Add to that there is NO BELT. Belts on cartridges are only there because the designers of the cartridge were to dang lazy to design a case with out them.They serve no purpose in a modern bottle necked designed cartridge such as the Win mags and Rem. mags. With cartridges such as the H&H designs that had long shoulders specifically designed for reliable feeding for hunting dangerous game and straight wall cartridges the belt is needed for proper headspace.

A cartridge that headspaces on the shoulder, such as the WSM, is inherantly more accurate than one that headspaces on the rim of the belt, such as the Win mag. This is because the more distance you put between the base of the cartridge and the point at which the cartridge headspaces the more stable it is when siting inside the chamber and the less it moves around when the firing pin strikes the primer, the powder begins to ignite, and the bullet begins to leave the case.

The WSM will also kick slightly less than it's larger cousin. This is because the weight of the powder also plays a roll in recoil. The more powder in a case the more that powder weighs and the more recoil you get. Same as adding bullet weight.

Shorter and fatter cases are inherantly more accurate than longer skinnier cases. This is because more powder is ignited by the primer and burns more efficiently. Do a little research on long range bench rest shooting and you will see that the majority or shooters will be shooting a short and fat cartridge of some kind. The world record in 1000 yard bench rest competition was recently set using a 6mm BR cartridge. The group measured just 4.2278 inches.

A short action rifle is inherantly more accurate than a longer action. It is more rigid than a longer action thus flexing less when firing and under recoil.


So you see, it's not all about ballistics alone.