Belted Magnums (and why I welcome their eventual demise)

Time for an opinionated rant...

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Pictured above are the .375 Ruger on the left and the .375 H&H on the right.  The .375 H&H was introduced in 1912 by Holland & Holland and was one of the first commercial cartridges to utilize the belted case design (the first was the .375 Holland-Schoenauer in 1907).  The .375 Ruger was introduced in 2007 and is very representative of "modern" cartridge design.  By this I mean it's shorter, fatter, has minimal body taper, and a sharp shoulder angle.  Because of the case dimensions, the Ruger has an approximately 8% larger case capacity than the H&H despite the shorter length (this also generally means it outperforms the H&H in terms of muzzle velocity and energy).

So why did belts exist to begin with?
The original reason the belt was made was for magazine rifle cartridges that were generously tapered and  didn't have a sharp enough shoulder angle to headspace on when chambered.  That's it.  The belt is there because cartridges like the .375 H&H needed a place to headspace and a full rim was a hindrance to feeding in magazine rifles.

And why were these cartridges tapered as much as they were?
This design seemed to be fairly commonplace among British cartridges introduced about a century ago, and came to be because of experiences had mostly in Africa.  What was discovered was that tapered cartridges rarely had failures to extract, even in the chamber pressure-enhancing African heat.  Their old military round, the .303 British, follows the same basic design (though it is rimmed, not belted) and saw plenty of use in Africa.  One very notable exception to this is the .416 Rigby (pictured below next to a .30-06 for size comparison), introduced in 1911, which has no belt, a very "modern" lack of body taper, plus a sharp shoulder angle:

OK, then why did belted cartridges become popular?
One word: marketing.  Because of the break-out popularity of the .375 H&H and eventually the .300 H&H in America, a perception was created that a belt equated to magnum power (there was even the misconception that it made the case stronger and better able to handle high pressures).  A whole mess of belted magnums designed by domestic manufacturers flooded the market.  First proprietary, and now more widespread, were the Weatherby cartridges starting with the .270 Weatherby Magnum designed in 1943 and based on the .300 H&H case.  This was closely followed by most of the other well-known Weatherby cartridges, such as the .257, .300, .375, .416, .460, etc.  Also eventually jumping on the bandwagon were Winchester and Remington with their own lines of belted magnums such as the .458, .338, .264, and .300 Winchester Magnums and the 7mm, 6.5mm, .350, 8mm, and .416 Remington Magnums.  Even more recently and after more "modern" designs have been getting more and more popular, belted cartridges such as the .450 Marlin (introduced in 2000) and belted magnum handgun cartridge (ridiculous!) the .500 Wyoming Express (introduced in 2005) have come to be.  The interesting part about nearly all of these belted magnum offspring is that they had absolutely no need for a belt.  Nearly all of them have a shoulder that can be used for headspacing or might be better suited with a rim rather than a belt (ahem, Marlin and Wyoming Express).  Had the .404 Jeffery (or another large, unbelted cartridge) been as popular as the .375 H&H was in the early 20th century, cartridge history may have been very different.

So other than the belt being largely superficial, why do I dislike belted magnums?
Well, that comes down to handloading.  Since belted magnums headspace on the belt instead of the shoulder, the brass has a greater tendency to flow forward and requires more frequent trimming.  This is also the reason that the "stronger" case perception is mythical: when the brass flows forward it has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is more often than not immediately in front of the belt.  Case splitting in front of the belt is all too likely after only a few loadings.  Another issue is that the belt limits the travel of a full-length resizing die, so you may get bulged brass that may fail to chamber or fail to eject (isn't that what the H&H cartridges were supposed to avoid by being tapered and thus requiring the belt to begin with?).  Since so many of these cartridges are used for dangerous game hunting, that is a huge problem.  The way I see it, you're left with three options:

1. Don't load your own ammo, just buy factory loads.
2. Buy a special collet resizing die.
3. Don't use belted magnums.

Since I was born in only the last few decades, option 3 is really the best for me (it's also the cheapest!).  Starting in the late 80s and early 90s with Dakota Arms and Lazzeroni leading the pack, the trend in magnum cartridges has been to go beltless.  Following closely behind was Remington with their Ultra Magnums (based on the .404 Jeffery case, like the proprietary Dakota cartridges)and Short Action Ultra Magnums; Winchester with their Short Magnums; and more recently Ruger's .375, .416, and Compact Magnums.  Many of these utilize lessons learned over the years, ditching the belt with some simultaneously moving toward what benchrest shooters call a "square" charge.

Long story short: we're finally staggering out of our foolish belted magnum daze after a century.  About damn time if you ask me.