"I also figured that people "back in the day" ... didn't worry too much about the black powder vs smokeless debate."
Most probably never knew of any change and those who did were just darned happy that they didn't have to clean out that BP crud any more. The trouble is that they didn't know that it was the primers, not the powder residue, that caused rust and corrosion. So when they stopped cleaning out the powder fouling, they also stopped cleaning out the primer salts and that caused the guns to rust internally.
(It wasn't until the early 1930s that it was learned that the primer salts were causing the corrosion in gun barrels, and ammunition makers began serious work on non-corrosive primers. Even then, many non-corrosive formulas were not stable and would go dead quickly; that is why the Army stuck with corrosive primers through WWII, except for the carbine, which would have been rendered inoperable by corrosive primers.)
Jim
Most probably never knew of any change and those who did were just darned happy that they didn't have to clean out that BP crud any more. The trouble is that they didn't know that it was the primers, not the powder residue, that caused rust and corrosion. So when they stopped cleaning out the powder fouling, they also stopped cleaning out the primer salts and that caused the guns to rust internally.
(It wasn't until the early 1930s that it was learned that the primer salts were causing the corrosion in gun barrels, and ammunition makers began serious work on non-corrosive primers. Even then, many non-corrosive formulas were not stable and would go dead quickly; that is why the Army stuck with corrosive primers through WWII, except for the carbine, which would have been rendered inoperable by corrosive primers.)
Jim
