Well, yes. The WSMs were introduced to sell more rifles and make more money. That's what corporations do. And that ain't necessarily bad. A healthy gun industry is good for us.

And your average bubba could get along fine with one 270, or 280, or 25/06, or 257Bob, or 308, or 7-08, or 7x57, or 30-30, or 243, or 6mm, etc. Etc. Etc.

At one point in time that could be said for nearly every round we talk about on here.

One could easily make the case that has been true since about 1963 or so. I use that date since the .300 Win.Mag debuted that year.

My son who is 16 has been shooting a Tikka T3 in 270wsm since he was 12, and that rifle is an elk killing machine. It has become the go to rifle for the house. He absolutely loves the rifle and the recoil is not unpleasant. I like the extra velocity you get, so it is worth it to us. Yes the ammo is more expensive, but he may shoot 10 rounds out of it in a year.

Weather permitting, I shoot 20-40 rounds a week out of my 270WSM, but they are reduced loads that are inexpensive to load, easy on the cases and barrel.

Federal case
Winchester magnum primer
Speer 100 grn HP - .015" off of the lands. No crimp.
25.5 grn AA5744
2040 fps

3/8" groups at 100 yards are typical with this load in my gun, a Winchester 1885 with barrel reduced to 24", 11 degree target crown.

7mm-08 or the .270 will fill that gap just fine. Or, go kinda old school and grab a 7x57 mauser or a 7.5x55 swiss. The 7x57 is a real killer for sure!

Could go back even further say in the 40s when Weatherby did most of his cartridges. The 30 Newton was around since 1913 a beltless case that holds about 2 grains less powder than the 300 Win Mag and the 300 H&H was around. Along with many others.

Yeah, that was kind of tongue-in-cheek since I happen to like the .300 Win Mag. Truth be told, by 1925 everything was pretty much covered with the 6.5x55, .270 Win., .300 H&H, .375 H&H, and several big bores in Africa.

Actually, since you mentioned it NP, I think everything needed for whitetails was out there as soon as the .30-30 caliber class cartridges (.30 Rem., .303 Savage, .32 Win., .35 Rem were developed). Blasphemy, I know, but the .30-06 and the cartridges derived from it are way more powerful than needed. Even the .30-40 and the .300 Savage have unnecessary power.

Sure. My point was we even had the modern "power" cartridges covered by then. Everything since has just been a little more speed/tweaking/gap filling.

It's eye opening to look at a date chart and see how early we had many of the great rounds still popular today. Conversely, I didn't know how relatively recently rounds like the .25-06, 7mm-08, and .416 Rem Mag came along.

Buy a "Cartridges of the World" and then you will know all this stuff.

Yup, have that among other sources.

OK I will get one.