I am sitting here and considering my world snippet.
I chose 1899 for the campaign year.
It's not inconceivable, what with travel times, that the troop will return from a mission to be ordered to turn in the Krags and be issued M1903's.
It's already an alternate history with magic...
The .30 caliber M1903 was notably behind the times when it was developed. The design process, greatly oversimplified, was essentially "make .30-40 rimless and up the velocity".
But .30-03 was a very heavy round and it wasn't going fast enough to keep the ballistics from getting a tad "rainbow-like".
What if... Jeebus, how much fiction starts with this thought?
What if someone at Springfield National Armory said, "Guys, we're already raping Mauser's patents with our rifle..." and chose the round they were in such great admiration of?
Caliber .28 M1903, known in the rest of the world as 7x57mm Mauser.
I like the taste of it.
7x57mm would become "America's" cartridge. Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, because of Spain, had already adopted it.
Then the same case would be just fine with spitzer rounds in 1906 and 28-06 becomes a thing!
I'm in!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Plus! In 1932, the Garand gets a 10-round capacity!
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Or they decide that the 6mm Lee Navy cartridge is the way to go, and beat everyone in the mad rush to smaller diameters. After all, we already had a machine gun chambered for the 6mm Lee Navy. And designed by JMB and his brother! And with the 6mm Lee Navy standardized, the Colt M1895 could have managed to be upgraded and survived as America's MG! Or not.
ReplyDeleteEither way, Pederson will have his own cartridge cut out from underneath him before he can even dream it up. Muhahahahaha.
The potato digger got combat tested in 7x57 at Kettle Hill.
Delete6mm Lee had a raft of issues that were never satisfactorily solved, chief of which was eating the leade of the chamber. It was also very expensive to produce and the Navy had already decided to ditch it by the time the campaign starts.