The classic magnums - will they see a renaissance?

[MTTW]

Teats on a boar.

I believe that someone will find a way to market a belted case again. Probably someone in bell bottom pants wearing aviator sunglasses will win a match with a new belted wizzbang cartridge with a cool name and the marketers will be all over it.

If I was wrong, we all would be shooting 30-06 derivatives and liking them.

 

[squirrel_hunter]

I'm recovering from surgery and thus spending a lot more time browsing the information superhighway to keep sane.

It's interesting to see how many 7mm Rem Mag and 300 Win Mag rifles are on the used market. Some combination of the aging hunters for whom those cartridges were the "go to" and hunters trending more to smaller cartridges (witness the 223 threat here recently) I suspect.

It will be interesting to see if this is simply a trend and the pendulum swings back to the classic magnums over time. Or if laser rangefinders, dialled turrets, better bullets, etc. have permanently knocked these classic magnums down the pecking order of chosen cartridges in favour of more "friendly" options from a weight, recoil, and muzzle blast perspective.

Silver lining is that those who want to shoot the magnum boomers will have plenty of used options and available ammunition!

Same here . I had rotator cuff surgery. 4 or 5 days ago. It was tore in 4 places. 1 of the tears was tore into. When the Dr why fixing that issue. He fount another issue. He had to reattach my bicep too.

 

[MTLabrador]

I think it's actually worse than that.

Engine designs that needed a carburetor needed a carburetor.

Essentially, the only "magnum" cases that needed a belt were the original H&H's that had very little shoulder.

The useless belt on "magnum" cases was there because of marketing. Due to the wildcatting craze off the H&H's, Joe Average thought a magnum had to have a belt and the ammo makers were happy to oblige this fantasy. Of course there were some, like Charles Newton, that knew better.

We finally have magnums that make sense yet there are those of my generation (baby boom) who cry like little girls if anyone points out the idiocy of the belted cases we grew up with.

As a handloader, I'd always choose a 7 PRC over a 7RM. Of course, I'd sooner use a 6.5 CM or 270 Win over either those lol.

So "no" - since the only generation that pines in their beer over belts are boomers, they will almost certainly, slowly, die out.

I like my .300 win mag on a nostalgic level, but I really can’t find a reason not to just use my .308 or .270 for everything instead. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a difference on an elk between those and a .300. Actually, my favorite .308 load of a 165 ballistic tip does a whole lot more damage than the TTSXs I used to shoot in the .300, with 30 grains less powder and a lot less recoil.