Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Max load development

Chronos have been around in various forms since the 1700s, but the early ones were clumsy, large, and not very accurate. Not something that your average person would have in the barn back then.

There were other considerations for early 20th century wildcatters as well. Fewer powders were available, and that meant bigger gaps in the burn rates of powders. Depending on the cartridge, that would have limited performance. Bullets could be a problem too.

You needed someone like a gunsmith with the equipment to reshape cases, make bullets and ream chambers for new designs. Today, it would be less of a chore. Many companies offer custom dies, chambers and rifles. It was more of a DIY process back then.

I doubt there would have been fewer wildcatters. The mindset was (and still is) to tinker with various powders, case modifications and bullets, in a search for more fps, longer case life, or more accuracy. Ellwood liked taking surplus arms and making something better from them. He was constantly tinkering with cartridges and rifles. I suspect that if P14s were made in the same numbers as Lee Enfields, he would have reworked as many as he could.

Wildcatting was much of the reason we have so many factory cartridges today. Someone had to start the ball rolling.

Amended to add: The 1930s and 1940s would have been such an interesting time in which to live. More single shot rifles - Remingtons and Winchesters on which to build. They would have been cheap. The world's armies had switched to bolt actions. Of course, there would have been fewer nosy parkers wondering what you were doing. No citiots demanding that you hand over your guns.