The big advantage the .284 gave the shooter/hand-loader was that it literally DUPLICATED the longer-bolt-throw .280 Remington cartridge's ballistics in the "shorter, fatter" .284 cartridge which could be chambered in shorter-action rifles like the Model99 Savage rifle.
This gave the shorter action rifle owner/user the same ballistic capabilities as the longer action rifle owner/user had... the very premise which spawned the popularity of the so-called "short, fat cartridges" like the .308 Winchester, et.al. and all the short, fat magnum cartridges that came out later.
But the .284 Winchester was NOT the original "short, fat" cartridge, the .300 Savage cartridge, introduced in 1920, did the same thing by duplicating the then-.30/06 ballistics in a shorter cartridge used in a shorter action rifle like the Model 99 Savage.
While it is true that the .300 Savage never got the notoriety that the .308 Winchester and, later, all the other "short, fat" cartridges received when they were introduced, one must realize that in it's day, the .300 Savage was a highly-regarded and oft-used cartridge for all manner of big game hunting short of the big bears... and regularly took very large, non-dangerous game like elk, caribou and moose with boring regularity.
While the .300 Savage cartridge has lost most of it's "glammor", those wise, older hunters "in-the-know" still cling to the almost century old cartridge because they know it to be "
THE" perfect white-tail and black bear cartridge in the eastern woods.
Strength & Honor...
Ron T.
