Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns why do new handgun calibers so often fail?

There is no new cartridge that has come out, or can reasonably be conceived, that is better for the purposes that handguns are normally used than what is already available.

Firearms are a mature technology. Improvements are only possible around the edges. Dramatic improvements are simply not possible until somebody invents a phazer, just like on Star Trek.

Firearms do not wear out under decades of normal use. A gun made 100 years ago is still useful, in many cases just as useful as one made yesterday. Gunmakers keep bringing out new rifle and handgun cartridges because they need to sell new guns to stay in business. However, none of the new ones can really justify their existence based on usefulness. An older cartridge, if it was tweaked properly, could do the same job.

So nearly every new cartridge is, ultimately, a failure in the commercial market. The 6.5 Creedmor is an exception, but there are several much older 6.5 and 7mm cartridges that could do the very same job if loaded similarly in an appropriately twisted rifle.

The old stuff does the job, so in order to sell more guns, the new stuff has to be sexier and more stylish. Most of the time, it flops.