Tinker, give us a reading list!

I think you and I are looking at the same mountain peak from different valleys.

I agree there was a great amount of engineering that went into the cartridge designs of the late 19th Century. BRILLIANT engineering. I mean, a fellow today whips up a wildcat and thinks he's walking in the dim forest, but those fellows back then WERE walking in the dim forest, with pressures unheard of with black powder, true unknowns to protect themselves against, brass that failed, barrels that gave way, actions that let gas go all over town, etc, etc, etc. Paul Mauser himself lost an eye in that "dim forest"...

But my perspective is that the superb balance of bullet caliber/weight and velocity that grew out of the Ordnance Departments and gun trade of the late 19th had a multitude of other causes than engineering skill, maybe more important causes in some ways; the very limitations of material and technology then available. Powders were by today's standards poor, brass "iffy" and steel alloys and heat treatment technology barely keeping pace with internal ballistics. What grew out of the research was as much "luck" in that sense as it was the result of purposeful design.

For example, the 154-160 6.5, the 220 .308 and 215 .303 combinations at 2100-2400 fps have served to set the standard for deep penetration with light recoil and handy rifles. The .450-.470 class guns shooting 480-500 grain bullets at 2100 or so set the standard for taking big'uns without coldcocking the shooter. Why? Well, partly...largely...because those possibles were what they could get out of the guns and components.

Ordnance of the first quarter of the 20th Century, ditto.

For example, I just read Labbett and Mead's research on the British .256 and .276 cartridge designs and it is clear that they actually sought higher velocities and "performance" than what was actually possible with the components {bullet designs & material and powders} of the day. Fascinating, because they wound up with a cartridge of very modern design anyway! Before that I read Hatcher's work on US .276 cartridge projects, and...ditto! Cartridge's of very modern military design, made such due to the limitations that existed at the day!

Fascinating!

And so it goes with the big bores, too.

So we today churn out this or that "new" cartridge for heavy game, and those who use them on big stuff continue to marvel at the ones whooped up in the dark corners of the sooty shops of Old Blighty a hundred years ago! And THOSE were totally limited not only by the cartridge components but by the "weak" double guns shooting them.

Who coulda known that what a double of 1899 could contain would be "just right" for pachyderm shooting?