@Sharpie
I covered all this a while back. There’s absolutely zero debate, and you have nothing to doubt. The originator of the cartridge - Warren Page, editor of Field & Stream, champion benchrester and hunter - wrote a book “The Accurate Rifle”. In it he details with absolute clarity how the .243 Winchester evolved, how he pitched it and what Winchester did with it. (And where Remington went wrong.) I posted photos of the relevant sections, and also found some of the original ammunition made at the time of the rifle's launch, in 100gr and 80gr, complete with and categories of game the ammunition was intended for.
There’s another book too from about 1960, the name of which has completely escaped me. That too demonstrates how Winchester basically pinched Page’s ideas. But critically it also shows clearly how Winchester promoted the cartridge as a deer rifle first (whitetail), a varmint rifle second, which was the other way round to Remington’s 6mm. I’ll see if I can find it.
There really is no substitute for research!
I thought it was you that was egging me on at the time, but maybe it was
@25 Sharps? Do a search on here for "Warren Page" under my name, you will find it all in glorious technicolor.
Bottom line is that internet forums and a great many magazines are full of misinformation, blatant errors, poor (or no) research and general ignorance. That's not a dig at you, but when guys write long posts with views that are just flat out wrong, those members that know different should speak up to correct them. How else will we ever learn? This is a
major problems with forums. And as I have also posted in the past, a whole bunch of the world's supposed authorities writing in magazines haven't got a friggin' clue what they're talking about.