[Scorch]

The 5,000 fps mark was like the Holy Grail back in the 1950s, trying to develop the super-round without computers was mostly trial and error. So you picked bigger and bigger cases, stuffed them full of powder with lightweight bullets, and pulled the trigger. Not surprisingly, they found out what we take for granted, that there is only so much powder you can burn in a rifle barrel, and the smaller the bore, the less powder you can burn. They also discovered propagation rates, burn rate limitations, gas flame temperatures, shock wave speed, and many other nifty things not generally discussed outside of engineering circles. People experimented with cartridge shape, cartridge length, shoulder angles and shapes, flash hole size, primer flame duration, you name it. We got such wonders as the 22 Newton, 25 Newton, 22 Savage Hi-Power, 22 Swift, the ridiculous 22 Eargesplittenloudenboomer, 6mm Thermos Bottle, the Weatherby rounds with "double venturi" shoulders, Ackley Improved, RCBS Improved, and Huntington Improved cartridges, etc. Everybody had an idea about what worked and why. Whenever someone would declare affirmatively that you needed such-and-such to achieve the 5,000 fps mark, someone would come along with a wildcat round and prove them wrong. The tail end of it that I saw was really quite entertaining as a spectator sport. When computers and CAD became available, scientists started scientifically designing cartridges, and we started to see the little giant slayers like the 222, 243/6mm, and then the PPC and BR rounds, which were so much more efficient that they achieved amazing velocities with so little powder that people had to wonder why they had been chasing the bigger cases in the first place. We have now approached the capability limits of propellants and bullets, and the next generation of ammunition will be substantially different from what we use now. Maybe sabot rounds with tricyclic propellants (plastic explosives to us non-technical types)?