Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What's Wrong with Belts?

I read posts that praise such-and-such a cartridge because it's not belted and therefore is said to feed better. Well, I've done all my hunting (big game) with three different belted cartridges during the last 10 years and never--not ever--had a feeding problem. What's wrong with having a belt?

My beef with belted cartridges isn't feeding or the belt itself. What I don't like is the overly large amount of clearance between the case and chamber shoulders with as supplied brass and typical factory chambers.

Nothing. Total transparency in my view.

I've never had a problem with belts. But I don't see any reason for them on a bottle neck cartridge.

What was the original purpose? Little shoulders on the H&H? Was that the first belted case?

The "bad feeding" issue is a typical nit-picky rifle loony myth. Anybody who claims it's a problem is just showing off their own prejudices and inexperience.

Yeah, some factory rifles for belted rounds have slightly oversize chambers. Back in the beginning of belted cases this was considered a virtue, because it allowed for a little dust or rust in the chambers of a .375 H&H, which often happened in the places British gentlemen hunted. Today, however, everything has to fit just so.

Personally, I've owned a pile of belted-magnum factory rifles and never found one with a chamber so huge that I couldn't reload fired cases easily. Sometimes a full-length die needs to be adjusted a little, to just bump the case shoulder, but have never experienced a real problem.

I am not smart enough to know.

The 9.3x62's claim-to-fame, is that it is not belted.

The .300WBY's claim-to-fame, is that it will accept the .300H&H and the .300Win, due to the belt.

Go figure.

Just a marketing gimmick like many others. However it does proclaim to the world that you are a rootin tootin long range shooting expert marksman sob. IMHO of course. Lol PH

I've only loaded for eight I can think of real quick, and I didn't have a reloading problem. Like other cartridges, I just shoulder bump them a bit. I just don't like how much the brass had to move on the first go.

The belt was added initially, to headspace on, and belted cartridges still supposed to be headspaced on the belt. I would presume with the extreme taper of the 300H&H, and less so the 375, it helped. The extreme taper on the 300 case to help it be extracted as didn't have to move much to come lose. Never heard the 300wby fame was that it would "accept" 300Win mag cases, but since it's formed , initially, from a 300 H&H, should accept that one.

.300WBY info from safariman.

They are added theoretical complexities for certain applications like full auto military use and for pure accuracy buffs - but they don't hurt a thing for hunters. Run a few rounds through an Echols rifle if you think they don't feed as well as any other case, or shoot a Borden, Miller or Jarrett and let me know how inaccurate they are.

someone beat me to the send button. I had it written but got a phone call.

I could be wrong on this. But I didn't think it was a marketing gimmick. If I understood it correctly, the belted case became more accepted with the H&H cartridges that had very slight shoulder angles. I think there were guys swaging belts on cases before that but not sure of that. But with the H&H, something was needed to resist the cartridge from being "pushed" too far into the chamber and resulting in excessive head space. So, they invented the belt to keep the cartridge rimless. All of the cartridges that were developed from the H&H cases just maintained the rim since it was the status-quo.

The 375 veloplex is the first commercial belted case I know of. It was developed around 1910 by H&H and was a miserable failure. Only marginally more powerful than the 9.5's already on the market. It begat the 375 H&H in 1912 one of the greatest cartridges ever.

I thought another of the theories behind the belt was so single and double rifles made for rimmed cartridges could be adapted with minor extractor modifications. Might be more gun loony legend though.

Nothing wrong with having a belt but it truly is unnecessary with the the majority of cartridges that have them. If you reload for one make sure to headspace on the shoulder and not the belt unless you are running one of the original H&H cartridges. I believe the original intent with the design was a single cartridge design that would work in both the companies bolt action and double rifles.

No prob at all w/ belted cartridges, however i do headspace off the neck on the next loading.

Gunner

Nothing other than some Brands of Brass of the same cartridge have different thickness of the belt and some chamber reamer are ground different sizes and head-spacing off the belt and full length re-sizing the case can cause premature case separation , so size your brass to head-space off the shoulder and eliminate this case separation. If you shoot only factory ammo you will never know this problem ever existed.

The slickest feeding rifle I've owned was a Pre 64 Mod70 300H&H couldn't tell the differance working the bolt loaded or empty without looking (or shooting). --- Mel

The only real disadvantage i could find is they take up a little bit of magazine spcae - but not enough to fit another round in the magazine. I 'spose i think it looks a little bit silly, but i don't tend to choose cartridges on aesthetics.

The only thing that's "wrong" with belts is they're unnecessary on most cartridges. They're part of the historical landscape, and as a result many are loathe to let them go.

When I load for most belted mags I just headspace off the shoulder rather than the belt.

No big deal...

Not "feed better" � head-space better.

When Iver Henriksen and I were planning my .358 Norma Magnum (1960s), he asked me whose brass I wanted it head-spaced for. Then, from him, I learned that magnum belts weren't uniform (maker-to-maker) in length.

At home, I lined-up belted rounds from several makers on a glass plate and could see that what Iver had told me was true. By naked eye, I could see that some makers' belts were significantly wider (back-to-front) than others.

So I had 'im cut my chamber to accommodate the widest belts, and ever since have sized my magnum brass (with one exception) to head-space on the shoulder. My Henriksen custom .458 Winchester Magnum � now thumping a Campfire compadre's shoulder � was the only rifle that I've ever head-spaced on the belt.

Holland & Holland introduced the belt to provide a dependable head-space stop for their snake-shouldered Cordite wonder, the .300 H&H Magnum.