Living in a parallel universe

I’ve been blowing the cobwebs off of my firearms’ related material in preparation of resuming work on Real Guns, but it’s been tough going. The general absence of mental acuity, combined with a diminished span of attention, cause my thoughts to wander between wondering when the NY Giants will aspire to be a professional football team, and wondering what the heck Remington was thinking about when it introduced the Short Action Ultra Mag, or as Remington boxes for these cartridges are labeled, Remington Short Mag

The SAUM, or RSM (pronounced “Copy of Winchester WSM” regardless the labeling), seems to fits in well for the enthusiast who wants the sense of buying what is being promoted as an exceptional North American big game rifle, but is willing to accept they will not own such a rifle at the conclusion of the transaction. Yes, I know there are lots of real writers out there, charging the hill with the Remington Banner waving proudly over their advertising revenue, but as long as I have access to at least one basic high school physics text book, all facts are on my side, pointing to an incredible mediocre series of cartridges. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen credible load data that illustrates the long case Ultra Mag series offers a real world performance gain over the more mature magnum cartridges Remington targeted to replace.

Rick Jamison’s did a piece in the October 2001 issue of Shooting Times, “Handloading the King of 7mm Commercial Cartridges” which reports a very substantial velocity gain for the full size 7mm Ultra Mag over other traditional 7 mm magnums, unfortunately, only when shot through a 32″ test barrel. The same load, when pushed through a 24″ barrel, lost 500 fps and barely matching the performance of the old 7mm Weatherby Magnum. Guns & Ammo reports the 160 grain Partition load for the 7mm Short Mag has a muzzle velocity of 2,960. That would be only 50 fps slower than my 20+ year old M700 BDL 7mm Remington Mag. Not exactly a performance beacon in the night, or enough to stop me from watching bass fishing TV shows long enough to head on down to my nearest Remington dealer. The Remington pitch here is that this cartridge makes a great package when wrapped up in a  little Model 7 with a 22 inch barrel, I assume to serve a dual purpose; the round can easily bring down a deer, and that flaming muzzle blast should concurrently be able to cook it.

The contents of the prior paragraph illustrate the problem with all of these recently released cartridges. The long, larger capacity versions require longer than practical hunting rifle length barrels to make use of their only asset, increased powder capacity. The shorter versions of these cartridges may be suitable for short actions, still their capacity dictates a barrel length consistent with the older .375 H&H based short magnum cartridges, canceling out the length benefit of a short action.

The real problem is that the industry has hit a dead end and, in the absence of meaningful technological advancements, appears to be stuck in a loop of reintroducing that same old types of products. None of these cartridges: .260 Remington, .300 WSM, Short and Long Ultra Mags, 450 Marlin, .376 Steyr, and .480 Ruger, represent anything in the way of meaningful performance gains over mature preexisting cartridges. A significant improvement is going to be difficult, as there are only a couple of areas that can be addressed; primarily increased pressure or reduced friction. Slower powder won’t solve the problem, but perhaps there are some more exotic burn rate or pressure curves that might work. The trick is to be able to overcome bullet inertia without dangerous pressures, while still having considerable amounts of powder that will burn fast enough to be consumed completely within a reasonable length barrel.

Advancements in metallurgy might give us a small ring Mauser size action that will withstand 300,000 PSI, and allow us to fill up our .308 cases with Bullseye and get 4,000 fps out of a 180 grain bullet. Maybe we’ll come across and ultra slick steel or bullet material that will cut friction drastically while not diminishing accuracy, and still retaining high sectional density. If no improvements come along, Weatherby’s introduction of the .338-06, and reintroduction of the .375 Weatherby Magnum, will begin to make a lot of sense.

Thanks
Joe

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