I had a really good rant going and poked the wrong button and lost it. Was going to just forget it, but read more recent posts, just can't.
The big game in the US was made practically extinct even before the introduction of smokeless powder, by the time the 30/30 came on the scene it was mostly gone. A very small percentage of the shooters today will ever fire at anything larger than a whitetail, if that. For the vast majority it will range from a B29 to a beer can. Almost all the development has been in bigger and bigger cartridges, like the Remington Ultra mags, the 375 Ruger etc. They have all the beauty and utility of nuts on a nun. They are strictly ego driven, by city people who spend a few days a year in the woods, go on guided hunts, donate the meat (what is left) to a homeless shelter, and then hang a 150-170-190 inch rack in their "man cave" because the wife would not be caught dead with one in the living room. Or they are coveted by youngsters who can show off their bruises from recoil and dream of someday earning enough to become one of the above mentioned and maybe go to Africa or Alaska.
By the time I was born there were 3 cartridges already available that were perfectly suited to handle any North American game, the 222 Remington, the 257 Roberts, and the 30-06 Gov't. Like everything else though, the "magnumization" of America had begun, bigger just had to be better. Cars, houses, .......waist lines
Those monsters are expensive to own, to feed, and to find a place to shoot. How far do you need to drive to really test a 300 RUM, where is the nearest 600 meter range? How often can you shoot it? At what cost per round? You need pretty good glass also, to see that far, have such minute adjustments, and still take the recoil. Bragging rights, maybe, utility..... near zero.
The little 7.62X39 is very practical, but I don't see one being made here today. The 32/20 is the same + off the charts on my nostalgia meter, they are not making that either. If H&R were making this (300AAC) it could be made for $259.95, not $425. Trying to run 8 gr of unique in a 30/30 case with a 93 gr cast also concerns me a bit. As long as everyone keeps slobbering all over the "ubermagnumloudenboomers" that is all we will get. Which one of you have the reverse reamer right now? You know, the one that shrinks chambers ? Allows me to rechamber my 280 to 7X30 Waters? My 243 to a 6X47MM ? My 25/06 to 25-20?
I just looked at my "vintage Deer Hunters Bible", written by a distant relative circa 1963, it had published ballistics date for several things. The 25/20 --- 60 gr factory loading, 2250 fps, mid range trajectory 6.2" at 200 yards. That, I can/ could shoot almost anywhere, at almost anything. Not noisy, no recoil, for pennies, any decent bargain scope would handle just fine, no need to go beyond 3X9. You have to go all the way up to Elk before something bigger is an absolute necessity.
The 300 is not the worlds greatest gun, but it does represent one thing, a deviation, if for even a moment, in a direction other than the chamber stretching, pressure spiking, ego assuaging, testosterone driven urge to be slammed backward so you can tell others how great it was.
Best venison steak I ever ate came via a 22 magnum.
