Yes, the Brits placed high value on "weight between the hands" while the Teutonic makers placed great weight on slimness above all with little regard for weight distribution and handling dynamics. Their respective formulas were fully evolved over a century ago, and are still in place today. Nobody who knows the market, then or now, would realistically want to argue that it wasn't the British formula that won the hearts and minds.

Neither an accurate nor a well informed comparison. Sure, you can find 10 lb .303s out there, but they're certainly not the rule. Westley has an old one for sale right now thats 9 lbs with the scope, so will be under 8 without.

The British .303s were the first full nitro doubles, and were being built at a time when almost no other smokeless rounds were being built in doubles. This was also a period (1887-1899) when a full appreciation for the strength of modern fluid steels was still evolving, so some were built heavier than needed. What isn't well known today is that a substantial majority of the .303 doubles still in circulation today are from that early period, because the manufacture of new .303 doubles slowed to a tiny trickle after the .303 was banned in India in 1899.