Hi
I would like to say that the preceived quality and velocity of old ammo may well be a myth.
First, chronos were very expensive, so figuring bullet speed in factory loads was not easy. Sure, you had what they said, but...
I bought a 44 special, charter arms bulldog, and, some 44 special remmington 250 grain lead bullet loads. 20 bucks for 20 rounds, at a time when that would get you three prime rib dinners.
That ammo recoiled like crazy, created a huge blast, and fireball, but, the bullet was going so slow that from the side you could SEE it go down range. It was also the most worthless, inaccurate stuff ever. Starting at 15 yards, then 15, NO HITS on a man size target. Finally at 7 yards, it looked like a really bad shotgun pattern. My friend had the same problem.
I went to the gunshop, bought some 240 grain Hornady HP's, and loaded some mimimum 44 magnum loads(HS-6?), and went to the range again.
Same range, all head shots. FAR less recoil, less blast, and far greater accuracy. Shot that gun to death with that load.
My point here is in the day, the factories could get away with using cheap powders, that had tons of blast, noise, and recoil, and terrible ballistics, but, since we couldn't really test velocity, we didn't know they were screwing us, or, we couldn't prove it...
The irony is the commercial market doesn't exactly get first pick on powder quality, so, what Remmington was using must have been REALLY bad...
S