It's the unimaginative era of shooting at present.
I could do without a bunch of the cartridges introduced in the past 20 years, trading the attention expended on them in favor of renewed attention on some truly dandy cartridges that no longer generate a proper amount of attention from today's shooters who don't know any better.
For rifles: .220 Swift, .250 Savage, .257 Roberts, 6.5X55, .270 Winchester, 7X57, .280 Remington, .300 Savage, .32-20, .38-55, .405 WCF. I'm even sensing that the grand old .30-06 is teetering off its perch in recent years in favor of a distinctly lesser though admittedly still effective round, the .308. All these are excellent, useful cartridges that well accomplish shooting chores. So much of what we have these days is nothing more than a reformed "bottle" containing the propellant charge, a "differently dimensioned" cartridge case that does nothing special and produces the same amount of cartridge performance as the oldies can and they were here first!
But, we must have short actions you see and it must be able to feed in a semi-automatic. And, we must have compact, short-barreled rifles. Standard weight, ballistics improving longer barrels are so yesterday.
For handguns: revolver cartridges generally are languishing. The traditional straight walled magnum revolver cartridges, the mighty triumvirate of yesteryear, the .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum, and .44 Magnum aren't nearly as popular with the masses as they were when I was young. For crying out loud, the .38 Special languishes these days except for application in sniveling snubs! The .32-20 is a uniquely appealing cartridge, offering good handgun performance and endless small game, plinking, and handloading entertainment as a rifle cartridge, even as an economical stand in for the .22 Long Rifle with the right loads. Instead, we reinvent the wheel with .32 H&R Magnum, and .327 Federal magnum.
In automatics, the .38 Super sputters into life for a few seasons of popularity on occasion, but has taken a back seat to the wretched 9mm Luger of late. We touted the .40 S&W to the high heavens for some years after its introduction then turned on it and denigrated it into the ground in recent times.
Handguns too, suffer from "less is more." Shooters gravitate to 9mm or even this sniveling .30-whatever-it-is and want handguns to be ever smaller, ever lighter than last year's models.
Handloading is less popular among the unwashed masses today, less accessible too with a dearth of components available, but then so is factory ammunition at present. Few want to study their chosen cartridge and experimentally load for it to maximize its use. They'd rather just buy guns chambered for the latest and greatest cartridge that claims some sort of unique performance benefit.
Then there's the problem of "all semi-automatic, all the time." For so many, if it's not semi-automatic, whether rifle or handgun, then it's not worthy of consideration. Gotta have lots'a bullets.
There's a whole 'nother world of good shooting to be had outside of plastic pistolas and AR 15s, the 9mm Luger and the .223.
Just a feeble morning bleat from an admitted fogy.
AND 30-06- If you went to dcm meets you could shoot 147 grain for free. You could buy a container 260 rounds fmj in clips for $50 and it set on the shelf. I bought some and didn't even have an 06.
