Hi brandoneh297,
You are a salesmans dream
Well one day they might get your new fangled fat little cartridges to feed properly, but then again with folks like you around possibly not as you will buy it anyway just because it's new and they claim it's better. The quality of the guns your paying all that money for is not better than those of 20 or so years ago. In fact it's the other way around.
Accuracy has improved ....................... yes but that is due to better made bullets and not your new fangled salesman aimed products. Oh and the short fat cartridge is not even a new US idea ...................... sorry but the British .280 from the late 1940's beat them to it. It was due for adoption in the mid 1950's but that didn't suit the US who bribed NATO into adopting the 7.62x51 so they could adopt their stocks of 30-06 rifles to the new cartridge, only when this was tried it was found not to work very well and new barrels had to be fitted instead. And all this time the USA's idea was to push NATO into adopting the 5.56mm (AKA.223) and have the M16 as the std Nato weapon, only that didn't quite pan out either.
Enough of politics and history though
I have still not seen one single real advantage in the WSM cartridges, the supposedly advantage of the shorter bolt throw is all in the mind as is the stiffer action of a short action rifle. For if this one were true then the Ruger No1 would out perform every bolt action except possibly the Mauser 66 which has a telescopic bolt and so a very short action
Though not being that old nor that stuck in the dark Ages otherwise I would not be using this computer
I still find pleasure in shooting classic rifles, ones in which quality was the by-word, these classics were not designed to be throw away items which they would like us to have now. But quality craftsmen made precision weapons, built with care and pride. They also cost the purchasers much more in their day than the slipshod ones mass produced today cost you! Despite the craftsmen not having the aid of computer coltrolled machinery, they worked to such fine lmits that parts are interchangable in most makes, this certainly seems to be the case in Mauser, DWM, BSA, Husqvarna and Steyr with which I have had experience with.
Hunting with a rifle made 50-120 years ago is a joy and they are all nitro cartridges as well, in a Pattern 14 rifle for instance the old warrior the .303 British cartridge can be improved upon by using modern powders and as the P-14 was designed for a high pressure cartridge the .276 Enfield, velocity can be safely increased to make it even more efficient now than it was 114 years ago when it was first loaded with the early Cordite smokeless propellent. I know of one Fallow pricket who had a tough couple of seconds dealing with the 150 Grn Hornady Spire Point which I put into his chest from the BSA P-14 based sporting rifle at higher velocity than any reloading manual shows
This BSA was a fairly new one being made about 1952. Of course even at the normal (what would be slow velocity to you, seeing as how your are suffering from the dreaded Magnumitus) .303 velocity the deer would still have been dead, but I was having fun experimenting with loads and seeing just how this old warrior could perform once again in the field
I also know that this rifle will feed the next round, after all this rifle design and possibly this rifles action went through the bloodiest conflict, which of course was WW1. The Great War! failure during this time would have cost the soldier his life, your toys can never hope to have such a trial.
And toys they are that is unless you live by them and possibly die by them. My collection of toys give me imense pleasure as I hope yours do you
However as to the matter of the benifits of the WSM craze, sorry it's not for me, the only possible way I could see me using one would be in a falling block single shot rifle, but then again there are so many proven classics which can do the job, cost less and more easily available so ..............................?