Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Who knows the real history of the short action magnum?

One can argue that almost everything since the 7x57 is simply a modification of one or more of that round's characteristics. And it'd be a tough argument to counter.

Frankly, who did what first is less important than what the result can accomplish. What a given design achieves compared to what its designer (and/or its namer) had in mind is all that I consider when I look at a cartridge. These days, "magnum" is pretty much a useless advertising suffix appended to almost anything, justified or not. Witness the dinky little .256 Win Mag. It's short, and it is fatter than at least one other .25-cal equivalent round. It also has a very narrow "belt" known as a rim. But MAGNUM? uhhhh, no.

Butch, that applies to your odd little creations, IMO. I can't imagine what those rounds are intended to accomplish other than serve as conversation pieces, but the amount of case work necessary to form them makes my fingers hurt just thinking about it. I'll pass on those, thanks.

Damn RR,
What a huge letdown for me! Yes, it takes about 5 minutes to form the cases and trim to length for fireforming.
Just an exercise using my case forming dies.
Butch

It seems today that Magnum means about anything the cartridge designer/manufacturer wants it to mean.

Look at "Magnum" shot for shotgun shells. The word magnum would lead some people to believe that a Magnum 7 1/2 is larger than a normal 7 1/2, but the Magnum only refers to an additional amount of antimony added to the lead during shot manufacture, to make the shot harder.

I find it odd that the cartridge that started the magnum craze in 1912 was not called a magnum. It was called the .375 Belted Rimless Nitro Express.

In my opinion, the word "magnum" should be expunged. I like the .375 BCEI instead. (BCEI means Best Cartridge Ever Invented).

Here are some other more descriptive name suggestions:

.378 Weatherby = .375 Kicksalot

.375 RUM = .375 Useless

.370 Sako = .370 Useless Invention

.375 Ruger = .375 Itstheriflestupid

.25 WSSM = .25 Obsolete

Couldn't disagree more...

Short Magnum? You mean like a 7 RM, .264, .458 and .300 Win. Mags.?

The ones formed from the Jeffrey, .348 Winchester, and Westly Richards the ones that Rick Jameson invented fifty years after the fact should be called the fuglies.

I am starting to like the .270 fugly. But worry that it is because I am starting to resemble it more and more in shape as the years go by. Pointy head and expanding midriff.

The 17-458 looks to have several angles to the shoulder, I assume that hasn't been fireformed as shown?

Impressive on the 44 based case that the nickel seems to still be adhered to the brass and no stress lines seen.


Do you really have guns chambered for the 3 shown?

Allen

Photoshop?

More likely machine shop

MD, I know all that gack. Sorry I encouraged you to do all that typing. Thought you would come up with something clever rather than pedantic. I'm outta this.

I second that.

I'd like to see that. I love radiused shoulders.

Originally, the lovely little 300 Savage almost matched the velocity of the then-standard .30-06 load with a 150-grain bullet. The ought six soon was pushed well beyond its first specs, however. If you only compare today's numbers, the 300 isn't as close. Back when, they were.

But even then, the claims for the 300 were mostly to sell the Model 99 rifle. One might make the same observations about advertising exaggeration with regard to the 308, the 284, and several recent introductions: they almost match bigger and highly popular cartridges.

And the 300 Savage offered a 30 caliber cartridge in an excellent lever gun, with a definite step up in power from the million Model 94's out there at the time.. My grandfather considered it his ".30-30 Magnum".

MD-
A tiny nit to pick: The 6.7x60 Eichhorn Gamlakarleby Magnum is built on a 30-06 case. A belt is swaged onto the case, which may put it at the fringe of your category.

The cartridge is listed in Vol II of the Ackley handbooks. Eichhorn described the cartridge originally in the July 1964 issue of Gun World, p.34.

--Bob

To the ones that replied to my pictures. Up until a month ago I sold case forming dies. www.shadetreeea.com These were just to show what you could do with the dies. You could form a cartridge as short as .750 long and as small as 14 cal. They were not fireformed or photoshopped. I don't even know how to do that.
Butch

Didn`t C.I.L. have a line of short magnums back in the late 60`s early 70`s? I seem to recall seeing ads in the various gun rags advertizing them.
then again I seem to recall lots of things....

It was also offered in "short action" bolt rifles, and I think the guns as well were part of the idea.

The only time I've ever heard of the .284 Winchester being referred to as a Magnum was in the Hodgdon's Reloading Data Manual #19 but in #20 it was just .284 Winchester.