving forces. Sales and adaptations. Obviously a brand new cartridge for a brand new rifle (224 Valkyrie) with a mega marketing scheme is going to bring big sales volume. What they have done is an adaptation. Previously there was no .223 cartridge that worked in an AR that could compete with the 6.5's. Now there is. Its an adaptation, and a neat one, but the only advancement is AR compatibility. In the world of custom bolt actions there are better performing cartridges for sure. So the AR guys get a sweet .223 LR cartridge to suit their needs. Not new performance, just higher performance for .223 AR's than previously available. Same goes for short action bolt guns. Lots of SA cartridges that push SA boltgun performance into oldschool LA territory. They still can't hold a candle to a boomer but for the SA guys with a specific rifle in mind (lighter weight, lower recoil, the best LR performance possible) the industry has gone leaps and bounds. PRS has benefited greatly from this shift. All of these cartridges are still adaptations. New, yes, but they only push boundaries in situations of inherent handicaps. Put a .260 rem up against a .338lm @ 1500 m and pure ballistic performance differences are obvious but ask a talented PRS shooter which rifle he would prefer for his matches. He'll take the lighter, faster handling SA. So to me, that's where the advancements have been in cartridge design. Adapting to applications a better performing cartridge within the confines of specific rifles. Now we have a .223 cal that fits in an AR mag, functions in an AR and can hang with a 6.5 Creed past 1000 yds. The other advancements are in components. Bullets have come leaps and bounds to push limits of every cartridge. Powders have come leaps and bounds providing excellent velocities, temp stability and great consistency. These advancements together have improved ballistic performance across the board and pushed limits a great distance. Literally. Nothing is really brand new, its just been adapted to areas where improvement was wanted.
 
I think this way as well: I'll read about the "new development" simply because I like to know, but there isn't much new under the sun the past eighty years.

Makes me want to have my own hunting store: New Camper's Hunting Emporium...

Customer - "Yes, I need the perfect rifle for hunting the mixed terrain we encounter in SE Ontario. Magnum, branch buster, bang flopper."
Me - "Certainly sir, I have this stack of Remington Seven actions and the gunsmith will chamber one in an ideal round for your needs... you may choose from the following reamers: 250-3000, 7mm-08Rem and 300Sav. If you'd like a multi-purpose big game rifle I have the following reamers available for whatever long action you like best: 257Roberts, 6.5x55, 270win, 7x57, 7x64Bren, 30-06, 8x57, 35Whel and 9.3x62. If you are a purist of sorts, I have combination and drillings in the following chambers: 12, 16 and 20gauge in standard length with rifle chamberings 7x57r, 7x65r, 30 Purdey and 8x57r."
Customer - "non of those are magnums."
Me - "You asked me to sell you the perfect rifle... placing the shot correctly will be entirely possible with this rifle, but the rest is up to you."

Customer - "I'm going on an African safari, I need the perfect rifle for dangerous game"
Me - "Certainly sir, I have bolt and double rifles chambered in 416Rigby and 375H&H respectively."

Customer -"I need a rifle for a Dalls Ram hunt"
Me - "Certainly sir, lightweight and far reaching: I have some stainless, composite rifles in 6.5x55, 270win and 7x64Bren."

:stirthepot2: :p reminded me of this: "No. nononono. You donta know what you want... Luigi know what you want.
 
Cartridge development could have come to a screaming halt in 1935, and but for a handful of exceptions, we wouldn't be any worse off today. I don't see this changing until there is a revolution in propellants, like the transition from black to smokeless powder.
 
I think if any new cartridges comes up and takes large market share, it won't be because it offers better performances or anything like it. It will come from a different manufacturing process, which will offer similar performance at a lower price. Anything that could cut time or price of large scale cartridges manufacturing would make a much stronger push than gaining an extra 0.01 BC.

It could be something like a liquid propellant (easier to measure, results in faster manufacturing), caseless ammos (imagine if factories could skip the price of brass, ammos would halve in price and reloaders would be SOL), or, in a distant future, smart ammos.

A lot of people are perfectly happy to be shooting 45LC or 38spl that date from 2 centuries.
 
manufacturing process, which will offer similar performance at a lower price
Click to expand...

never happen....those cost savings if it ever happened, would be passed on to the shareholders....not us poor schlubs!

Chris
 
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